g through Asia, awoke
everywhere a belief that the power of Athens was broken, and that her
hostility need no longer be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that
under the altered circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of
Callias as a dead letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia
and Bithynia that they were once more to demand and collect the tribute
of the Greek cities within their provinces. The satraps began to
speculate on the advantages which they might derive from alliance with
the enemies of Athens, and looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet
appear off the coast of Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with
each other in the tempting offers which they made to Sparta, and it was
not long before a formal treaty was concluded between that state
and Persia, by which the two powers bound themselves to carry on war
conjointly against Athens.

Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another
Thebes yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the
Persian armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very
rank and file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as
Persian. Acting on the maxim, _Divide et impera_, Persia prolonged for
eighty years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of
the mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.

It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the
Court of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well
carried out by the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power
between Athens and Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a
preponderance, to help each in turn, and encourage each to waste the
other's strength, but to draw back whenever the moment came for striking
a decisive blow against either side. This policy skilfully pursued
by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require
an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily
by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere