cal system portrayed in the Homeric poems was displaced in the
Greek cities by an oligarchical government, which in turn was overthrown
by an irregular despotism called _tyrannis_, primarily established by a
professed popular leader, who maintained his supremacy by mercenary
troops. One after another these usurping dynasties were again ejected in
favour either of a restored oligarchy or of a democracy. Sparta, where
the power of the dual kingship was extremely limited, was the only state
where the legitimate kingship survived. Corinth attained her highest
power Under the despot Periander, son of Cypselus. Of the Ionian section
of Greek states, the supreme type is Athens. Her early history is
obscure. The kingship seems to have ended by being, so to speak, placed
in commission, the royal functions being discharged by an elected body
of Archons. Dissensions among the groups of citizens issued in the
democratic Solonian constitution, which remained the basis of Athenian
government, except during the despotism of the house of Pisistratus in
the latter half of the sixth century B.C. But outside of Greece proper
were the numerous Dorian and Ionian colonies, really independent cities,
planted in the coast districts of Asia Minor, at Cyrene and Barka in
Mediterranean Africa, in Epirus (Albania), Southern Italy, Sicily, and
even at Massilia in Gaul, and in Thrace beyond the proper Hellenic area.
These colonies brought the Greek world in touch with Lydia and its king,
Croesus, with the one sea-going Semitic power, the Phoenicians, with the
Egyptians, and more remotely with the wholly Oriental empires of Assyria
and Babylon, as well as with the outer barbarians of Scythia.

Between 560 and 510 B.C., Athens was generally under the rule of the
despot Pisistratus and his son Hippias. In 510, the Pisistratidae were
expelled, and Athens became a pure democracy. Meanwhile, the Persian
Cyrus had seized the Median monarchy and overthrown every other
potentate in Western Asia; Egypt was added to the vast Persian dominion
by his son Cambyses. A new dynasty was established by Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, who organized the empire, but failed to extend it by an
incursion into European Scythia.

The revolt of the Ionic cities in Asia Minor against the governments
established by the "great king" brought him in contact with the
Athenians, who sent help to Ionia. Demands for "earth and water,"
_i.e.,_ the formal recognition of Persian sovereignty