Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

THE RISE OF PERSIA 157
to the rescue of his worshipper and saved him by a heavy
fall of rain. Perhaps what actually occurred was that
Croesus mounted the pyre of his own free will and was
taken from it by the Persians in time to save his life.
The legend that he ended his days as a great noble at the
Court of Persia strengthens this view.-^
TJjj^G en g^^p^^^^ ^ P^ ^itini^ nf Fff>/.//7.r—The geographical
position of Hellas, turning towards the East, was singularly
favourable for development and progress, in view of the
fact that none of the great states of Asia had ever
approached the sea, or developed sea-power. The Greek
city-states bordered the Aegean Sea, which was studded
with islands so close to one another that the navigator was
seldom out of sight of land. The great powers were too
far off to be feared, but one of them, Egypt, was accessible.
Consequently the Greeks were bound to be navigators and
pirate traders, and as such they could benefit by the older
civilization of Egypt and, in a lesser degree and mainly
indirectly, by that of Babylon, without fear of being
conquered. On the other hand, the physical characteristics
of Greece, and perhaps this very security, gave rise to a
multiplication of small states and a spirit of mutual rivalry
and jealousy. Thus impeded, its inhabitants never developed
into a great nation, and it is left to us to admire
the splendid conceptions and great deeds of isolated
states, whose energies,
for the most part, were wasted in
fighting petty rivals. As de "
Morgan puts it, their
destiny would have been sublime if, by their divisions,
they had not paralysed the soaring of their genius." ^
Recent Progress in Knowledge of Greek History.—A
generation ago our knowledge of Greek history did not
extend farther back than the beginning of the seventh
century b.c, Thucydides and Herodotus being
the limits
beyond which the student could not pass ; and Homer,
even to the select few who were not content to rest
satisfied, was separated by a fathomless gulf from the era
^ This question is dealt with by E. Edwards under "Human Sacrifice"
(Iranian),
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. In this article reference is made to a recently
discovered poem of Bacchylides (born 507 b.c.) and to a vase of the sixth or fifth century
preserved in the Louvre, both of which tend to show that Croesus elected death rather than
submit to capture.
,
2
^tudesy f^c, p. 380.