BABYLON AND PERSIA

206 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.peninsula through this entrance, and also in ships,across the long and narrow gulf, and there their ad¬vent produced the effect of a heavy body falling intoa vessel filled with liquid :there is a splash, a .spurt,and the liquid overflows on all sides.There was nogetting rid of the Dorians, for they were n:ocom¬mon invaders. Their genius for war made themproceed after a uniform and systematic fashion thatcrushed resistance, while, being equally possessed ofthe qualities that organize governments and ensurethe duration of states, their watchfulness and energybaffled conspiracies and made popular risings hope¬less. The ancient Achjean commonwealths andmore recent Ionian confederations of free cities hadbut one alternative before them :submission or selfbanishment.Thousands of people, led by noblefamilies of oldest and most firmly established stand¬ing, chose the latterand the age of colonies began.Greek ships bore away detachment after detachmentof exiles, of all stations in life and all pursuits, andlanded them at innumerable points along the shoresof the surrounding seas :at various parts of Sicilyand Southern Italy, on the coasts of Illyria andEpirus on one side, of Macedon and Thracia on theother, as far as the mouth of the Bosporus, nay, theinside of the Black Sea itself.Many such detach¬ments stopped on this or that of the many islandswhich seemed scattered broadcast over the bluewaters on purpose to receive them.. And wherever ahandful of sad-faced emigrants raised their huts andtents, bearing with them out of the old life nothingbut a few family relics, a little of their native earth,