BABYLON AND PERSIA

LYDIA AND ASIA MINOR. 207and a spark of the sacred fire, kindled at the old cityhearth,there,in an amazingly short time, blossomedand pro.spered first a settlement, then a thriving city,the colonies becoming so many stations of Greekcommerce and Greek culture.So that after a whileit became customary for Greek cities to send outcolonies without any mournful occasion, simply toextend their influence and increase their own pros¬perity, by opening out new channels of trade andenterprise in distant and only partially' exploredcountries.Many, indeed, were founded by the Do¬rians themselves.II. Of all these outposts of Hellenic culture,- nonerose so rapidly or prospered so luxuriously as thecolonies, founded chiefly by fugitive lonians, alongthe shores of Asia Minor, to which they gave theirname.The movement, an immediate consequenceof the Dorian conquests, began soon after lOOO B.C.,and continued through more than two centuries.The emigrants selected the sites of their settlementswith admirable skill, mostly at the mouth of riversthe Hermos, the Kayster, the M^landerat thefoot of sheltering mountains, on commanding prom¬ontories, on points that invited commerce, yet en¬sured defence and seclusion if necessary, by no meansa secondary consideration, since the new-comers didnot plant their tents in waste and unclaimed lands,but in the midst of populous and already civilizedcountries, where they could not expect to obtain afirm footing without encountering resistance on thepart of the native people.Both the Lydians andCarians were nations renowned in war, and were not