SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES
Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were, enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was, of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.
It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea. During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the Egyptians had rebelled more than once (most persistently about 460), calling in the sea-lords to their help on each occasion. Finally, just before the death of Darius Nothus, and some five years before Cyrus left Sardes, they rose again under an Egyptian, and thereafter, for about sixty years, not the kings of Susa, but three native dynasties in succession, were to rule Egypt. The harm done to the Persian Empire by this defection was not measured by the mere loss of the revenues of a province. The new kings of Egypt, who owed much to Greek support, repaid this by helping every enemy of the Great King and every rebel against his authority. It was they who gave asylum to the admiral and fleet of Cyrus after Cunaxa, and sent corn to Agesilaus when he invaded Asia Minor; they supplied money and ships to the Spartan fleet in 394, and helped Evagoras of Cyprus in a long resistance to his suzerain. When Tyre and the cities of the Cilician coast revolted in 380, Egypt was privy to their designs, and she made common cause with the satraps and governors of Western Asia, Syria and Phoenicia when, in combination, they planned rebellion in 373 to the grave peril of the Empire. Twelve years later we find an Egyptian king marching in person to raise Phoenicia.
The Persian made more than one effort to recover his province. After conspicuous failure with his own generals Artaxerxes adopted tardily the course which Clearchus, captain of the Ten Thousand, is said to have advised after the battle of Cunaxa, and tried his fortune once more with Greek condottieri, only to find Greek generals and Greek mercenaries arrayed against them. It had come to this, that the Persian king and his revolted province equally depended on mercenary swords, neither daring to meet Greek except with Greek. Well had the lesson of the march of the Ten Thousand been read, marked and digested in the East!