over Athens.

Nor was there any power to the westward of Greece that could have
offered an effectual opposition to Persia, had she once conquered
Greece, and made that country a basis for future military
operations. Rome was at this time in her season of utmost
weakness. Her dynasty of powerful Etruscan kings had been driven
out, and her infant commonwealth was reeling under the attacks of
the Etruscans and Volscians from without, and the fierce
dissensions between the patricians and plebeians within.
Etruria, with her Lucumos and serfs, was no match for Persia.
Samnium had not grown into the might which she afterwards put
forth: nor could the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily
hope to survive when their parent states had perished. Carthage
had escaped the Persian yoke in the time of Cambyses, through the
reluctance of the Phoenician mariners to serve against their
kinsmen. But such forbearance could not long have been relied
on, and the future rival of Rome would have become as submissive
a minister of the Persian power as were the Phoenician cities
themselves. If we turn to Spain, or if we pass the great
mountain chain which, prolonged through the Pyrenees, the
Cevennes, the Alps, and the Balkan, divides Northern from
Southern Europe, we shall find nothing at that period but mere
savage Finns, Celts, Slaves, and Teutons. Had Persia beaten
Athens at Marathon, she could have found no obstacle to prevent
Darius, the chosen servant of Ormuzd, from advancing his sway
over all the known Western races of mankind. The infant energies
of Europe would have been trodden out beneath universal conquest;
and the history of the world, like the history of Asia, would
have become a mere record of the rise and fall of despotic