of skill, and the fate of the people is made thus to depend entirely on the natural disposition of the prince, since none of his subjects possesses sufficient authority to correct the mistakes of his master.  Having conquered Asia, the Persian race, finding itself hemmed in by insurmountable obstacles—­the sea, the African and Arabian deserts, the mountains of Turkestan and the Caucasus, and the steppes of Siberia—­had only two outlets for its energy, Greece and India.  Darius had led his army against the Greeks, and, in spite of the resistance he had encountered from them, he had gained ground, and was on the point of striking a crucial blow, when death cut short his career.  The impetus that he had given to the militant policy was so great that Xerxes was at first carried away by it; but he was naturally averse to war, without individual energy and destitute of military genius, so that he allowed himself to be beaten where, had he possessed anything of the instincts of a commander, he would have been able to crush his adversary with the sheer weight of his ships and battalions.  Even after Salamis, even after Plataea and Mycale, the resources of Hellas, split up as it was into fifty different republics, could hardly bear comparison with those of all Asia concentrated in the hands of one man:  Xerxes must have triumphed in the end had he persevered in his undertaking, and utilised the inexhaustible amount of fresh material with which his empire could have furnished him.  But to do that he would have had to take a serious view of his duties as a sovereign, as Cyrus and Darius had done, whereas he appears to have made use of his power merely for the satisfaction of his luxurious tastes and his capricious affections.  During the winter following his return, and while he was reposing at Sardes after the fatigues of his campaign in Greece, he fell in love with the wife of Masistes, one of his brothers, and as she refused to entertain his suit, he endeavoured to win her by marrying his son Darius to her daughter Artayntas.  He was still amusing himself with this ignoble intrigue during the year which witnessed the disasters of Plataea and Mycale, when he was vaguely entertaining the idea of personally conducting a fresh army beyond the AEgean:  but the marriage of his son having taken place, he returned to Susa in the autumn, accompanied by the entire court, and from thenceforward he remained shut up in the heart of his empire.  After his departure the war lost its general character, and deteriorated into a series of local skirmishes between the satraps in the vicinity of the Mediterranean and the members of the league of Delos.  The Phoenician fleet played the principal part in the naval operations, but the central and eastern Asiatics—­Bactrians, Indians, Parthians, Arians, Arachosians, Armenians, and the people from Susa and Babylon—­scarcely took any part in the struggle.  The Athenians at the outset assumed the offensive under the intelligent direction of Cimon.  They expelled the Persian