Pretences being easily found for war against the Asiatic Greeks, Crœsus attacked them one after the other. Unfortunately, we know neither the particulars of these successive aggressions, nor the previous history of the Ionic cities, so as to be able to explain how it was that the fifth of the Mermnad kings of Sardis met with such unqualified success, in an enterprise which his predecessors had attempted in vain. Milêtus alone, with the aid of Chios, had resisted Alyattês and Sadyattês for eleven years,—and Crœsus possessed no naval force, any more than his father and grandfather. But on this occasion, not one of the towns can have displayed the like individual energy. In regard to the Milesians, we may perhaps suspect that the period now under consideration was comprised in that long duration of intestine conflict which Herodotus represents (though without defining exactly when) to have crippled the forces of the city for two generations, and which was at length appeased by a memorable decision of some arbitrators invited from Paros. These latter, called in by mutual consent of the exhausted antagonist parties at Milêtus, found both the city and her territory in a state of general neglect and ruin. But on surveying the lands, they discovered some which still appeared to be tilled with undiminished diligence and skill; to the proprietors of these lands they consigned the government of the town, in the belief that they would manage the public affairs with as much success as their own.[495] Such a state of intestine weakness would partly explain the easy subjugation of the Milesians by Crœsus; while there was little in the habits of the Ionic cities to present the chance of united efforts against a common enemy. These cities, far from keeping up any effective political confederation, were in a state of habitual jealousy of each other, and not unfrequently in actual war.[496] The common religious festivals,—the Deliac festival as well as the Pan-Ionia, and afterwards the Ephesia in place of the Delia,—seem to have been regularly frequented by all the cities throughout the worst of times. But these assemblies had no direct political function, nor were they permitted to control that sentiment of separate city-autonomy which was paramount in the Greek mind,—though their influence was extremely precious in calling forth social sympathies. Apart from the periodical festival, meetings for special emergencies were held at the Pan-Ionic temple; but from such meetings any city, not directly implicated, kept aloof.[497] As in this case, so in others not less critical throughout the historical period, the incapacity of large political combination was the source of constant danger, and ultimately proved the cause of ruin, to the independence of all the Grecian states. Herodotus warmly commends the advice given by Thalês to his Ionic countrymen,—and given, to use his remarkable expression, “before the ruin of Ionia,”[498]—that a common