If we look particularly at the Jews--those subjects of Persia who necessarily share most of our interest with the Greeks--we find that Persian imperial rule was no sooner established securely over the former Babylonian fief in Palestine than it began to undo the destructive work of its predecessors. Vainly expecting help from the restored Egyptian power, Jerusalem had held out against Nebuchadnezzar till 587. On its capture the dispersion of the southern Jews, which had already begun with local emigrations to Egypt, was largely increased by the deportation of a numerous body to Babylonia. As early, however, as 538, the year of Cyrus' entry into Babylon (doubtless as one result of that event), began a return of exiles to Judaea and perhaps also to Samaria. By 520 the Jewish population in South Palestine was sufficiently strong again to make itself troublesome to Darius, and in 516 the Temple was in process of restoration. Before the middle of the next century Jerusalem was once more a fortified city and its population had been further reinforced by many returned exiles who had imbibed the economic civilization, and also the religiosity of Babylonia. Thenceforward the development of the Jews into a commercial people proceeds without apparent interruption from Persian governors, who (as, for example, Nehemiah) could themselves be of the subject race. Even if large accretions of other Semites, notably Aramaeans, be allowed for--accretions easily accepted by a people which had become rather a church than a nation--it remains a striking testimony to Persian toleration that after only some six or seven generations the once insignificant Jews should have grown numerous enough to contribute an important element to the populations of several foreign cities. It is worth remark also that even when, presumably, free to return to the home of their race, many Jews preferred to remain in distant parts of the Persian realm. Names mentioned on contract tablets of Nippur show that Jews found it profitable to still sit by the waters of Babylon till late in the fifth century; while in another distant province of the Persian Empire (as the papyri of Syene have disclosed) a flourishing particularist settlement of the same race persisted right down to and after 500 B.C. SECTION 7. ASIA UNDER PERSIA On the whole evidence the Persians might justifiably claim that their imperial organization in its best days, destitute though it was of either the centralized strength or the theoretic justification of modern civilized rule, achieved a very considerable advance, and that it is not unworthy to be compared even to the Roman in respect of the freedom and peace which in effect it secured to its subjects. [Plate 5: PERSIAN EMPIRE (WEST) AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT. TEMP. DARIUS HYSTASPIS]