Moreover, by a subsequent change of attitude towards her victorious foe--though that change was not wholly to her discredit--Persia bred in the Greeks a still better conceit of themselves and a better understanding of her weakness. The Persians, with the intelligence and versatility for which their race has always been remarkable, passed very rapidly from overweening contempt to excessive admiration of the Greeks. They set to work almost at once to attract Hellenic statesmen and men of science to their own society, and to make use of Hellenic soldiers and sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance to it which is not to be accounted for only by the influence of Persian gold or of a Persian element in their administration. Miletus and Halicarnassus shut their gates and defended their walls desperately against Alexander because they conceived their own best interests to be involved in the continuance of the Persian Empire. Nor were the Persians less successful with Greeks actually taken into their service. The Greek mercenaries remained to a man loyal to the Great King when the Greek attack came, and gave Alexander his hardest fighting in the three great battles which decided the fate of the East. None the less, such an attitude towards Greeks was suicidal. It exalted the spirit of Europe while it depraved the courage and sapped the self-reliance of Asia. SECTION 10. THE FIRST COUNTER-ATTACKS