Cyrus met more vigorous resistance in the west of Asia Minor. The Lycians, who maintained their independence against the Lydians in their mountains to the south, were not inclined to submit to the Persians, nor were their neighbours in the south-west, the Carians. The cities of the Greeks, who possessed the entire western coast, hesitated which course to take. After their ancestors had set foot on this coast, 400 years previously, they had succeeded in maintaining their ground for a century and a half against the rising power of the Lydians under the Mermnads; indeed it was during this period that they had extended their trade and colonisation, and risen to be a second naval power beside the Phenicians,--the centre of a commerce, which on the one hand included the Black Sea and the Maeotis, and on the other almost all the Mediterranean--which included in its empire Cyprus and Sicily and Corsica, Egypt and the mouths of the Po and Rhone, and even extended to the banks of the Bætis. Along with the trade and wealth of these cities, poetry had burst into a new bloom, plastic art and architecture were eagerly cultivated, the foundations were laid for Greek science, natural history, geography, history, and philosophy. Life was pleasant and luxurious; no doubt the morals of the Lydians had found their way into the cities, but the old vigour still remained in the inhabitants by sea and land. At last they had succumbed to Croesus, not because they did not know how to fight, but because they had not followed the advice of Thales of Miletus, who urged them to carry on the war in common, and place at their head a council with dictatorial powers (III. 450). But the supremacy of Croesus, to which they did not submit for much more than a decade, had not been of an oppressive character. It had left the cities unchanged in their internal trade, and in fact had increased rather than destroyed it. Croesus had contented himself with yearly tributes from the cities, and we have seen to what a large extent Greek art and manners found protection, favour, and advancement at the court of Croesus. Now these cities suddenly found themselves in the presence of a power of which they had hardly heard the name, and which had prostrated with a mighty blow the kingdom of Croesus. As they were not pledged to provide soldiers for the king of the Lydians, they had looked on in irresolute neutrality during the war. And they had paid no heed to the request of Cyrus that they would join his side. Previously it might have been to their interest to weaken the power of Lydia, in order to regain their full independence, but when Cyrus marched upon Sardis it became much more imperative to prevent a stronger power from taking the place of the Lydians. A diversion on the part of the Greek cities when Cyrus was besieging Sardis, would have delayed the fate of the city, and might have rendered possible the arrival of the allies. But they had done nothing, and now found themselves alone in the presence of the conqueror. Their danger prompted them to offer submission to the king of the Persians on the same terms as those on which they had served Croesus. Cyrus rejected the offer which the ambassadors of the Ionian and Aeolian cities brought to Sardis. Mere recognition of his supremacy and payment of tribute he did not consider sufficient to secure the obedience of cities so remote, and he was strong enough to insist on a more dependent relation without great efforts. But ever cautious and provident, he took means to separate the cities. To Miletus, the strongest, he offered a continuance of the relations in which she had stood to Lydia. When Miletus, "from fear," as Herodotus remarks, accepted these conditions, Cyrus had already won the victory. The cities were divided, robbed of their strongest power and natural head.