Aeschylus, Persians 852–908: Stasimon: the Chorus remember the reign of Darius

Oh yes, it was in truth a glorious and good life under civil government that we enjoyed so long as our aged and all-powerful king, who did no wrong and did not favor war, god-like Darius, ruled the realm.

In the first place we showed to the world armies worthy of our fame, and civil institutions, like towers in strength, regulated all the state; and our return from war brought back our men, unworn and unsuffering, to happy homes.

And what a number of cities he captured!— without crossing the stream of Halys or even stirring from his own hearth: such as the Acheloan cities on the Strymonian sea which is located beside the Thracian settlements.

And those outside the lake, the cities on the mainland, surrounded with a rampart, obeyed him as their king; those, too, that boast to be on both sides of the broad Hellespont and Propontis, deeply-recessed, and the outlet of Pontus.

The sea-washed islands, also, off the projecting arm of the sea, lying close to this land of ours, such as Lesbos, and olive-planted Samos, Chios and Paros, Naxos, Mykonos, and Andros which lies adjacent to Tenos.

And he held under his sway the sea-girt islands midway between the continents, Lemnos, and the settlement of Icarus, and Rhodes, and Cnidos, and the Cyprian cities Paphos, Soli, and Salamis, whose mother-city is now the cause of our lament.

And the rich and populous cities of the Hellenes in the Ionian heritage he controlled by his own will; and at his command he had an unwearied strength of men-at-arms and of allies from every nation. But now, worsted completely in war through disasters on the sea, we endure this change of fortune no doubt from the hand of god.