CHAPTER IX
THE GLORIOUS DAYS OF GREECE

It is amusing to stop now and then in the course of a story to wonder how it would have gone if one or other of the events in it had happened rather differently. Sometimes it seems as if just one event turned the whole course of what happened afterwards.

So here in this great story of ours we may wonder what would have happened to the world if the Persians, pushing their way westward, had not come up against that strong wall of opposition which they found in the Greek phalanx. There was no other power, so far as we know, at this time, in the west, that was at all likely to be able to stop them.

If we look at what happened in the more southward direction of their advance, in Egypt, we shall perhaps be inclined to think that they would not have gone very much farther westward than they did, for the Egyptian story of that time shows that they were not able to establish their power very securely in that country. For nearly forty years after the Persian conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, Egypt was held as a province of Persia, but in 488 B.C. the Egyptians made a successful revolt and threw off the Persian yoke for a time. Three years later they were again subdued by Xerxes, who was then king of Persia, but only fifteen years afterwards they were again revolting, and through the whole of that century, 500 to 400 B.C., they were continually rising against their Persian masters, never quite succeeding in winning their freedom, but constantly giving trouble, never completely subdued. It is evident that the Persians, after their first and most effective conquest, never had a very secure hold over the people of the Nile.

Then, if we turn to look at what was going on farther north, where the Persian cavalry were coming up against that famous Greek phalanx, we shall see good reason why the Persians were not able to give a great deal of attention to making their position good in Egypt. The wonder is that they should have found any forces at all to spare for that enterprise.

The Persian monarch had assumed the title of King of Kings. He claimed dominion over the whole world, as the Persians knew it. It must have been most vexatious to him, and to that great claim and title of his, to find the claim opposed and contested. He had conquered Greeks before—those Spartans whom he had met fighting in the alliance under King Crœsus. He would conquer them again. He would crush them and take possession of their country.

After all that they had accomplished, the conquest of Greece cannot have seemed to the Persians as if it would be a hard matter. Greece, as a single nation, did not exist. There were many Grecian states, but they were always fighting among themselves, each striving for the supremacy. The chief of the fighting states were Sparta and Athens. Each of these would form alliances from time to time with other states to fight against the other. Just at this moment, that is just before 500 B.C., the contention between them was most severe. The forms of the government in the two were sharply opposed. The government of Athens had lately fallen into the hands of the people. The people, the democracy (from demos, the people, and kratos, power) had deposed their king and driven him out of the country. The Spartans, who hated the idea of a democratic government, sympathised with him, and no doubt would have restored him to power had they been able to do so; but he went to Asia Minor, to the court of Darius, who was then king of Persia, and besought his help. The Persian was very willing to give it, but it was not until some years later, in 490 B.C., that the first actual invasion of Greece by the Persians took place. That invasion practically began and ended with what was one of the most famous battles in the world's history, the battle of Marathon.

Marathon