A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

In order to reach Athens his army had to be carried across the sea in boats. Of course, in those days there were no steamboats. Steamboats were invented thousands of years later. The only way to make a boat go was with sails or with oars. To make a large boat move with oars, it was necessary to have a great many rowers—three rows one above the other on each side of the boat.

Such a boat was called a trireme, which means three rows of oars. It took about 600 of these boats to carry Darius’ army over to Greece. Each of these 600 boats carried, besides the rowers or crew, about 200 soldiers. So you can see for yourself how many soldiers Darius had in this army, if there were 600 ship-loads of them and 200 soldiers on each ship. Yes, that is an example in multiplication—120,000 soldiers—that’s right.

So the Persians sailed across the sea; and this time there was no storm, and they reached the shore of Greece safely. They landed on a spot called the plain of Marathon, which was only about twenty-six miles away from Athens. You will see presently why I have told you just the number of miles—twenty-six.

When the Athenians heard that the Persians were coming, they wanted to get Sparta in a hurry to help, as she had promised to do.

Now, there were no telegraphs or telephones or railroads, of course, in those days. There was no way in which they could send a message to Sparta except to have it carried by hand.

So they called on a famous runner named Pheidippides to carry the message. Pheidippides started out and ran the whole way from Athens to Sparta, about one hundred and fifty miles, to carry the message. He ran night and day, hardly stopping at all to rest or to eat, and on the second day he was in Sparta.

The Spartans, however, sent back word that they couldn’t start just then; the moon wasn’t full, and it was bad luck to start when the moon wasn’t full, as nowadays some superstitious people think it bad luck to start on a trip on Friday. They said they would come after a while, when the moon was full.

But the Athenians couldn’t wait for the moon. They knew the Persians would be in Athens before then, and they didn’t want them to get as far as that.

So all the fighting men in Athens left their city and went forth to meet the Persians on the plain of Marathon—twenty-six miles away.

The Athenians were led by a man named Miltiades, and there were only ten thousand soldiers of them. Besides these, there were one thousand more from a little near-by town, which was friendly with Athens and wished to stand by her—eleven thousand in all. If you figure it out, you will see that there were perhaps ten times as many Persians as there were Greeks, ten Persian soldiers to one Greek soldier.