25 Fighting Mad

darIus was now angrier than ever, and still more determined to whip those stubborn Greeks, who dared to defy him and his enormous power; and he began to get ready for one more attempt. This time, however, he made up his mind that he would get together such an army and navy that there would be no chance in the world against it,and he made a solemn oath to destroy the Greeks. So for several years he gathered troops and supplies, but something happened, and in spite of his oath he did not carry out his plan. Why? You guessed it. He died.

But Darius had a son named Xerxes—pronounced as if it began with a Z.

When I was a boy, there was an alphabet rhyme that began,“A is for Apple,” and went on down to “X is for Xerxes, a great Persian king.” I learned the rhyme, though I did not know at that time anything about either Xerxes or Persia.

Xerxes was just as determined as his father had been that the Greeks must be beaten, so he went on getting ready.

However, the Greeks also were just as determined that they must not be beaten, so they, too, went on getting ready,for they knew the Persians would sooner or later come back and try again.

At this time there were two chief men in Athens, and each was trying to be leader. One was named Themistocles—pronounced The MIS to kleez—and the other Aristides—pronounced Ar is TI deez. Notice how many Greek names seem to end in the letters es.

Themistocles urged the Athenians to get ready for what he knew was coming, the next war with Persia. Especially did he urge the Athenians to build a fleet of boats, for they had no boats and the Persians had a great many.

Aristides, on the other hand, didn’t believe in Themistocles’s scheme to build boats. He thought it a foolish expense and talked against it.

Aristides had always been so wise and fair that people called him Aristides the Just. Even so, some people wanted to get rid of him, because they thought he was wrong about building a fleet of boats and Themistocles was right. They waited till the time came to vote, when they could ostracize anyone they wanted to get rid of. Do you remember who started this custom? Cleisthenes—about 500 B.C.

When the day for voting came, a man who could not write and did not know Aristides by sight happened to ask his help in voting. Aristides inquired what name he should write, and the man replied, “Aristides.”

Aristides did not tell who he was, but merely said:

“Why do you want to get rid of this man? Has he done anything wrong?”

“Oh, no,” the voter replied, “He hasn’t done anything wrong,” but with a long sigh he said, “I’m so tired of hearing him always called The Just.”

Aristides must have been surprised by this unreasonable answer, but nevertheless he wrote his own name for the voter, and when the votes were counted, there were so many that he was ostracized.

Though it did not seem quite fair that Aristides should be ostracized, it was fortunate, as it turned out, that Themistocles had his way, and it was fortunate the Athenians went on preparing for war.

They built a fleet of triremes. Then they got all the cities and towns in Greece to agree to join forces in case of war.Sparta, on account of its fame as a city of soldiers, was made the leader of all the others in case war should come.

And then, just ten years after the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. the great Persian army was again ready to attack Greece. It had been brought together from all parts of the vast Persian Empire and was far bigger than the former army with its 120,000 men, although that was a large army for those days.

This time the army is supposed to have consisted of over two million soldiers—two million; just think of that!The question then was how to get so many soldiers over to Greece. Such a multitude could not be carried across to Greece in boats, for even the largest triremes only held a few hundred men, and it would have taken—well, can you tell how many boats, to carry over two million? Probably many more triremes than there were in the whole world at that time. Xerxes decided to have his army march to Greece, the long way but the only way round. So they started.

Now, there is a strip of water called a strait, something like a wide river, right across the path the Persian army had to take. This strait was then called the Hellespont. It is, of course still there, but if you look on the map you will find it is now called the Dardanelles. There was no bridge across the Hellespont, for it was almost a mile wide, and they didn’t have bridges as long as that in those days. Xerxes fastened boats together in a line that stretched from one shore to the other shore, and over these boats he built a floor to form a bridge so that his army could cross upon it.

Hardly had he finished building the bridge, however, when a storm arose and destroyed it. Xerxes, in anger at the waves,ordered that the water of the Hellespont be whipped as if it were an enemy or a slave he were punishing. Then he built another bridge, and this time the water behaved itself, and his soldiers were able to cross over safely.

So vast was Xerxes’s army that it is said to have taken it seven days and seven nights marching continuously all the time in two long unbroken lines to get over to the opposite shore. Xerxes’s fleet followed the army as closely as they could along the shore, and at last they reached the top of Greece. Down through the north of Greece the army came,overrunning everything before it, and it seemed as though nothing on earth could stop such numbers of men.