partly because they are interesting, and because they please or amuse
us, and partly because they appear so often in our books that it is
necessary to know them if we would understand our own books and
language. Who has not heard of Hercules and his Labors, of the Search
for the Golden Fleece, the Siege of Troy, or the Wanderings of
Ulysses? We love modern fairy stories and tales of adventure, but they
are not more pleasing than these ancient stories.

[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF MARATHON]

THE STORY OF THE GREEKS. Our language and our books are full of
memories of Greek and Roman deeds of courage. The story of the Greeks
comes before the story of the Romans, for the Greeks were living in
beautiful cities, with temples and theaters, while the Romans were
still an almost unknown people dwelling on the hills that border the
river Tiber.

MEMORIES OF GREEK COURAGE. The most heroic deeds of the Greeks took
place in a great war between the Greek cities and the kingdom of
Persia about five hundred years before Christ. In those days there was
no kingdom called Greece, such as the geographies now describe.
Instead there were cities, a few of which were ruled by kings, others
by the citizens themselves. These cities banded together when any
danger threatened them. Sometimes one city turned traitor and helped
the enemy against the others. The most dangerous enemy the Greeks had,
until the Romans attacked them, was the kingdom of Persia, which
stretched from the Aegean Sea far into Asia. In the war with the
Persians the Greeks fought three famous battles, at Marathon,
Thermopylae, and Salamis, the stories of which men have always liked
to hear and remember.