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 {131} 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. [Sidenote: Marathon] It was fought on a small plain, only some three miles wide, on the seashore, where the Persians had disembarked their forces. And here I would give you a word of warning which must apply to all this story of the glorious days of Greece. The battles--Marathon, Thermopylæ, and Salamis--have become very famous, and rightly famous. They were of importance in the story because they--Marathon and Salamis, at all events, which were Grecian victories--put a stop to that westward advance of the Persians which might have extended we cannot say how far but for those victories. But they were battles in which the forces engaged on the one side or the other were almost ridiculously small in comparison with the armies which we have seen put into the field. They were fought over very small spaces of land or sea, and they were very quickly over.