The Story of Greece: Told to Boys and Girls

He loved his city well, and with his own money he had rebuilt the walls of Athens. Many other services he had done for his countrymen, and because of these, one of the Athenians...

The story of Perseus belongs to the Heroic Age of Greek history, to the time when heroes were half mortal, half divine. Many other wonderful tales belong to the Heroic Age, but...

Fierce and long raged the battle around the body of Patroclus. And while the armies fought, a messenger hastened to the tent of Achilles to tell him that his comrade was slain a...

Mardonius stayed with his troops in Thessaly during the winter months. But in the spring of 479 B.C. he determined to win Athens from the league which she had formed with the ot...

So he hired a large number of Greek soldiers, for now that there was peace between Athens and Sparta, many of them were idle and glad to take service under Cyrus.

Xerxes looked on while his soldiers fought at the entrance to the pass. And they did their best, for they were unwilling that their king should see them beaten back by men who h...

In the hall of the palace the suitors sat feasting, as was their custom. When Eumaeus entered, followed by the beggar, they no sooner caught sight of him than they began to mock...

Cimon was beloved by the Athenians, for he showed them great kindness. Every day he invited some of the poorer citizens to supper. When he walked through the city he ordered sev...

The Spartans were eager to fight and to add to their dominions. So they determined to attack the Messenians, whose country lay west of Laconia, close to their own borders.

Demeter, the goddess of the earth, was often to be seen in the fields in springtime. As the Greek peasants sowed their seed they caught glimpses of her long yellow hair while sh...

Themistocles wished to make Athens a great sea-power, for he was sure that some day the Persians would return. He believed that if the Athenians were able to destroy the Persian...

In the autumn of 481 B.C. Xerxes led his vast hosts to Sardis. His warriors were of many different races, and each was clad in the dress of the country from which he came. Each,...

One of the most famous disciples of Socrates was Plato. He loved his master well, and wrote down many of his conversations, so that his words may still be read.

For at least forty years Sparta was the chief city in Greece, and she was the head of the league which bound the cities of Peloponnesus together. It was her brave king Leonidas...

After Xerxes had secured the pass of Thermopylae, a march of six days would bring him to Athens. There was no army in his way, for the Spartans and other tribes in Peloponnesus...

The Peace of Nicias, which was made for fifty years, did not last more than six. Thucydides tells us that it did not really last even so long. For although for six years neither...

When Sparta heard that Artaxerxes had been able neither to force the ten thousand to surrender nor to slay them, she thought that his army could not be very powerful. So, confid...

Thebes had always been a dull, unambitious, little town, but now her ambition awoke. She was not content only to be free, she wished to become the most important town in Bœotia.

In November 370 B.C. he marched with his army into Arcadia, which lay to the north of Laconia. Here he was joined by all those who wished to throw off the Spartan yoke. His army...

Solon did not expect the laws he made to please each of the three parties in Attica. So he was not greatly surprised that while the Plain and the Coast were more or less content...

When you think of a hero, you think of a man who does brave, unselfish deeds. But to the Hellenes or Greeks a hero was one who was half god, half man--whose one parent was a god...

After a long and difficult march of three hundred miles, to which his soldiers took only eleven days, the king heard that Darius had passed the defile called the ‘Caspian Gates....

Solon, the wise lawgiver of Athens, was a descendant of King Codrus. His father had given away most of his wealth to help his city or his countrymen, so Solon became a merchant,...

Amphipolis belonged to the Athenians, who had sent Thucydides and Eucles to guard the city lest it should be attacked by the Spartans. Thucydides had not only the city but a lar...

When Epitadas found that he was shut up on the island of Sphacteria, he sent a messenger to Sparta to tell what had befallen him. The ephors were so disturbed by his tidings tha...

The Peloponnesian War began with an attack upon the little town of Plataea. Two years later, in the early summer of 429 B.C., Plataea was again attacked, this time by the Sparta...

The traitor told them it was useless to try to help the people of Sicily, for he had joined the Carthaginians, and their combined army would easily crush any force that was sent...

The Greek warriors burned and sacked the city of Troy, and then they set sail for the sunny isles of Greece. But storms overtook some, the gods sent misfortune to others, so tha...

Hector and Paris reached the battlefield at the same moment. The Trojans were encouraged to fight yet more fiercely when they saw the two princes, and soon so many of the Greeks...

The Macedonians had now for some time been longing to march homeward rather than into new and unknown lands. But Alexander’s ambition was not yet satisfied, and in 327 B.C. he d...

Perhaps this was his own fault, for he tired the people by boasting continually of the good he had done to the city. It was known too that he did not hesitate to take bribes, an...

They did not wish to sit at table with their fellow-soldiers in batches of fifteen; they would rather have gone to their homes and taken their meals with their families.

Alexander tramped by the side of his men across the dreary waste, sharing all their privations and cheering them by his presence. But before he left the desert of Gedrosia, the...

They were helped in their plans by Phyllidas, a Theban who had stayed in the city and become secretary to the Spartan governors Archias and Philippus. He had taken this position...

As soon as he had recovered from his illness, Alexander led his army to meet Darius. He found the great king in the pass of Issus, in October 333 B.C.

When she was young and beautiful her home was in a northern land where the sun never shone, so she begged Athene to send her to the south where sunshine made the long days glad....

The stories of gods and heroes are not pure history. They are myths or legends which have grown with the ages, until sometimes they are told as though they were true.

On the morning of the battle, Xerxes ascended a golden throne which had been placed for him upon a rock that overlooked the sea. Around him sat scribes ready to record the event...

In the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War the city of Mytilene threw off the yoke of Athens. Mytilene was the capital of Lesbos, an island near the coast of Asia. The city had...

Through the Pass of Thermopylae lay the entrance from the north to the south of Greece. It was this pass that the Greeks determined to hold against the Persians when they withdr...

The exiles who had returned to Sicily, and the colonists who had come to settle there, were needed, not only to till the ground but to defend the island. For the Carthaginians,...

When the Persians entered Athens they destroyed her temples. Some of these temples had been hastily repaired, others had been hastily built, when the Athenians returned to their...

The Spartans at this time were poor and their numbers were small, perhaps about ten thousand were fit to bear arms. They were surrounded by enemies whose attacks they found hard...

They hoped in due time to reap a plenteous harvest, for their last year’s crops had been destroyed by the enemy. But before the corn was ripe they knew their hopes were vain. Th...

Athene knew that if Odysseus went to the palace, the princes would pretend that he was not the king, and would perhaps even slay him. So she bade him go, not to the palace, but...

Alcibiades fled from the Athenians to Sparta, but he did not stay there long, for he soon grew tired of living as simply and frugally as the people of that country. He had, too,...

When the heralds of Agamemnon had led Briseis away, Achilles stripped off his armour, for not again would he fight in the Trojan War. Down to the seashore he went alone to weep...

The small band of Corinthians who now held the citadel of Syracuse was closely besieged by Icetes. But soon he grew tired of waiting for it to surrender and hit, as he thought,...

Alexander, the son of Philip of Macedon, became king in 336 B.C. The queen-mother adored her brave son and dreamed of the great things he would do when he became a man. She did...

The city of Corinth stood upon the narrow isthmus that joined the mainland of Greece to the Peloponnesian peninsula. She had two harbours, a large fleet, and she carried on a pr...

Odysseus was determined that he and his comrades should escape from the cave of the dread Cyclops. Hour after hour he pondered how he might persuade the giant to let them go, bu...

‘Kings, indeed, we have,’ they said, ‘who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds they have nothing by which they are to be dist...

The Athenians made their preparations to retreat as secretly as possible, but the Syracusans soon discovered their plans. When they heard that their departure was delayed for tw...

The king then went to Corinth, where ambassadors from many of the Greek states met him. Young as he was, they chose Alexander to be general over the Greek troops which were to g...

The Greeks who lived in these colonies owned, often against their will, the King of Persia as their overlord. In time of war they were forced to fight for him.

In the spring of 331 B.C. the king went back to Tyre, and by August he had reached Thapsacus, a town on the banks of the river Euphrates. He wished to go on to Babylon, the capi...

Xerxes, the new ruler of Persia, looked every inch a king. He was tall and handsome, standing head and shoulders above the great warriors he led to battle. But although he looke...

Demosthenes had spoken in the law courts, but he was not content. His great ambition now was to speak in the assembly of Athens. He wished to remind the Athenians of their glori...

Philip of Macedon began to reign in 359 B.C. When he was sixteen years of age he was taken by Pelopidas as a hostage to Thebes. Here he stayed for three years, reading Greek lit...

In the citadel of Gordion was an old, roughly built wagon, which had once belonged to a peasant named Gordius. Long, long ago Gordius had ridden into the town in his wagon, and...

Until the Greeks won their great victory at Marathon, in 490 B.C., they had always feared the Persians. Now their fear was forgotten. They had still a long struggle before the P...

Greece was made up of many separate States, each independent of the other. But there were several bonds which united the States. They spoke the same language, they worshipped th...

They succeeded in seizing the high ground which joined the town to the mainland of Sicily. Across this ground they began to build a wall, meaning to cut the Syracusans off from...

The last battle of the Peloponnesian War was fought in the Hellespont in 405 B.C. The Athenians had drawn up their ships near a desolate spot named Ægospotami, and they soon fou...

In days long after these, Phidias, a great Greek sculptor, made an image of Zeus. The form and the face of the god he moulded into wondrous beauty, so that men gazing saw sunshi...

Before Alexander crossed the Hellespont he had seen that the opposite shore was held by his Macedonians. While the army landed he himself sailed to the ‘Harbour of the Achæans.’...

The Ionic revolt was ended, but Darius had yet to punish the Athenians for burning the city of Sardis. Eight years had now passed since she had been destroyed, yet his anger aga...

But about 500 B.C. the people of Naxos, an island in the Ægean Sea, rose and expelled the nobles from their city. This was the beginning of a war between Greece and Asia, known...

In these olden days there lived in Greece a Lydian maid who could weave with wondrous skill. So beautiful were the tapestries she wrought that her fame spread far and wide. Lord...

Alexander did not cross the Euphrates in search of Darius. He knew that the great king could do him no harm, even should he again assemble a large army. So for a time he left Da...

The Dorians were a brave and sturdy race, braver, perhaps, than any other of the Greek tribes. Apollo, the Sun-God, one of the noblest of the Olympians, was the god they held in...

The cause of the Peloponnesian War was jealousy--jealousy between Athens and Sparta. Each wished to be the chief State in Greece, and the only way to settle the dispute in those...

The Athenians were encouraged by the victory they had gained at Sphacteria to hope for still greater success to their arms, and in 424 B.C. they marched boldly into the country...

Socrates was born in 469 B.C. He was not a noble like Alcibiades, but a man of humble birth. Nor was he handsome as was his disciple, but plain, even ugly, the people said. He w...

Salamis, an island lying about a mile from both Athens and Megara, was in the hands of the Megarians. Its position between the two States made it an important one. So the Atheni...

While the council of war was being held, a youth named Philippides was on his way to Sparta to beg the citizens to hasten to the help of their country. Philippides was sometimes...

The small island of Ithaca, of which Odysseus was king, lay on the western shore of Greece. His subjects deemed that their king was dead, for ten years had passed since Troy had...

The Ionians knew that they would not be able to throw off the Persian yoke without help from their kinsfolk in Greece. So Aristagoras was appointed to go to Sparta to beg king C...

As soon as Perseus saw that the monster was harmless, he took off his magic helmet, and hastening to Andromeda he broke the chain that held her to the rock. Then bidding her fea...

After the battle of Plataea, the Athenians brought their wives and children back to the city, which the Persians had again left in ruins. Not only were the temples and the house...

The gods were angry with Aphrodite because she had hidden Paris from the king, and they determined that, in spite of their oath, the two armies should again begin to fight.

The king of Persia was not pleased with his governor Tissaphernes, because he had made an alliance with neither the Athenians nor the Spartans. So he now sent his younger son Cy...

The battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. decided the fate of the Persian empire. Darius was no longer the great king, for Alexander took the title as well as the dominions of his foe.

In the island of Sicily there were many different states. In some of these dwelt Greeks who owned Corinth as their mother-city. Trade between Sicily and Corinth was good, and be...

In 425 B.C., the seventh year of the war, an Athenian fleet of about forty ships, under an admiral named Eurymedon, was forced by stormy weather to seek shelter on the promontor...

As Perseus journeyed over land and sea on his great quest, he often thought of the dear mother he had left in Seriphus. Now that his task was done he longed to fly over the blue...

The king himself with part of the army embarked in the ships which awaited them on the Hydaspes. The rest of the army was divided into two companies, and marched on either bank...

You remember how Cecrops came to Attica and built a city so beautiful that the gods marvelled, and how Athene made the first olive-tree and was therefore awarded the honour of n...

Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, was born in 384 B.C. He was a shy and delicate boy, and often stammered when he spoke. Some of his companions were cruel enough to laugh...

Hippias and Hipparchus were as eager as their father Pisistratus had been to govern Athens well. Nor did they quarrel as to the way in which they could best do this, as brother-...

The people of Attica were divided into three classes. There were the men of the Plain, who owned land and were wealthy; the men of the Shore, who were fisher-folk and traders; t...

Before he crossed the border into Attica the king bade his army halt, while he sent an ambassador named Melesippus to the Athenians, to offer them terms if they would submit to...

Ofttimes he would leave the other gods sipping nectar in Mount Olympus, ofttimes he would forsake the many beautiful temples in which he was worshipped on earth, that he might b...

A great crowd gathered at the Piræeus to see the fleet set sail for Sicily. Groups clustered together, talking eagerly of the new empire that was to be won in the West, and the...

Meanwhile a band of Scythians had reached the banks of the Danube. The Ionians had already loosed some of the boats on the farther side, that the enemy might think that the brid...

One day Zeus was ill. To us it is strange to think of the gods as suffering the same pains as mortals suffer, but to the Hellenes it seemed quite natural.

Now when Darius heard that Sardis had been destroyed, he sent for Histiaeus and said to him, ‘O Histiaeus, I hear that the man to whom thou hast given thy city has been doing st...

Æschylus, one of the greatest men of the age, was a diligent writer of tragedies or serious plays. You will think that he was diligent indeed, when I tell you that he wrote nine...

Many of the allied cities offered to send, as their contribution to the league, money instead of ships. To this Athens agreed gladly, and with the money she added ship after shi...

After Cleisthenes had set Athens free from the rule of Hippias, he began to reform the laws and to make Athens a more democratic State than she had yet been.

The story of Greece began long, long ago in a strange wonderland of beauty. Woods and winds, fields and rivers, each had a pathway which led upward and onward into the beautiful...

While Leonidas was fighting so bravely on land, Themistocles was with the fleet at Artemisium. If the Persians passed this point and entered the Malian Gulf, they would be able...

Eurybiades had determined that the fleet should stay at Salamis. But the other admirals were dissatisfied. When great numbers of the Persian ships were sighted, and when at the...