Introductory American History | Page 5

other languages. Several thousand have come from
Latin, the language of the Romans; several hundred from Greek, either
directly or passed on to us by the Romans or the French. The word
school is Greek, and the word arithmetic was borrowed from the
French, who took it from the Greeks. Geography is another word which
came, through French and Latin, from the Greeks, to whom it meant
that which is written about the earth. The word grammar came in the
same way. The word alphabet is made by joining together the names of
the first two Greek letters, alpha and beta.
Many words about religion are borrowed from the Greeks, and this is
not strange, for the New Testament was written in Greek. Some of
these are Bible, church, bishop, choir, angel, devil, apostle, and martyr.
The Greeks have handed down to us many words about government,
including the word itself, which in the beginning meant "to steer."
Politics meant having to do with a polis or city. Several of the words
most recently made up of Greek words are telegraph, telephone,
phonograph, and thermometer.
MANY WORDS BORROWED FROM THE ROMANS. Nearly ten
times as many of our words are borrowed from the Romans as from the
Greeks, and it is not strange, because at one time the Romans ruled

over all the country now occupied by the Italians, the French, the
Spaniards, a part of the Germans, and the English, so that these peoples
naturally learned the words used by their conquerors and governors.
INTERESTING ANCIENT STORIES. In the poems and tales which
we learn at home or at school are stories which Greek and Roman
parents and teachers taught their children many hundred years ago. We
learn them 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.

PREPARING FOR MARATHON, 490 B.C. To the Athenians belong
the glories of Marathon. They lived where the modern city of Athens
now stands. The ruins of their temples and theaters still attract students
and travelers to Greece. The plain of Marathon lay more than twenty
miles to the northeast, and the roads to it led through mountain passes.
When the Athenians heard that the hosts of the Great King of Persia
were approaching, they sent a runner, Pheidippides by name, to ask aid
of Sparta, a city one hundred and forty miles away, in the peninsula
now called the Morea, where dwelt the sturdiest fighters of Greece.
This runner reached Sparta on the second day, but the Spartans said it
would be against their religious custom to march before the moon was
full. The Athenians saw that they must meet the enemy alone--one
small city against a mighty empire. They called their ten thousand men
together and set out. On the way they were joined by a thousand more,
the whole army of the brave little town of Plataea.
[Illustration: GREEK SOLDIERS IN ARMS From a Greek vase of
about the time of the battle of Marathon]
HOW THE ATHENIANS WERE ARMED. Although the Persians had
six times as many soldiers as the Athenians, they were not so well
armed for hand