CHAPTER VII THE REPULSE OF PERSIA AND THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE Section 28. The Struggle with Persia When 'the Ionian cities which Persia had captured in her advance ' to the ^gean ^ revolted, their friend and relative, Athens, sent twenty ships to aid them. This act brought a Persian army of revenge, under King Darius, into Europe. The long march across the Hellespont and through Thrace cost the invaders many men, and the fleet which formed one wing of the Persian advance was wrecked in trying to round the high promontory of Mount Athos (492 B.C.). The advance into Greece was therefore abandoned for a different plan of invasion, which would avoid the long march around the Hellespont. In the early summer of 490 B.C. a considerable fleet of trans- ports and warships bearing the Persian host put out from the Island of Samos, sailed straight across the ^gean, and entered the straits between Euboea and Attica (see map, p. 146, and Fig. 83). The Persians began by burning the little city of Eretria, which had also sent ships to aid the lonians against Persia, and then landed on the shores of Attica, in the Bay of Marathon 1 The student should here reread pp. 96-97. 166
