t is why
we call them Aryans. Others had followed the setting sun and they had
taken possession of the plains of Europe as I shall tell you when I give
you the story of Greece and Rome.

For the moment we must follow the Aryans. Under the leadership of
Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) who was their great teacher many of them had
left their mountain homes to follow the swiftly flowing Indus river on
its way to the sea.

Others had preferred to stay among the hills of western Asia and there
they had founded the half-independent communities of the Medes and the
Persians, two peoples whose names we have copied from the old Greek
history-books. In the seventh century before the birth of Christ, the
Medes had established a kingdom of their own called Media, but this
perished when Cyrus, the chief of a clan known as the Anshan, made
himself king of all the Persian tribes and started upon a career of
conquest which soon made him and his children the undisputed masters of
the whole of western Asia and of Egypt.

Indeed, with such energy did these Indo-European Persians push their
triumphant campaigns in the west that they soon found themselves in
serious difficulties with certain other Indo-European tribes which
centuries before had moved into Europe and had taken possession of the
Greek peninsula and the islands of the AEgean Sea.

These difficulties led to the three famous wars between Greece and
Persia during which King Darius and King Xerxes of Persia invaded the
northern part of the peninsula. They ravaged the lands of the Greeks and
tried very hard to get a foothold upon the European continent.

But in this they did not succeed. The navy of Athens proved
unconquerable. By cutting off the lines of supplies of the Persian
armies, the Greek sailors invariably forced the Asiatic rulers to return
to their base.

It was the first encounter between Asia, the ancient teacher, and
Europe, the young and eager pupil. A great many of the other chapters
of this book will tell you how the struggle between east and west has
continued until this very day.

THE AEGEAN SEA

THE PEOPLE OF THE AEGEAN SEA CARRIED THE CIVILISATION OF OLD ASIA INTO
THE WILDERNESS OF EUROPE

WHEN Heinrich Schliemann was a little boy his father told him the story
of Troy. He liked that story better than anything else he had ever heard
and he made up his mind, that as soon as he was big enough to leave
home, he would travel to Greece and "find Troy."