The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe by Louis P. Benezet
page 31 of 245 (12%)
page 31 of 245 (12%)
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the greed of their captors, who forgot that their own relatives and
friends might be carried off and sold across the seas by some other tribe of blacks.) When these slaves were kept as the servants of their conquerors, their number was very small as compared with that of their masters. When, on the other hand, a tribe settled among a people whom they had conquered, they often found themselves fewer in numbers, and kept their leadership only by their greater strength and fighting ability. Here there had arisen a new situation: all men were no longer equal, led by a chief of their own choosing, but instead, the greater part of them now had no voice in the government. They had become subjects, working to earn their own living and also, as has been said, to support in idleness their conquerors. This ability of the few to rule the many and force them to support their masters was increased as certain peoples learned better than others how to make strong armor and effective weapons. Nearly five hundred years before the time of Christ, at the battle of Marathon (MaÌr'aÌ thoÌn), the Greeks discovered that one Greek, clad in metal armor and armed with a long spear, was worth ten Persians wearing leather and carrying a bow and arrows or a short sword. One hundred and sixty years later, a small army of well-equipped Macedonian Greeks, led by that wonderful general, Alexander the Great, defeated nearly forty times its number of Persians in a great battle in Asia and conquered a vast empire. [Illustration: Alexander Defeating the Persians] |
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