When Persia Asked Who Are the Athenians?

Transcript

Herodotus — one of the first great writers of history, later known as the Father of History — tells a remarkable story. At the beginning of the fifth century BC, the Persian Empire was enormous. Athens was not. It was a single Greek city. And its new experiment in democracy was barely a decade old. Then Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule. Athens decided to help. Athenian ships crossed the Aegean and joined the revolt. During the campaign, fire swept through Sardis, one of the great cities of the Persian Empire. Eventually, the news reached the Persian king, Darius. He asked: “Who are the Athenians?” The ruler of the greatest empire of the age did not even know who they were. Someone explained. According to Herodotus, Darius took his bow, shot an arrow high into the sky and called upon Zeus: “Grant me vengeance on the Athenians.” Then he gave one of his servants a very unusual order. Whenever dinner was served, the servant was to stand before him and say the same words. Three times. Every day. “Master, remember the Athenians.” “Master, remember the Athenians.” “Master, remember the Athenians.” Only a few years earlier, Athens had been struggling with tyrants, rival families and bitter internal conflict. Now its citizens had begun governing themselves. And almost immediately, this small city had done something audacious enough to attract the attention of the most powerful empire in the world. For Darius, Athens was still only a name. A name he needed a servant to repeat. But not for long. Less than a decade after the burning of Sardis, a Persian army crossed the Aegean and landed on a plain northeast of Athens. The place was called Marathon. There, the Persians would finally meet the people their king had once needed help remembering. The Athenians. And at Marathon, the name would become impossible to forget. It was there that the legend of democratic Athens truly began.