Famous Stories

A Story Of Robin Hood
In the rude days of King Rich-ard and King John there were ...

Picciola
Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of...

Maximilian And The Goose Boy
One summer day King Max-i-mil'ian of Ba-va'ri-a was walking...

The Story Of William Tell
The people of Swit-zer-land were not always free and happy ...

Antonio Canova
A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy who...

Casabianca
There was a great battle at sea. One could hear nothing but...

King Alfred And The Beggar
At one time the Danes drove King Alfred from his kingdom, a...

Sir Walter Raleigh
There once lived in England a brave and noble man whose nam...

King Canute On The Seashore
A hundred years or more after the time of Alfred the Great ...

The Blind Men And The Elephant
There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side ev...

Socrates And His House
There once lived in Greece a very wise man whose name was S...

Doctor Goldsmith
There was once a kind man whose name was Oliver Gold-smith....

Pocahontas
There was once a very brave man whose name was John Smith. ...

Damon And Pythias
A young man whose name was Pyth'i-as had done something whi...

The Endless Tale
In the Far East there was a great king who had no work to d...

Sir Philip Sidney
A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered wit...

The Bell Of Atri
A-tri is the name of a little town in It-a-ly. It is a very...

The Story Of Regulus
On the other side of the sea from Rome there was once a gre...

The Story Of Cincinnatus
There was a man named Cin-cin-na'tus who lived on a little ...

The Kingdoms
There was once a king of Prussia whose name was Frederick W...

THE BRAVE THREE HUNDRED

All Greece was in danger. A mighty army, led by the great King of
Persia, had come from the east. It was marching along the seashore,
and in a few days would be in Greece. The great king had sent
mes-sen-gers into every city and state, bidding them give him water
and earth in token that the land and the sea were his. But they
said,--

"No: we will be free."

And so there was a great stir through-out all the land. The men armed
themselves, and made haste to go out and drive back their foe; and the
women staid at home, weeping and waiting, and trembling with fear.

There was only one way by which the Per-sian army could go into Greece
on that side, and that was by a narrow pass between the mountains and
the sea. This pass was guarded by Le-on'i-das, the King of the
Spartans, with three hundred Spartan soldiers.

Soon the Persian soldiers were seen coming. There were so many of them
that no man could count them. How could a handful of men hope to stand
against so great a host?

And yet Le-on-i-das and his Spartans held their ground. They had made
up their minds to die at their post. Some one brought them word that
there were so many Persians that their arrows dark-ened the sun.

"So much the better," said the Spartans; "we shall fight in the
shade."

Bravely they stood in the narrow pass. Bravely they faced their foes.
To Spartans there was no such thing as fear. The Persians came
forward, only to meet death at the points of their spears.

But one by one the Spartans fell. At last their spears were broken;
yet still they stood side by side, fighting to the last. Some fought
with swords, some with daggers, and some with only their fists and
teeth.

All day long the army of the Persians was kept at bay. But when the
sun went down, there was not one Spartan left alive. Where they had
stood there was only a heap of the slain, all bristled over with
spears and arrows.

Twenty thousand Persian soldiers had fallen before that handful of
men. And Greece was saved.

Thousands of years have passed since then; but men still like to tell
the story of Leonidas and the brave three hundred who died for their
country's sake.





Next: SOCRATES AND HIS HOUSE
Previous: DIOGENES THE WISE MAN

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