24　Greece vs.Persia

Do you know what those two little letters vs. mean between Greece and Persia in the name of this story?

Perhaps you have seen them used on football tickets when there was to be a match between two teams as,for example,Harvard vs. Yale.

They stand for versus,which means against.

Well,there was to be a great match between Greece and Persia,but it wasn't a game；it was a fight for life and death,a fight between little Greece and great big Persia.

Cyrus,the great Persian king,had conquered Babylon and other countries,as well,and he had kept on conquering until Persia ruled most of the world,all except Greece and Italy.

About the year 500 B. C.the new ruler of this vast Persian Empire was a man named Darius.Darius looked at the map,as you might do,and saw that he owned and ruled over a large part of it.What a pity,thought he,that there should be a little country like Greece that did not belong to him！

Darius said to himself，“I must have this piece of land called Greece to complete my