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72 General History of Europe a strong navy, and had therefore long been trying to show the Athenians that the only way in which Athens could hope to meet the assault of Persia was by making herself undisputed mistress of the sea. He found it hard to convince his fellow citizens, but the danger of a new Persian attack led them to change their minds. MOUND RAISED AS A MONUMENT TO THE FALLEN GREEKS AT MARATHON The mound is nearly fifty feet high. Excavations undertaken in 1890 disclosed beneath it the bodies of the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian citizens who fell in the battle 107. Xerxes' Attack; Creation of an Athenian Navy. Darius the Great, whose remarkable reign we have studied ( 55 )> died without having avenged the defeat of his army at Marathon. His son and successor, Xerxes, therefore took up the unfinished task. The Greeks made ready to meet the new Persian assault. They soon learned that Xerxes' commanders were making a canal behind the promontory of Athos, to secure a short cut and thus to avoid all risk of such a wreck as had overtaken their former fleet in rounding this dangerous point. When the news of this operation reached Athens, Themistocles was at last able to induce the Athenian Assembly to build a great fleet of about a hundred