The History of Antiquity Volume Vi Part 11

[229] Oppert after the Turanian text: "I slew much people from the army of Nidintabel, and drove others to the river; they were drowned in the river."

[230] The Turanian version mentions Egypt after a.s.syria. In the inscription nothing is said of this country; no Egyptians are found in the rows of the conquered rebels.

[231] The two Egibi-tablets quoted by Boscawen in "Trans. Bibl. Arch."

6, 68, on Nebuchadnezzar III. have been rightly ascribed by Oppert, relying on the names of the witnesses, to the later rebellion of Arakha.

[232] Cf. Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 346.

[233] Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 346. The day of the month belongs to the corresponding Babylonian month Tebet.

[234] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 75; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 347.

[235] Above, Vol. V. 323. The district of Otene belongs no doubt to Armenia. Steph. Byz. _sub voce_.

[236] What Herodotus relates of Zopyras, Ctesias relates of his son Megabyzus II. in regard to this new rising, of which we have no more accurate knowledge in any other source, but which must not be called in question. Herodotus himself indicates a rebellion under Xerxes, in which the golden image of Belus was taken away from the lower chamber in the great temple (1, 183), and we have Strabo's statement of the destruction of Belus by Xerxes, p. 738. If Darius, as Herodotus tells us, 3, 159, "destroyed the gates of Babylon," it does not follow that he opened the supposed tomb of Nitocris over the main gateway, because it made it impa.s.sable, as Herodotus thinks (1, 187).

[237] Vol. V. p. 10, _n._

[238] Oppert, "Peuple des Medes," p. 133.

[239] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 76, 77; Spiegel, "Altpers.

Keilinschriften," Bag. 3, 3; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 351.

[240] Oppert, "Records of the Past," 7, 104. The date of this rebellion cannot be accurately fixed. The pa.s.sage in the inscription of Behistun which bears upon it stands at the close of the connected narrative; we should therefore have to a.s.sume that it took place in the year 517 B.C., for this pa.s.sage begins with the words, "When I was in Persia and Media," which in the connection can only have the meaning: When I was occupied with the overthrow of Phraortes and Vahyazdata. On the other hand the Egibi-tablets are wanting for the seventh year of Darius only, so that according to this the year 515 B.C. would be the year of the rebellion of Arakha. Above, p. 240, _n_.

[241] Polyaen. 7, 27.

[242] Oppert, "Peuple des Medes," p. 158, inserts at the beginning of this fifth column of the inscription of Behistun before _thardam_: _duvadacamam_, so that we get the meaning; "This is what I have done up to the twelfth year." The eleventh year of Darius ends in spring 510.

But chronological dates are not to be obtained by merely emending the text. According to the context and the first line of Col. v. Darius said in reference to the four preceding columns: "This I have done up to this or that year." Then follows the narrative of the new rebellion of the Babylonians and the subjugation of the Sacae. If the rebellion of Arakha took place in the seventh year of Darius, as Oppert himself a.s.sumes, we should rather insert _astemam_ before _thardam_.

[243] Diodor. 2, 13; 17, 110. Suidas [Greek: Bagistanon oros]. Ritter, "Erdkunde," 9, 350.

[244] Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 31 ff. Oppert in the "Journal Asiatique," S. 4, VOL XVII., 322 ff., and "Peuple des Medes," p. 151 ff., Col. iv. 19. Oppert after a Turanian version above the picture here translates as follows: "Et Darius le roi dit: par la grace d'Ormuzd j'ai fait une collection de textes ailleurs en langue arienne, qui autrefois n'existait pas. Et j'ai fait un texte de la loi et un commentaire de la loi et la benediction et les traductions. Et ce fut ecrit et je le promulgai en entier, puis je retablis l'ancien livre dans tous les pays et les peuples le reconnurent."

CHAPTER XV.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DARIUS ON THE INDUS AND THE DANUBE.

Aeschylus represents the Persians as saying, "A great, prosperous, victorious life was granted to us by destiny, when King Darius, the lord of the bow, Susa's beloved captain, governed the land, without fault or failure, like a G.o.d. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he was filled with a G.o.dlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born G.o.d of Persia, lead our army. We were seen in splendid array; there was ready for him the unwearying might of armed men, and troops mingled from all nations, and the return from the wars was glorious. According to his will, he ruled the wealthy populous cities of the Greeks in the land of Ionia, and the wave-beaten islands of the seas, adjacent to that land, Chios, Lesbos and Samos rich in olives, and Lemnos between both sh.o.r.es, and the cities of Cyprus, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis. Many cities he took adjacent to the Thracian borders on the Strymonian Sea: even the walled cities, far from the sh.o.r.e, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the strait of h.e.l.le, on the bay of the Propontis, and the mouth of the Pontus. Beloved hero, thy like lies not in the land of Persia."[245]

The rebellions were crushed, the kingdom of Cyrus was once more established. Darius took precautions to prevent the recurrence of such serious dangers, and to bring the nations into a lasting state of dependence. He created fixed districts for government, strengthened the action of the central power, secured the necessary means for this, and sought to arrange the taxes and tributes of the provinces and settle them at fixed contributions. Along with this improvement in the organization of the kingdom he kept in sight the extension of it; he did not wish to be left behind Cyrus and Cambyses in this respect. We cannot decide whether the northern boundary of the kingdom reached the Caucasus in the time of Cyrus; it is certain that under Darius the nations between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Colchians, the Tibarenes, Chalybes, Moschians, and Saspeires, were subject to the Persians.

Herodotus observes that the Colchians and their neighbours paid the tribute which they had imposed upon themselves--which implies that these nations submitted voluntarily. "The empire of the Persians," Herodotus tells us, "extends to the Caucasus; the territory to the north pays no heed to them."[246] It was a considerable gain when the kingdom extended as far as the Caucasus, or included the whole range; for by this means it acquired a strong natural border, and at the same time controlled the trading road which ran from the east and the Caspian Sea through the valleys of the Cyrus (Kur) and the Phasis to the Black Sea.

In the East Cyrus, as we saw, had already advanced as far as the Indus; he had conquered the Acvakas on the north of the Cabul, and the Gandaras to the south of that river. Of their neighbours, Bactria and Arachosia had remained true during the great rebellion, though the Sattagydae (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched against the Sacae, and reduced them again to subjection. Herodotus tells us, that he sent out a party to explore the Indus; in which was Scylax, an inhabitant of Caryanda in Caria. They set out from the land of the Pactyes (_i.e._ from Arachosia), and from the city of Caspatyrus (Cabul) they followed the course of the Indus to the sea. Then they sailed to the west, and in the thirtieth month they arrived at the point from which the Phenicians started, who sailed round Africa at the command of Necho (III. 313), _i.e._ they did not return to the Persian Gulf but sailed round Arabia, and landed in the north-west corner of the Arabian Gulf at Heroonpolis. After their return Darius made use of this sea, and subjugated the Indians.[247] The extension of the Persian kingdom in the land of the Indus, by Darius, is beyond a doubt. In the inscription which he caused to be engraved on Mount Behistun after the suppression of the rebellions, he enumerates the nations which obey him. We can find but one name of an Indian nation to the right of the Indus--the Gandaras. The inscription of the palace of Persepolis, which Darius built a few years later, mentions the Idhus, _i.e._ the Indians, besides the Gandarians. Herodotus further informs us that it was the Northern Indians whom Darius had subjugated. They formed the twentieth satrapy of his kingdom, while the Gandarians were united with the Arachoti in the seventh satrapy. The twentieth satrapy of Northern Indians comprised the lands to the north of Cabul, on the right bank of the stream, from the land of the Acvakas as far as the summits of the Himalayas. It paid 360 talents of gold, the highest tax among all the satrapies of the kingdom.[248]

In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea, and carry the empire of Persia into Europe--a point which none of the great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us, that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power, desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest nations with less forces.[249] The first achievement of Darius in this direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest with Persia the possession of the aegean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his willingness to lay down his power. But when the n.o.bles of Samos demanded an account of the treasures of Polycrates which were in the hands of Maeandrius, he treacherously seized those who made the demand, threw them into prison, and maintained himself as tyrant. At an earlier time, Polycrates, in close union with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson, had made himself master of Samos: he then removed the former out of his path, and sent the second into banishment. Syloson went to Egypt to amuse himself with the sights of the country. There, according to Herodotus, he was one day seen by Darius, who was then in Egypt with Cambyses, in the market-place of Memphis, clad in a red cloak. The cloak pleased Darius and he wished to purchase it, but Syloson hastened to offer it as a present to the Persian prince. When Darius became king, Syloson went to Susa, as Herodotus relates, placed himself at the gate of the palace, and told the door-keeper that he had done a service to the king. Darius in astonishment at such an a.s.sertion from a Greek, caused Syloson to be brought, remembered the cloak, and was prepared to reward the gift by a liberal present of gold and silver. But Syloson urged the king to restore him to the throne of Polycrates, which was now in the hands of a man who had been a slave in his family; the island was to be spared.[250]

Whether this narrative has any real foundation or not (in any case Susa must be struck out) Darius found it advantageous to get Samos into his power; and, as we have seen, it was a maxim from the time of Cyrus to set up princes in the maritime cities and the islands, who owed their power to the Persians, and who could only maintain it with their help.

He commanded Otanes, whose service in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Magi we know, to cross over into Samos. The Samians had no inclination to fight in the cause of Maeandrius, nor did they venture to resist the Persians.

When Otanes landed with the Persian troops, Maeandrius with his dependants retired into the citadel, and sent a message to Otanes that he was prepared to quit the island. When this had been agreed upon, the captains of the Persians waited without suspicion before the citadel for the departure of Maeandrius and his a.s.sociates, and for the opening of the gates. Then the half-witted brother of Maeandrius, Charilaus, who had been confined in prison in the citadel, burst forth from the open gates with the old mercenaries of Polycrates and fell upon the nearest Persians, who in reliance on the treaty were unprepared for an enemy, and cut the captains down, while Maeandrius pa.s.sed by a subterranean pa.s.sage to the sea, and embarked on board s.h.i.+p. The ma.s.s of the Persians hastened to the rescue; the mercenaries were driven back into the citadel. Enraged at the treachery, Otanes gave the command to cut down all the Samians who fell into the hands of the Persians both within and without the walls. The city was set on fire, and the flames injured the temple of Hera, which was the largest building in Greece after the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. When the citadel had fallen, Syloson received from the Persians (516 B.C.) the ruined city and the desolate island. He enjoyed the throne but a short time, which he had purchased by the ruin of the flouris.h.i.+ng country, and va.s.salage to the great king.[251] The island recovered from the blow which it received from the Persians. Twenty years after the subjugation it could once more equip and man 60 triremes.

The possession of Samos completed the dominion of Darius over the coasts of Anatolia. It was of greater importance to get into his power the two straits which separate Europe from Asia--the h.e.l.lespont and the Bosphorus. If the Greek cities on the Asiatic side were subject, the cities and lands beyond were still to be conquered, and with the conquest of these the Persian empire would set foot in Europe.

Perinthus, a colony of the recently-conquered Samos, Selymbria on the northern sh.o.r.e of the Propontis, and Byzantium on the Bosphorus, both colonies of Megara, recognised the dominion of Darius; in Byzantium, the most important of these cities, a tyrant, Ariston by name, soon took the lead.[252] The European sh.o.r.e of the h.e.l.lespont, the Thracian Chersonesus, had been for more than forty years under the rule of a princely family, which sprang from Attica. One of the oldest n.o.ble families in Attica, which had retired from the country before the usurpation of Pisistratus in 560 B.C.--the Philaidae, had established a princ.i.p.ality there, by protecting and securing the Doloncian Thracians in the peninsula against their fellow-countrymen the Apsinthians, who dwelt at the mouth of the Hebrus. The position which the first of these princes, Miltiades II., thus obtained in the h.e.l.lespont, filled the city of Lampsacus, which lay opposite, on the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, with jealousy and anxiety for her trade; the question in dispute was the control of the busy strait. Lampsacus waged long and vigorous war against Miltiades and his nephew and successor Stesagoras. The latter was followed by his younger brother, Miltiades III. (about 518 B.C.), who had taken the reins of government tightly in hand. The forces of the little princ.i.p.ality did not suffice to offer resistance to the Persians; and the walls of Sestos and Cardia were insufficient. We hear of no resistance, and Miltiades pa.s.sed into the series of Persian va.s.sal princes. In this way he was secured against Lampsacus and Sigeum also, where Pisistratus, in league with Polycrates of Samos, had placed his younger son Hegesistratus as prince about the year 533 B.C., who became a va.s.sal of Persia when Cambyses demanded s.h.i.+ps from the Greek cities, or after the fall of Polycrates, or certainly when Darius extended his sovereignty over Samos.

By the subjugation of Byzantium and the Thracian Chersonesus, Darius was not merely master of the whole of the important trade of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and the cantons of h.e.l.las, with the north sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea, but the path into Europe was in his hand. According to Ctesias, he bade Ariamnes, his satrap in Cappadocia, sail to Scythia and there make prisoners. Ariamnes carried out the command with thirty penteconters, and brought back captives.[253] If the statement is correct, it must refer to an investigation of the north coast of the Black Sea, similar to that made by Darius of the east on the Indus (p.

260), and at a later time of the coasts of h.e.l.las and Magna Graecia.[254] Darius contemplated a great expedition; he wished to cross the straits with a large force, but not to pa.s.s to the west against Macedonia and the cantons of the Greeks, but to the north beyond the Danube. It must have seemed more important to him to secure himself in the north first; the conquest of the west he regarded as less urgent, and also as a less important undertaking. Herodotus tells us that Darius' object was to avenge the incursion which the Scythians made, at the time of Cyaxares, into Media.[255] It is his manner to connect events by a nexus of guilt and punishment; Darius cared very little for the disaster which had fallen on Media. We shall be more correct in ascribing to him the intention of getting the whole sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea into his power, in order that he might reduce the western and northern coasts, when, the south-west, as far as the Caucasus, being already subjugated, the whole sea would be a Persian lake. On the northern edge lay a district fertile in corn, and flouris.h.i.+ng colonies of the Greeks. With this territory and these cities the Persian kingdom would have gained the mouth of the rivers of the north, and the outlet of the trading roads to the nations of the north, as it had already got command of the trading roads which met from the east and west in Colchis. But what really happened to the north of the Danube, so far as we can fix the incidents, does not agree with this plan. The object of the enterprise, unless we a.s.sume that Darius only wished to carry his arms to the most remote nations, cannot be made clear, nor can we follow with certainty all the phases in it.

If Cambyses had supported his expedition against Egypt by the navy of the Phenician cities and the Greek cities of Anatolia, Darius had still more urgent need of their sailors to convey him to Europe, across the Danube. To the mariners of the Anatolian coasts and the islands lying off them, the waters of the Black Sea and the mouths of the Danube and Borysthenes were hardly less familiar than the sh.o.r.es of the aegean. This co-operation was therefore the most essential. Darius called out the navy of the Greek cities of his kingdom, and that navy only; employment was found for the Phenician fleet was another direction. The Greeks had to furnish no less than 600 triremes, _i.e._ a fleet of which the crews reached the total of 120,000 men. That fleet was intended to convey the land army, the levy of the entire kingdom, across the straits, and it must a.s.semble before the army arrived. The task before it was the transport of 700,000 men, for that, according to Herodotus, was the strength of the army of Darius, with numerous horses, and the enormous train of servants, porters, and beasts of burden to Europe. This involved the embarkation and debarkation of the animals,--a long and difficult operation; it was desirable to lose as little time as possible, and more desirable still to keep and maintain a safe connection with Asia in the rear of the army. Hence Darius considered whether it were possible to bridge over one of the straits. He found a Greek who undertook to carry out this idea, and had no scruples in building a bridge to connect the mighty Persian empire with Europe, and facilitate the subjugation of his own countrymen in their native land.

In the island of Samos, so recently conquered by Darius, were the best engineers in Greece. After the construction of the great temple of Hera had been begun, the Samians had found various opportunities of exercising their skill. A long and difficult acqueduct, and breakwaters for the protection of the harbour, had been partly begun and partly carried out before the reign of Polycrates; the building of the palace, the strong fortifications, and, above all, the great docks and harbour-works, which Polycrates set on foot, had given yet further practice to the Samians. From this school came Mandrocles, who undertook the construction of the bridge.

Darius commanded Mandrocles to build a bridge over the Bosphorus, which lay in the direction of his march. This strait was narrower than the h.e.l.lespont, but the current which sets through it from north to south was much stronger. Mandrocles began the structure with the crews and materials of the fleet which had been ordered to a.s.semble.[256] Several hundreds of s.h.i.+ps, fastened together, were placed in the strait,[257]

and carefully anch.o.r.ed against the north wind and the current. On the coast of Asia, the bridge lay to the north of the city of Chalcedon and in its territory; Herodotus supposes that the European end touched the sh.o.r.e between Byzantium and the temple, which, situated to the north of Byzantium at the mouth of the Pontus, served as a signal to the s.h.i.+ps entering the Bosphorus.[258] Polybius remarks that the bridge "was said"

to end at the Hermaeum, which lay on the promontory of the European sh.o.r.e.[259] Strabo places this temple ten stadia to the south of the northern entrance of the Bosphorus.[260] Hence we may a.s.sume that Mandrocles constructed his bridge across the narrowest part of the strait, about 1000 paces in breadth,[261] and that it lay at the place where the castles of Anadoli Hissari and Rumili Hissari now stand opposite each other.

The army was collected, the bridge was ready, when Darius came to Chalcedon. He inspected the bridge, and was greatly pleased with the construction; he embarked on board s.h.i.+p and proceeded for some distance into the Pontus, then he returned to the temple of Zeus Urius on the sh.o.r.e of Asia, at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and looked out into the sea. Before his wishes and his power, and the skill of his Greek engineer, the impossible had become possible; the Bosphorus was compelled to submit to a bridge. Mandrocles received the most valuable presents. The fleet of the Ionians lay on the Black Sea, when the army, which was the greatest that a Persian sovereign had ever brought together, commenced the pa.s.sage. The train was interminable which filed before the king over the sea; the rock on which Darius sat was pointed out for a long time afterwards. Even "shepherd Sacae, of the race of the Scythians, the children of a nomad race," pa.s.sed over the bridge;[262]

the nomads of the steppes of the Oxus were led by Darius against the nomads of the steppes to the north of the Pontus. In remembrance of this pa.s.sage Darius caused two columns of white stone to be erected on the European sh.o.r.e, which recorded the names of all the nations included in the army; the inscription on one side was in the Persian cuneiform (in a.s.syrian letters, as Herodotus says), and on the other in the h.e.l.lenic language and letters. Mandrocles also was proud of his work, and dedicated a picture which represented the bridge, the army crossing it, and Darius sitting on his throne, in the great sanctuary of his city, the temple of Hera at Samos, with the following inscription: "When Mandrocles bridged the fish-teeming Bosphorus, he dedicated this picture to Hera in remembrance of the floating bridge. He obtained the crown, the glory of the Samians, in that he completed the work to the satisfaction of King Darius."[263]

It was in the year 513 B.C. that the armies of Asia trod the soil of Europe.[264] The fleet was ordered to sail along the Thracian coast in the Pontus, then to enter the mouth of the Danube, and there prepare means for the army to cross the river, by procuring supplies, and constructing a bridge, no easy task considering the breadth and rapidity of the stream. The sovereigns of the Greek cities, who owed their elevation to the Persian king, commanded their s.h.i.+ps in person, as Darius had taken the field in person, or entrusted them to their sons.

Thus Histiaeus the son of Lysagoras, the sovereign of Miletus, which was the most powerful of the Greek cities of the coast, commanded his own s.h.i.+ps, Laodamas the s.h.i.+ps of Phocaea, Aeaces the son of Syloson the s.h.i.+ps of Samos, Strattis the s.h.i.+ps of Chios, Aristagoras the s.h.i.+ps of Cyzicus, Metrodorus those of Proconnesus in the Propontis, Daphnis the s.h.i.+ps of Abydus. The s.h.i.+ps of Lampsacus were in the charge of Hippoclus, those of Parium in the charge of Herophantus; and lastly, the sovereigns of the recently-conquered districts, Ariston and Miltiades, commanded the s.h.i.+ps of Byzantium, of Sestos, and Cardia. While the fleet sailed to the Danube, the land army marched for two days from the coast, to the north, in the direction of the Balkan. At the sources of the Tearus, which no doubt are those of the Simir dere, which near Bunar Hissar send up warm and cold springs--thirty-eight in number according to Herodotus--the army rested three days; Darius caused a monument to be erected with an inscription, which Herodotus gives thus: "The springs of the Tearus supply the best and purest water of all rivers, and to these on his march against the Scyths came the bravest and most handsome of men, Darius the son of Hystaspes, the king of the Persians and of all the mainland."[265]

The tribes of the Thracians, through whose districts the expedition marched, submitted without opposition. These were the inhabitants of the region of Salmydessus; the Odrysae in the valley of the Artiscus (_i.e._ the Teke deresi or Nessowa), the Skyrmiads and Nipsaeans, who dwelt near Apollonia, the Greek city on this coast (a colony of Miletus, now Sizepoli), and Mesembria, now Misivri (a colony of the Greeks, planted soon after the other).[266] It was not till the Persians had pa.s.sed the heights of the Balkan that they found resistance. Between this range and the Danube were the Getae, called by Herodotus the most brave and just of all the Thracians. They offered an obstinate resistance, but were nevertheless at once crushed by overpowering numbers.[267] Meanwhile the fleet had advanced two days' voyage up the river from the mouth, and placed the bridge there, _i.e._ at the place where the river becomes one stream. By this bridge the Greek army, to use the expression of Herodotus, pa.s.sed "over the greatest river which we know." Strabo says that the bridge was placed over the lower part of the southern, and largest, of the mouths of the Danube; which was called the sacred mouth.

On the further sh.o.r.e began the land of the Scoloti. When the army had crossed the Danube, Darius, as Herodotus relates, wished to destroy the bridge and employ the crews in his army. But on the advice of Coes of Lesbos, who pointed out that he must leave the way open for his return, Darius abandoned his purpose; he then summoned the princes of Ionia, and gave them a thong with 60 knots, bidding them untie a knot each day. If the army did not return to the bridge in these 60 days they were to go home.[268]

The three kings of the Scoloti (III. 236) Idanthyrsus, who inherited the largest dominion, Scopasis and Taxakis--so Herodotus relates--as soon as they received news of the approach of Darius, sent messengers to their neighbours to ask for a.s.sistance. The kings of the Agathyrsi (the western neighbours of the Scoloti), the Neuri, the Cannibals and Melanchlaeni (who lay to the north), and the kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini, who dwelt in the east beyond the Don, a.s.sembled for consultation. The kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini agreed to send help to the Scoloti, but the rest refused. As the Agathyrsi, Neuri, Cannibals, and Melanchlaeni would not help them in the contest, the Scoloti determined to decline battle with the Persians and retire. Their wives and children they placed on chariots together with the rest of their goods, took their slaves and herds and marched to a secure position in the north; only so much cattle was left with the army as was necessary for its support. Then the army was divided into two parts. One under the command of Scopasis was to unite with the Sarmatians and retire straight towards the Don, if the Persians took that direction; it was to keep one or two marches ahead of the Persians, to stop up the springs and fountains, and destroy the pastures; but if Darius turned, it was at once to pursue the Persians. The other part of the army, under Idanthyrsus and Taxakis, was to unite with the Budini and Geloni, and to march in a similar manner to the north as far as the land of the Neuri, the Cannibals, and Melanchlaeni, in order to involve them in the war. The army of Scopasis found the Persians already three days' march on their side of the Danube. It retired, and the Persians pursued as far as the Don. When the Scoloti and Sarmatians crossed the river, the Persians crossed it also; in pursuit of the Scythians they marched through the land of the Sarmatians, reached that of the Budini, where they burned the great wooden city of the Geloni, which they found entirely deserted, and at length came to the desert which extended for seven days' journey to the north of the land of the Budini. When Darius reached the desert he abandoned the further pursuit, and encamped his army on the bank of the Oarus (_i.e._ the Volga). At the same time he built eight great fortresses, at equal distances, each about sixty stades from the other, the remains of which, Herodotus remarks, existed in his day. While Darius was thus occupied, the army of Scopasis in the north marched back into their own land and united with the army of Idanthyrsus. When the Scythians were no more to be seen, Darius left the fortresses unfinished, turned to the west, under the impression that the Scythians would retire in that direction, hastened in rapid marches to the land of the Scoloti, and there found the united army of the Scythians. Again the Scoloti retired, and as Darius did not cease to press them, they pa.s.sed, as they had resolved, over the northern boundary of their land, into the land of the Melanchlaeni, who dwelt beyond the Scoloti, between the Don and the Gerrhus, a tributary of the Dnieper. From the land of the Melanchlaeni they proceeded yet further to the west, through the land of the Cannibals into that of the Neuri, who lay above the lake out of which the Dniester flows (III. 231). All these tribes fled before the approach of the Scoloti and the Persians to the north; but when the Scoloti wished to cross the borders of the Agathyrsi, they prepared to defend them, and compelled the Scoloti to return from the land of the Neuri to the south into their own land.

When this went on, and there was no end, Darius sent a horseman to Idanthyrsus with the request that he would either stand and fight, if he had the forces to do so, or send earth and water to him as his master.

Idanthyrsus answered that the Scoloti had neither cities nor lands which made it necessary to fight with the Persians in order to defend them; but if Darius was eager for a battle, there were the tombs of their fathers; let him discover these and attack them, he would then see whether the Scoloti dare fight or not. On this the Scoloti sent the part of the army which Scopasis commanded, with the Sarmatians, to the Danube, in order to negotiate with the Ionians at the bridge, but the army of Idanthyrsus was not to retire any longer, but to attack the Persians as soon as they began to prepare the meal after the day's march. This was done, and each time the Persian cavalry were put to flight by the Scoloti; but as soon as the foot soldiers came to the rescue of the cavalry, the Scoloti retired. In this way the Scoloti attacked the Persians by night also. And their kings (Idanthyrsus and Taxakis) sent to Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

Gobryas, the father-in-law of Darius, interpreted these gifts to mean, that the Scythian message was: Unless you become birds and fly into heaven, or mice and creep into the earth, or frogs and leap into the marshes, you will succ.u.mb to our arrows. The Scoloti also, who were now armed for battle, drew out with horse and foot; and when they were in line, a hare ran past and the Scoloti chased it, one after the other, as they happened to catch sight of it. Then Darius said, These men hold us in great contempt; Gobryas has correctly interpreted the meaning of the gifts; we must carefully consider how we are to secure our return.

Gobryas advised that they should light the camp fires as usual when night came on; that they should leave behind the sick and weak, who could not bear burdens, in the camp, and with the rest set out at once for the Danube before the Scythians reached the river and broke down the bridge, or the Ionians came to some resolution ruinous to the Persians.

This advice Darius followed. The sick and exhausted, and all whose loss would be of little importance, were commanded to defend the camp, as the king with the rest of the army wished to make an attack on the Scythians, and as soon as the fires had been lighted Darius began his march to the Danube. On the following morning those who had been left behind perceived that they had been betrayed by Darius, and prayed for quarter to the Scythians. The whole army of the Scythians with the Budini, the Geloni, and Sarmatians, went straight to the Danube, for Scopasis with his division had already retired from the river, after telling the Ionians that they must not allow the bridge to stand after the sixtieth day, and the Ionians had given a promise to that effect. As all the Scythians were mounted they marched far more rapidly than the Persians and could soon have caught up Darius, had not the Persians in ignorance taken a longer route, so that Idanthyrsus with the whole army of the Scythians reached the Danube before Darius arrived. The Scythians now called upon the leaders of the Greeks to break down the bridge, for the appointed time had pa.s.sed; by that means they would get rid of their master, and might thank the G.o.ds and the Scythians for their liberation.

As the sixty days during which the fleet was to remain in the Danube, by the command of Darius, were really past, Miltiades of the Chersonnesus urged the captains of the Greek s.h.i.+ps to listen to the request of the Scythians, and set the Ionians at liberty. But Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, said that each of them held his power in his city by Darius only; if the king's power were overthrown, he would not be a tyrant in Miletus, nor would any other tyrant keep his throne; every city would prefer democracy to tyranny. When all, with the exception of Miltiades, had agreed to this resolution, they determined to remain, but to prevent the bridge from being used by the Scythians they destroyed it for the length of a bowshot from the northern bank. Thinking that the Greeks were removing the whole bridge, the Scythians returned, to seek out Darius and destroy him. But they missed the Persians yet a second time.

They thought that the Persians would seek out the places where the wells had not been stopped up, and the pastures had not been destroyed; but they returned by the way that they came, and their enemies with great difficulty reached the crossing of the Danube. It was night, the bridge could not be found, and the Persians were in great alarm that the Ionians had abandoned them. Then Darius commanded an Egyptian, who had a very loud voice, to come forward to the bank and call for Histiaeus of Miletus. The cry was heard; Histiaeus at once sent all the s.h.i.+ps to transfer the troops, and restored the bridge.

Clear and definite as the incidents are which lead Darius to the Danube, the river is no sooner crossed than everything pa.s.ses into northern mists, into the marvellous and the incredible. Let us first consider the conduct of the Scoloti. The kings of the barbarous north, though far distant from each other--Herodotus gives the land of the Scoloti a length and breath of 500 miles--meet in a great congress. Where the congress was held we are not told. The kings of the Agathyrsi, Neuri, Melanchlaeni, and Cannibals find that the matter does not concern them, for they had not invaded Media. But the distant tribes to the east beyond the Don, the Sarmatians, Budini, and Geloni, come a distance of hundreds of miles to a.s.sist their neighbours; they carry their public spirit so far as to sacrifice their own lands, regardless of which the Budini and Geloni march with Idanthyrsus first to the north and then to the west; the Sarmatians follow Scopasis far to the north-east. Why the Scythians divided their army in the first instance, why they did not unite to meet Darius, we cannot ascertain. We are not told what Idanthyrsus is doing while Scopasis retires to the Volga; we only know that the two armies again unite, while Darius is building the castles on the Volga. When united the Scythians retire to the west as far as the borders of the Agathyrsi, _i.e._ to Transylvania, the most foolish thing for their own interests which they could have done, for by this means they brought Darius back into the neighbourhood of the Danube. On the borders of the Agathyrsi Darius summons them to battle. The princes answer that they will fight if he attacks the tombs of their fathers.

These tombs we have found in the neighbourhood of the Gerrhus; they are the numerous Kurgans below the rapids of the Dnieper,[269] a region which Darius must have traversed on his way north-eastwards to the Volga. Darius does not accede to the request of the Scythians.

Nevertheless they determined to attack the Persians, and yet contradict the object of this attack by sending Scopasis with his army and the Sarmatians to the Danube, thus weakening the army. When Scopasis and the Sarmatians are gone, Idanthyrsus offers the battle hitherto so carefully avoided, with cavalry and infantry, though Herodotus remarks that the Scythians have no infantry. Meanwhile Scopasis comes with his army to the Danube, not to fight with the Greeks but to treat with them. What reasons had the Scythians not to treat the Greeks as enemies? If they wished to cut off the return of Darius, they must attack the bridge and destroy it. If they thought that they could not do this, or did not wish to do it, but to treat, they need not have sent half the army with the Sarmatians, but only a few hors.e.m.e.n. The Greeks were able to protect the bridge with a fort, upon which the Scythian cavalry could hardly have made any effectual impression, or if they neglected to do that, they could at any moment, if watchful, bring the bridge to their own side of the river, and then secure it with all their s.h.i.+ps till Darius should appear on the farther sh.o.r.e. But the Scythians send Scopasis with his army. He tells the Ionians that he knew that Darius had ordered them to wait sixty days; they were to wait till the time had pa.s.sed and then sail away. When the Greeks had undertaken to do this Scopasis marches with his army to the north. He joins Idanthyrsus again when Darius has begun his retreat. The united army reaches the bridge long before Darius. A second time we have negotiations with the Ionians. The sixty days are past, and the Scythians entreat the Ionians to sail away now, at any rate. They are satisfied when the Greeks remove a part of the bridge, saying that they have begun to break it up and will now sail home. They do not wait till they see all the s.h.i.+ps sailing down the stream. They have cut off Darius; he cannot escape them and reach the Danube. But they turn back into the steppe, and miss him again.

Still more unintelligible and extraordinary is the conduct of Darius.

When the Danube has been crossed he commands the Greeks to break down the bridge; the crews are to join the army on land. It would follow from this that Darius thought the bridge no longer necessary. It was not his intention therefore to return to the Danube, but to march round the Black Sea, and over the Caucasus, if indeed he did not mean to skirt the northern sh.o.r.e of the Caspian and return home over the Oxus. If this was his object why did he not avail himself of the important a.s.sistance which the fleet could afford him, and command it to accompany the march of the army along the northern sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea? It would then have brought provisions to the army, or to the mouths of the rivers, and supported any attacks on the Greek cities of these coasts; on Tyras at the mouth of the Dniester, on Ordessus on the Teligul, on Olbia at the mouth of the Bug, and Panticapaeum on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. To leave the attack on the Greek cities to the Greek s.h.i.+ps only would be dangerous, but there was no danger in giving them a share in it if the main point was to strengthen the army on land. But Darius wished neither to use the fleet, nor to allow the bridge to stand, which is the more remarkable as the bridges on the Bosphorus were not removed but allowed to remain, obviously under the protection of Greek men-of-war. At the Danube Darius has to be informed for the first time by a Greek that a way must be left open for his return. Nevertheless he does not order the Greeks to keep the bridge till further notice, or till his return. For sixty days only after his departure does he leave the means for his return open; so long the bridge is to remain; when that time has expired, the fleet is to sail away. What interest had Darius in allowing the Greeks to depart home as quickly as possible? In order to fix this period of time, he gives the leader of the Greeks a thong with sixty knots. The calendars of the Persians and Greeks were different; there were variations in the calendars of the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians; but sixty days could have been fixed without a strap and knots. Beyond the Danube Darius blindly follows the division of Scopasis, wherever it leads him away to the east and north as far as the Volga. On what did the army of Darius subsist--and it numbered 700,000 men, or if we include the train, it reached a total of about a million--for more than two months in a country in which, according to Herodotus' own statement, there was no tilled land except at the mouths of the Bug and Dnieper, and in which the advancing Scythians had destroyed the wells and pastures, as Herodotus a.s.serts? How did the Persians cross the Tyras (Dniester), Hypanis (Bug), Borysthenes (Dnieper), and the Tanais (Don)?

From whence did they procure the wood for the bridges or rafts for crossing them, in the steppe which Herodotus rightly describes as entirely without wood down to the forests on the southern edge? Whence came the water for man and beast in the waterless desert? When Darius had crossed the Don Herodotus represents him as building eight large fortresses beyond the river on the bank of the Volga, the object of which it is impossible to discover; and in a s.p.a.ce of a little more than two months he represents the Persian army as not only building these forts but marching round the whole territory of Scythia, which in his description extends for 500 miles from the mouth of the Danube to the mouth of the Don, and an equal distance northwards into the land, and even far beyond it. Darius marches as far as the Volga on the east, and northwards to the desert which lies beyond the Sarmatians (whose territory extends for fifteen days' journey up the Don),[270] and also beyond the Budini, "a great and numerous people," and the Geloni (p.

275). From this point he returns, according to Herodotus, through the territory of the northern neighbours of the Scythians to the west, as far as the lake out of which the Tyras (Dniester) rises, till the Scythians, who are a day's march in advance of the Persians, reach the land of the Agathyrsi. According to Herodotus' reckoning of the distances, Darius traversed a journey of about a hundred days' marches of twenty-five miles each, in less than fifty days. If Herodotus allows the region of the Scoloti to extend too far to the north, if on the Dnieper it reached only to the rapids of the stream, where the tombs of the Scythian kings lay, the distance, on the other hand, from the mouth of the Danube to the Don, on which the Scoloti and the Sarmatians bordered, and which Darius is said to have crossed, was far greater than Herodotus a.s.sumes; it is at least 750 miles, and from the mouth of the Danube to the Volga at least 900 miles, which on the route taken by Darius could not possibly have been traversed both ways in eighty or ninety days. Herodotus does not allow Darius even this s.p.a.ce of time.

According to his account, the march of Darius to the desert, which separates the land of the Budini and Geloni on the north from the Thyssagetae, to the bank of the Volga, the building of the castles, the return from this point to the borders of the Agathyrsi and the lake from which the Dnieper springs, did not occupy sixty days. It is in this region that the Scythians resolve to retire no farther, but to attack the Persians daily, when they begin to cook their food in a land barren of wood, and they send Scopasis from this point to the Danube. Scopasis reaches the river before the expiration of the sixty days for which Darius has bidden the Ionians wait; indeed, the Scythians of Idanthyrsus occasionally surrender flocks to the army of Darius, in order that the Persians may not think of retiring, _i.e._ in order to keep them in Scythia till the sixty days are at an end. Impossible as all these marches are, especially in the short s.p.a.ce which Herodotus allots to them, the conduct of Darius is more impossible still. He advances beyond the Don as far as the Volga, in order to build fortresses which he does not complete; from this point he marches back again after the Scythians as far as the sources of the Dniester in order to bring on a conflict. At last they draw out for battle; Darius has attained the object he so greatly desired. Then follows the hunting of the hare by the Scythians, and Darius determines to march away rapidly in the same night to the Danube; "because the Scythians held them in contempt." He fortunately reached the bridge by taking the road on which he had come, but the Scythians a.s.sume that as the wells had been stopped up and the pastures destroyed, he could not come by that route. But how could the Persians, who when advancing had marched to the north-east to the Don, strike out the same path on their return, upon which they started on the borders of Transylvania, and the sources of the Tyras (Dniester)?

The course of affairs must have been widely different. As Darius allowed the bridge over the Bosphorus to remain, and left the fleet on the Danube, it cannot have been his fixed purpose to coast round the Black Sea. But in any case he must preserve his communications with Asia and Persia and support his army. All the sick, or wounded, or unserviceable men in the army, and all the messengers could only be sent back over the bridge on the Danube. The crews of the fleet were the rear-guard of the army, maintaining and defending its communications. It had also to provide for its own maintenance, _i.e._ for the needs of more than 100,000 men, and no doubt it likewise collected the provisions for the army by land. However great the stores which the army brought with it, they would soon be consumed in the steppe, unless supplemented.

Wherever Darius marched, he could not venture, with the enormous ma.s.s of men and animals in his army, to go more than a few days' march at the most from the river-courses. The idea of retiring before the enemy naturally occurred to a people who were without a settled habitation, who wandered in hordes through fixed districts of pasture, living on the backs of their horses, and carrying their women and children with them in waggons drawn by oxen (III. 234). What had they to lose, and what could they fear from the Persians, if the unarmed, the women, children, servants, and herds, had already been sent at the right time under safe convoys far into the interior towards the neighbouring nations?--if all the men--and the Scoloti were not a numerous nation[271]--collected together, and accustomed as they were to abstinence, and living in continual movement, advancing far more lightly and rapidly on their steppe-horses than their enc.u.mbered opponents, hovered round their enemy, stopped up wells and destroyed pastures, without ever engaging in battle? If the Scythians were wise, they would not retire to the east, where Darius could approach the coast, and bring up his fleet with auxiliaries, but away from the sea, _i.e._ to the north. If the Scythians were not terrified by the enormous power of Darius, and knew how to avoid battles, the army of Darius would soon be ruined by its own numbers in the desert.