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 god. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he was filled with a godlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born god 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 shores, 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 shore, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the strait of Helle, 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 Açvakas 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 Sattagydæ (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched against the Sacæ, 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 Açvakas 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 Ægean (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 nobles 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 assertion 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 assassination 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 associates, 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 passed by a subterranean passage to the sea, and embarked on board ship. The mass 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 flourishing country, and vassalage 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 Hellespont 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 shore 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 shore of the Hellespont, 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 noble families in Attica, which had retired from the country before the usurpation of Pisistratus in 560 B.C.—the Philaidae, had established a principality 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 Hellespont, filled the city of Lampsacus, which lay opposite, on the Asiatic shore, 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 principality 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 passed into the series of Persian vassal 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 vassal of Persia when Cambyses demanded ships 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 Hellas, with the north shore 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 Hellas and Magna Graecia.[254] Darius contemplated a great expedition; he wished to cross the straits with a large force, but not to pass 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 shore 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 flourishing 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 assume 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 shores of the Ægean. 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 assemble 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 Hellespont, 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 assemble.[256] Several hundreds of ships, fastened together, were placed in the strait,[257] and carefully anchored 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 shore between Byzantium and the temple, which, situated to the north of Byzantium at the mouth of the Pontus, served as a signal to the ships entering the Bosphorus.[258] Polybius remarks that the bridge "was said" to end at the Hermaeum, which lay on the promontory of the European shore.[259] Strabo places this temple ten stadia to the south of the northern entrance of the Bosphorus.[260] Hence we may assume 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 ship and proceeded for some distance into the Pontus, then he returned to the temple of Zeus Urius on the shore 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 passage. 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 Sacæ, of the race of the Scythians, the children of a nomad race," passed 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 passage Darius caused two columns of white stone to be erected on the European shore, which recorded the names of all the nations included in the army; the inscription on one side was in the Persian cuneiform (in Assyrian letters, as Herodotus says), and on the other in the Hellenic 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 ships 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 ships, Laodamas the ships of Phocaea, Aeaces the son of Syloson the ships of Samos, Strattis the ships of Chios, Aristagoras the ships of Cyzicus, Metrodorus those of Proconnesus in the Propontis, Daphnis the ships of Abydus. The ships 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 ships 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 passed 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, passed "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 shore 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 assistance. The kings of the Agathyrsi (the western neighbours of the Scoloti), the Neuri, the Cannibals and Melanchlæni (who lay to the north), and the kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini, who dwelt in the east beyond the Don, assembled 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 Melanchlæni 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 Melanchlæni, 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 passed, as they had resolved, over the northern boundary of their land, into the land of the Melanchlæni, who dwelt beyond the Scoloti, between the Don and the Gerrhus, a tributary of the Dnieper. From the land of the Melanchlæni 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 succumb 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 passed; by that means they would get rid of their master, and might thank the gods 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 ships 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 ships 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 passes 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, Melanchlæni, 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 assist 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 horsemen. 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 ships till Darius should appear on the farther shore. 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 passed 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 ships 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 shore of the Caspian and return home over the Oxus. If this was his object why did he not avail himself of the important assistance which the fleet could afford him, and command it to accompany the march of the army along the northern shore 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 ships 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 asserts? 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 space 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 assumes; 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 space 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 space 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 assume 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 mass 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 encumbered 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.
As a fact this is the way in which the war beyond the Danube seems to have been carried on. Herodotus tells us that Darius came upon the Scythians three marches beyond the Danube. If he found their forces united, he must have hoped to engage them in a battle which would have decided the campaign at one stroke in his favour. But these mounted opponents could not be captured, Darius sinks deeper and deeper into the desert, till he is compelled by distress to return, and his retreat was made an occasion of heavy losses by the light-armed Scythians.
In the excerpt from the narrative of Trogus preserved by Justin, which may have been derived from Deinon's "Persian History," we are told: "The Scythians drove back Darius the king of the Persians in shameful flight. When Iancyrus (i. e. Idanthyrsus), the king of the Scythians, had refused to give his daughter in marriage to Darius, Darius made war upon him, and invaded Scythia with 700,000 soldiers. As the Scythians gave him no opportunity of battle, he retreated in great anxiety lest the bridge over the Danube should be broken in his rear, after losing 80,000 men. Owing to the abundance of men this loss was not considered a disaster."[272] In Ctesias the king of the Scythians is called Scytharbes. "Darius collected an army of 800,000 men, bridged the Bosphorus and the Danube, marched into Scythia, and penetrated for a distance of fifteen days. Scytharbes and Darius sent each other the gift of a bow. As the bow of the Scythian was the stronger, Darius retired over the bridge and broke it up, before the whole army had passed over. Those who were left behind, 80,000 men in number, were cut down by Scytharbes. Darius crossed the bridge over the Bosphorus, and burnt the houses and the temples of Chalcedon, because the Chalcedonians had attempted to destroy the bridge, and had thrown down the altar which Darius had set up at the crossing."[273] Strabo remarks: "At the mouths of the Danube there is a large island, Peuce. The mouths are seven in number, and the largest is called the sacred mouth; the distance to Peuce by this is 120 stadia; above the lower part of this mouth Darius built the bridge; it might have been bridged on the upper part also. It is the first if you take the left hand when sailing into Pontus; the rest follow in the voyage to Tyras. On the Pontic Sea, from the Danube to the Tyras (Dniester) is the desert of the Getae, a vast waterless plain. When Darius, the son of Hystaspes, crossed the Ister, to march against the Scythians, he was in danger of perishing by thirst with his whole army through being cut off in this desert; but he discovered his danger just in time, and returned.[274] For the support of the camel which had best sustained with him the weariness of the journey through the desert of Scythia, and had carried the baggage with the provisions of the king, he apportioned the hamlet of Gaugamela in Assyria," i. e. its income and tribute, or natural products.[275] The level desert of Strabo, between the Danube and the Dniester, includes Moldavia as far as the eastern slopes of the mountains of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Podolia. Herodotus also represents the decisive charge in the campaign as taking place in the neighbourhood of the Agathyrsi, i. e. the inhabitants of Transylvania. Ctesias tells us that Darius had marched fifteen days beyond the Danube. Reckoning a day's march at 25 miles, as Herodotus does, Darius would thus have advanced 75 miles to the north of the Danube, with which the assertion of Herodotus agrees, that the Scoloti retired before Darius to the border of the land of the Agathyrsi, and the lake out of which the Tyras rises, but no further. By the lake out of which the Tyras rises we can hardly understand the lakes at Lemberg, for Darius could scarcely have come so far to the west. The marshes at the source of the Bug are probably meant, which as the crow flies are 325 miles from Reni, on the Danube. If the Scoloti ventured to retire but a little way from the river courses, the Persians retired still less. Hence the retreat of the Scythians and the advance of Darius must have proceeded up the Pruth, through Bessarabia to Podolia as far as the marshes on the upper Dniester in which the Bug rises, where Herodotus represents the two armies as encamping opposite each other, or as far as the marshes of the Prypet. The answer which Herodotus puts in the mouth of Idanthyrsus—that Darius should attack the tombs of the kings (on the rapids of the Dniester) and then the Scythians would fight, has a meaning, if Darius was far from the centre of Scythia, and the message was sent to him when in the neighbourhood of the source of the Bug or the Prypet; it was without meaning if he had already traversed the whole land of Scythia as far as the Don and the Volga. Want of provisions for man and beast far more than the want of water would have compelled him to return. Had the Scythians previously surrounded the army of Darius on all sides, they would have thrown themselves with impunity in full force on his rear when retreating. If everything left behind through weariness and sickness had fallen into their hands, they would now not merely hinder the retreat but greatly endanger it. As soon as the communications with the Danube were completely closed (Strabo tells us that Darius was cut off in the desert of the Getae), Darius must have been in alarm whether the fidelity of the tyrants or their desire to maintain their position in their own cities was strong enough to keep them at the bridge, and if this were the case whether they could induce their crews to remain.
Such in its essential outlines must have been the course of the campaign of Darius beyond the Danube. What Herodotus tells us are legends of the Scythians, which he had heard with some additions from his fellow-countrymen, in Ordessus and Olbia. It was the greatest glory of the Scythians not to have succumbed to this attack; no doubt they placed in the most brilliant light the cunning and endurance of their fathers, which brought about this result. We must remove from the series of events the meeting of the barbarians, the assistance of the Geloni, Budini, and Sarmatians, the entire eastern part of the story, no less than the march through the whole of Scythia. That story has no doubt arisen from the supposed object of it—the assumed eight fortresses of Darius on the Volga, the remains of which were in existence in Herodotus' time. These unfinished citadels were either fortifications of some tribe or another, long since abandoned, or ancient tumuli, such as are still frequently found in the steppes above the Black Sea. Some were said to be trenches of the Cimmerians and others trenches of Darius. It was these which gave the direction to the march of Darius. Besides tradition from Greece and Scythia we have isolated traces of Iranian poetry in the accounts of Herodotus, Justin, and Ctesias. To these belong the suit of Darius for the daughter of the king of the Scythians and his refusal, the sending of the bow, and the enigmatical gifts of the Scythians, of which Gobryas could interpret the meaning. Other Greeks could mention the names of different persons who had guessed this riddle.[276]
A peculiar concatenation of circumstances had placed in the hands of the princes of the Greeks of Anatolia the fortune of the Persian army, and with it the fortune of the Persian monarchy and the entire Persian empire. If they left Darius to his fate, removed the bridge, and sailed home with their ships, it would be almost impossible for the Persian king and army to cross the Danube, and the Greek cities would have been free from any foreign dominion. As soon as Darius was at a distance from the bridge, the Scythians must have called upon the Greeks to depart, and they must have repeated their request more urgently when they had cut off Darius's connection with the bridge and intercepted his retreat; they would represent his position to be as desperate as possible. Without doubt Histiaeus of Miletus was commander of the fleet. Not once only, as Herodotus represents, but every day Histiaeus, on whom the greatest responsibility rested, must have discussed with his associates the question of remaining or departing, when it was clear that Darius was in danger, and there could not be a doubt that the Scythians were pressing hard upon him, and perhaps cutting off his return.[277] But there was only one among the tyrants of the Greeks who firmly represented the view that they ought to abandon the king. This was Miltiades of Chersonesus, one of the newest vassals of Persia, who had not been raised to the throne by Darius, but only confirmed in his hereditary principality. The opposite view, according to Herodotus, was heard from the mouth of Histiaeus. It showed how correct was the calculation of Cyrus, when, in order to secure the obedience of the Greek states, he had made the elevation of princes in them one of his principles. There is no doubt that the princes could now have put an end to the dominion of the Persians, but at the same time they would have put an end to their own power; they would have annihilated themselves with the king of the Persians. The large majority of the tyrants, so we are told in Nepos, joined in the opinion of Histiaeus. We can with certainty assume that those of the tyrants who subsequently received peculiar marks of distinction from Darius; Histiaeus of Miletus, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Coes, the leader of the ships of Lesbos, contributed in some essential manner to the retention of the fleet; that it was chiefly they who kept back the others, and above all the crews. But even those tyrants who maintained most strongly that the post entrusted to them should be kept, could not prevent the possibility that the Persians might be detained in the desert; that Darius might not return. In this uncertain and wavering position (Darius remained longer than was expected and thus many people thought him lost), the last decision would be deferred for a certain time, and the crews would be calmed by a promise not to wait for Darius beyond a certain period. The same reply might be made to the demands of the Scythians in order not to ruin their cause with them should they really destroy the army of the Persians. In the other event Darius might be told that the period was merely fixed in order to keep the Scythians away from the bridge. From such a period, which the princes fixed for themselves and their crews, may have arisen the legend of the command of Darius, that they were to wait for sixty days—a story which was afterwards quoted by the Greeks against the tyrants to the effect that they not only faithfully carried out the commands of Darius, but had gone beyond them to rescue him. As a fact Darius must have spent far more than sixty days beyond the Danube if he advanced fifteen full days' marches, according to the reckoning of Herodotus, and penetrated to the sources of the Dniester, the Bug, or the Prypet. For an army like that of Darius could not march more than ten miles a day, and thus the 750 miles of advance and retreat, which in the latter part would have been traversed amid continual encounters, required at least eighty or ninety days. The Ionians had remained, though they had not kept all the contingents with them. The ships of Antandros and Lamponium, and no doubt those of other cities also, had sailed away of their own accord.[278]
How great soever the losses may have been which the army of Darius suffered in Scythia—the number, 80,000, which Ctesias represents as perishing by the premature destruction of the bridge, and which Justin represents as the entire sum of the losses of the army, appears to have been the official amount of the loss among the Persians—when the Danube was crossed, they found security and provisions, rest and refreshment. The Scythians could not force a passage against the ships of war, which controlled the stream, and the land army of the Persians. Undisturbed by them, Darius could now have made better arrangements for continuing the war beyond the Danube, and preparing for the conduct of it, if unexpected events had not compelled him to complete his retreat in haste. Ctesias told us above that the Chalcedonians, on whose territory lay the Asiatic end of the bridge, had attempted to break it down. Strabo relates that Darius burned the cities round the Propontis and Abydus because he was afraid that they might supply the Scythians with transports to Asia.[279] Herodotus tells us, that Darius, on his return from the Danube, marched through Thrace into the land of the Hellespontians; thence he crossed on the ships to Asia, and then repaired himself to Sardis,[280] leaving behind Megabyzus as general in the land of the Hellespontians, who reduced by force of arms those who did not "medize."[281] With the Persians who remained in Europe he first attacked the Perinthians "who would not submit to Darius;" the Perinthians fought bravely for their freedom, but the numbers of the Persians were overpowering.[282] But Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, to whom Darius entrusted the command by sea, took Byzantium, Chalcedon, Antandros, and Lamponium. The reason for enslaving and subjugating these cities, was that he charged some of them with abandoning the army on the march against the Scythians, and others with injuring the army on its return. The latter charge would apply chiefly to Byzantium and Chalcedon.[283] It follows further from the narrative of Herodotus, that Darius awaited the result of the action of Megabyzus and Otanes at Sardis, and did not return to Persia till Megabyzus had penetrated to the west into Thracia, and he had established his brother Artaphernes as satrap at Sardis.[284] Of the Scythians Herodotus tells us that they pursued Darius with their united forces as far as the Thracian Chersonese; Miltiades did not venture to await their arrival there but fled, till the Scythians had retired and the Doloncians had brought him back. Next, in order to punish Darius for his invasion of their land, the Scythians sent an embassy to Sparta, in order to call upon the Spartans to cross over to Ephesus, while they attacked Media from the Phasis.[285]
From this we conclude that a serious rebellion of the Greek cities on both shores of the straits and the Propontis broke out in the rear of Darius; that the cities thought Darius lost, or intended to prevent his return. Byzantium rebelled, though the tyrant Ariston was at the river with the fleet of the city; so also Abydus, whose tyrant Daphnis was likewise there with his fleet. Besides these cities, Perinthus, Chalcedon, Antandrus, and Lamponium, on the Ionian coast, are expressly mentioned as rebels. Strabo speaks generally of the cities round the Propontis in this sense. Herodotus tells us that Chalcedon was taken, and Ctesias that it was burnt. According to the latter the Chalcedonians were eager to destroy the bridge; but Darius was nevertheless able to pass it. Herodotus asserts that Darius passed on the ships from Sestus into Asia, and that the Scythians pursued him as far as the Thracian Chersonesus. This definite and double statement on the direction of the return march, and the passage of Darius into Asia, must be maintained against the inexact excerpt from Ctesias. If the bridge lay over the Bosphorus, Darius certainly did not march to the Hellespont.
The course of events was this. When he arrived on the northern side of the Danube Darius perceived that a part of the Greek ships had sailed homeward, that the communications with Asia were interrupted, that the bridge had been broken, that the cities on both shores of the straits were in rebellion. He was compelled to send the fleet at once to the straits in order to reopen communications. As Byzantium and Chalcedon could throw great difficulties in the way of any communication or passage over the Bosphorus, the fleet was bidden to open the Hellespont and keep it open. When the fleet was dismissed it was no longer possible to keep the army on the Danube; and besides it was imperative to bring the rebellious cities to obedience at once, a duty which could not be left merely to their fellow-countrymen who had remained faithful in the fleet. So Darius must have led the army to the Hellespont as soon as he had allowed time for rest on the Danube. The Scythians no doubt crossed the river when they saw the army of Darius leave the bank, and well-mounted hordes followed the retreating army on the south of the Danube in order to make booty, to carry off the baggage, and cut down the stragglers. But there was no serious pursuit. The Scythians could not have undertaken this against the Persians; and if they had undertaken it and threatened danger, Darius would not have sent a part of the army to Asia. He must then have turned his whole force upon the Scythians. Miltiades certainly did not retire before the Scythians but before the Persians. Even if he had gone no farther than expressing his wish, and had not left the Danube with his ships,[286]—though he had not found means for embarrassing the retreat of the Persians over the Hellespont, yet in the eyes of the Persians he was the author of the revolt, his vote in the council of war at the Danube was obviously treacherous, and the beginning which gave impulse to the mischief. Miltiades then retired to the Thracians. He had married the daughter of Olorus, a Thracian prince. Twelve years later the general revolt of the Greek states gave him the means of returning to his principality. The embassy of the Scythians to Sparta seems no more than a fable of the Spartans, which belongs to the obscure side of the history of Cleomenes.
Arrived at the Hellespont, Darius allowed a part of the army under Megabyzus to remain on the European shore for the purpose of besieging Perinthus and the other cities on that coast, with the rest he passed on the raft to the Asiatic side: the conduct of sieges was no task for a king. But he wished to remain at Sardis in the neighbourhood till the rebels were punished, the passage secured, and till the auxiliaries for the army of Megabyzus and their communications were settled. Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, received the command on the Asiatic shore; he besieged and destroyed Abydus, reduced the cities on the Trojan coast, on the southern shore of the Propontis, and then turned against Chalcedon and Byzantium, while in the mean time Megabyzus had besieged and taken Perinthus and the cities on the northern coast of the Propontis. The campaign against the Scythians was not to remain without results; Darius could not allow himself to set foot in Europe for nothing. When only Chalcedon and Byzantium remained unconquered, Otanes received the command over the troops on both shores, and Megabyzus was commanded to make the tribes of the Thracians on the west as far as the Strymon subjects of the Persian king. Chalcedon was the first to fall after a protracted siege. The exiles from Chalcedon and Byzantium founded Mesembria.[287]
FOOTNOTES:
[245] "Pers." 555, 644, 654, 852 ff. 900.
[246] Herod. 3, 92-94, 97; 7, 78, 79. Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 4; 7, 8. Arrian ("Anab." 3, 11) mentions Albanians in the army of the last Darius.
[247] Herod. 4, 44.
[248] Vol. IV. 384.
[249] Exc. Vatic. p. 35 = 10, 19, 5.
[250] Herod. 3, 139, 140.
[251] Herod. 3, 141-149. Paus. 7, 5, 4, ff. Heracl. Pont. Fragm. 10, ed. Müller.
[252] Herod. 4, 138.
[253] Ctes. "Pers." 16.
[254] At a later time Xerxes caused Sataspes to sail round Africa.
[255] Herod. 4, 1.
[256] Herod. 4, 85, 87.
[257] 360 triremes and penteconters were used for the bridge of Xerxes. Herod. 7, 36.
[258] Herod. 4, 87.
[259] Polyb. 4, 39.
[260] Strabo, p. 319, 320. Opposite the temple of the Chalcedonians on the mouth of the Pontus, which was sacred to Zeus Urias (now Anadoli Kavak), there lay on the European shore also on the mouth of the Pontus a temple of the Byzantines which later authors call the Serapeum (now Rumili Kavak). Scyl. "Peripl." 67.
[261] Herodotus allows the Bosphorus a breadth of four stades; Strabo in one passage mentions four, in another five; p. 125, 319. Modern authors do not agree in their measurements (Grote, "Hist. of Greece," 5, 26), but give about 1¼ mile, i. e. above 5000 feet for the narrowest part, and five miles for the widest. For the narrowest place most authorities allow about 3900 feet, i. e. 6½ stades; cp. Kruse, on Herodotus' measurement of the Pontus, s, 41. On the other hand, Moltke ("Briefe," s. 82) gives the following: At the northern mouth between the light-houses, 4166 paces; at Tell Tabia, 1497 paces; between the castles, 958 paces.
[262] "Anapl. P. E." frag. 35. Choerilus, in Strabo, p. 303.
[263] Herod. 4, 88.
[264] The chronology of the conquests of Darius is not easy to fix. In Herodotus the campaign against Samos is contemporaneous with the rebellion of the Babylonians (3, 150). If Darius had had armies at his disposal from Samos there, he would not have needed to send Bagaeus. The expedition to Samos must be placed after the end of the rebellion, i. e. at the earliest in the year 517, and it cannot be put later than a year at the least before the Scythian expedition, since the ships of Samos, led by Syloson's son, take part in that expedition, and in addition to Samos the cities of the Bosphorus are in the hands of the Persians before that event. The expedition to investigate the shores of Greece, in which Democedes took part, is placed by Herodotus before the attack upon Scythia. This is improbable, because the experience which Darius gained in the Scythian expedition, and which made it seem desirable to put the command in Persian hands, preceded this expedition. There is nothing to point to it before the expedition; it first becomes intelligible when Darius had resolved to change his plan of conquests in the north for conquests in the west, and had given Megabyzus orders to subjugate the coasts of Thracia on the Ægean,—when Megabyzus had advanced to the Strymon and Macedonia had recognised the sovereignty of Persia. On the other hand, the investigation of the Greek coasts cannot be put much later than 512, since Milo of Crotona, who is still of great influence in that region, as Herodotus himself remarks (3, 137), betroths his daughter to Democedes. This influence Milo retained only as far as the year 510 or 509; for soon after the victory over Sybaris and the destruction of the city, which took place 511 or 510 B.C., the rising against Pythagoras and the aristocracy took place; they were overthrown and expelled. In Herodotus the Scythian expedition comes after the capture of Babylon (4, 1). We have seen from the inscriptions (p. 254), that there were two rebellions of Babylon, and that they cannot have come to an end before the close of the year 517. Now Samos was subjugated before this Scythian expedition; moreover Byzantium and the Chersonese must have been in the hands of the Persians; at least a year must have been occupied with the preparations required to bring 700,000 men to the Bosphorus, and with the preparations for building the bridge (Herod. 3, 83). Hence the campaign cannot have commenced before the year 515 B.C. and it cannot be put later than 510 B.C. Miltiades is already master of the Chersonese when Darius crosses the Danube; according to Herodotus it is the Pisistratids (not Hippias) who sent him there. Hence Miltiades was master of the Chersonese before 514 B.C., the year in which Hipparchus was murdered. Again, when Miltiades has to retire from the Chersonese before the return of Darius, he does not go to Athens, from which it follows that Hippias was still tyrant in Athens. Thucydides tells us that when Hippias, after the murder of Hipparchus, was looking about for alliances he married his daughter to Aeantides, the son of Hippoclus, tyrant of Lampsacus, because he saw that Hippoclus was in great repute with Darius. This influence Hippoclus must have gained in the Scythian expedition; he led the ships of his city to the Danube and voted for remaining there. Hence this expedition must be put some time before 510 B.C. If we allow two years for the battles of Megabyzus in Thrace, and the march of Bubares to Macedonia after the Scythian war, and place, as is natural, the expedition to the coasts of Hellas, which falls in the year 512 B.C., after these acquisitions, we might keep to the year 515 for the Scythian expeditions. But as the Indian conquests precede the Scythian war, the year 513 B.C. seems still better. The expedition to Barca is, in Herodotus, contemporaneous with the conflicts of Megabyzus against those "who were not of Median opinions" (4, 145). This contemporaneous date is supported by the fact that Greek ships only, and not Phenician, are ordered to the Danube, and to support the communications of Megabyzus with Asia,—a circumstance which is best explained by the absence of the Phenicians in the African expedition. Moreover, Justin (19, 1) speaks of an embassy of Darius to Carthage at the time when this city was engaged in a conflict with Doreus of Sicily (Herod. 5, 45-48; 7, 165; Diod. 4, 23). Such an embassy, which could only be sent to demand a recognition of supremacy or union in war against the Greeks, was first suggested when the Persians reached as far as the Euhesperides and Persia became a neighbour of Carthage, i. e. after the expedition to Barca. The colony of Dorieus on the Eryx was planted between 510 and 508; he had previously taken part in the battle on the Traeis in 311 or 510 B.C. The embassy of Darius to Carthage would therefore be subsequent to the campaign to Barca and the expedition of Democedes, and the years 513 and 512 seem most suitable for the first. From the inscriptions of Darius it is clear that the inscription of Persepolis, when compared with the inscription of Behistun, enumerates more subject lands. The former speaks of the Ionians of the continent and the Ionians of the sea (daraya), while the inscription of Behistun merely mentions the Ionians. By the Ionians of the sea we are to understand the newly-subjugated Greeks of Samos, the Greek cities on the Bosphorus and Propontis. Moreover, the inscription of Persepolis, as already mentioned, speaks of Idhus (p. 260), while the inscription of Behistun speaks of Gandaras only. It follows from this that the first undertakings of Darius after crushing the rebellion were the wars in the east, the conquests of Samos and the Greek cities on the straits. This is established by the statement of Herodotus that the Indians were included in the first division into satrapies—which he places soon after the accession of Darius—but the islands and the Thracians were added later on. The palace at Persepolis must therefore have been built about the year 515 B.C. after the war upon the Indians and the expedition to Samos, after the subjugation of the strait, but before the campaigns against Scythia and Barca. The Scythian campaign falls in the year 513, the conquests of Megabyzus and Otanes in 512, the campaign against Barca in 513 and 512, the expedition for the investigation of the Greek coasts in 512 or 511. The inscription on the tomb of Darius does not mention Ionians of the continent and Ionians of the sea, but Ionians merely in one case, and then Yauna takabara, i. e. Ionians who wore locks, by whom may be meant the Greeks of Lemnos and Imbros, the Greek cities of the Thracian coast, and the Macedonians, i. e. the regions which were first subjugated after the Scythian campaign. It will be made clear below that the last names in the inscription on the tomb are to be explained of African tribes, i. e. of the result of the expedition against Barca. By the Çkudra, mentioned on the inscription, we may understand the Thracians; in the place of the Çaka who are mentioned without any addition at Behistun and Persepolis, the sepulchral inscription has three kinds of Çaka:—Çaka humavarka, who must be interpreted to mean the Amyrgian Sacae of Herodotus; Çaka tigrakhauda, i. e. Sacae with pointed caps; and finally Çaka taradaraya, i. e. Sacae beyond the sea, who must be the Scoloti.
[265] Herod. 4, 89-91.
[266] Herod. 4, 90-92. "Geographical Journal," vol. 24, p. 44 ff, where is also to be found the report of General Jochmus on the supposed inscription in cuneiform letters and on the stone-heaps, which, according to Herodotus, the soldiers of Darius piled up at Artiscus.
[267] Herod. 4, 93, 94; Strabo, p. 305; Thuc. 2, 96.
[268] Herod. 4, 97, 98.
[269] Vol. III. 235. Neumann, "Hellenen in Skythenlande," s. 200, 211, 215.
[270] Vol. III. 229.
[271] Neumann, loc. cit. s. 223 ff.
[272] Justin, 2, 3, 5.
[273] Ctes. "Pers." 16.
[274] Strabo, p. 305.
[275] Strabo, p. 737.
[276] Pherecyd. fragm. 113, ed. Müller.
[277] Hic quum crebri afferrent nuntii male rem gerere Darium premique ab Scythis, Miltiades hortatus est, etc. Nepos, "Miltiades," 4, in any case following Ephorus.
[278] Herod. 5, 27. It is clear that the Antandrians and Lamponians were accused only of abandoning the campaign, not of imperilling the retreat.
[279] Strabo, p. 591.
[280] Herod. 5, 11.
[281] Herod. 4, 143, 144.
[282] Herod. 5, 12.
[283] Herod. 5, 26, 27.
[284] Herod. 5, 12, 23, 25. The chronology which Herodotus thus gives to the campaign of Otanes, representing it as subsequent to that of Megabyzus, is impossible. He himself represents Otanes as nominated general of the forces on sea, and only subsequently as a successor of Megabyzus. The subjugation of the cities belongs to his first command.
[285] Herod. 6, 40, 84.
[286] It is self-evident that Miltiades did not wait for the arrival of Darius on the Danube.
[287] According to Polyaenus, Chalcedon was taken by a mine, which was carried from a hill 15 stades from the city under the market-place. "Strateg." 7, 2, 5. It is obvious that we must read Καλχηδών here, and not Καρχηδών. The altar of Zeus Diabaterius which, according to Ctesias, Darius erects, and the Chalcedonians subsequently pull down, is certainly identical with the two monuments which, according to Herodotus, Darius set up at Byzantium (above, p. 269). Herodotus also speaks of the destruction of the monuments, but ascribes it to the Byzantines. This was done obviously in the time after the battle of Mycale; if previously destroyed they would have been restored by Megabyzus and Otanes when they subjugated the Hellespont. Of the later destruction Herodotus relates that the Byzantines conveyed the stones into the city, and used them in building the altar of Artemis Orthosia; one stone only, covered with Assyrian letters, was left at the temple of Dionysus: Herod. 4, 87.