In the present instance, the force collected is reported by tradition to have amounted to seven hundred thousand men.[5] Here let it be said, as will frequently have to be said in the course of the history of these wars, that the numbers which the Greeks attributed to the Persian armies in various campaigns are, without doubt, invariably exaggerated. There is no fixed ratio in the exaggeration. Sometimes it is manifold; sometimes it is not. The real meaning of the Greek estimate of numbers is that the forces which Persia could put into the field when occasion demanded were of infinitely greater magnitude than any of which the Greek had experience. Even the myriad stood with him for a countless number.
In the present instance the force must indeed have been a large one, for the undertaking was great; and the Persian, unless he is much misrepresented in history, preferred on all occasions to have a large numerical margin of safety. Possibly he thought Ahura-mazda was “on the side of the big battalions.”
H. iv. 87.
The crossing into Europe was affected by throwing a bridge over the Bosphorus in the neighbourhood of Kalchedon.[6]
THE ADVANCE TO THE ISTER.
H. iv. 89.
After crossing into Europe, Darius commanded the Ionians, Æolians, and Hellospontines, who conducted the fleet, to sail to the Ister, and while waiting for him there, to build a bridge over the river. They went two days’ sail up the stream, and constructed one at or near the head of the Delta.[7] The first point indicated in the route taken by the army is the source or sources of the Tearos. This was a subtributary of the Agrianes (the modern Ergene), which was itself a tributary of the Hebrus.[8] The Arteskos river, which is the next point mentioned, is not capable of certain identification at the present day.
H. iv. 93.
The tribes of the coast of the modern East Rumelia or South Bulgaria yielded without a blow. The Getæ, between the Hæmus (Balkans) and the Ister, were the first to offer any resistance; but they were subdued. So far the tale is comprehensible. The army must have passed near to the Greek colonies, Salmydessos, Apollonia, and Mesembria, which are indeed mentioned in relation to the tribes south of the Hæmus. From these, probably, vague tales of this part of the expedition arrived in Greece.
From this point onwards the story is full of inconsistencies and improbabilities.