Darius the Great / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

Emissaries sent forward.

He sent emissaries forward, in advance, over the route that his army was destined to take, transmitting orders to the several provinces which were situated on the line of his march to prepare the way for the passage of his troops. Among other preparations, they were to construct a bridge of boats across the Bosporus at Chalcedon. This work was intrusted to the charge and superintendence of an engineer of Samos named Mandrocles. The people of the provinces were also to furnish bodies of troops, both infantry and cavalry, to join the army on its march.

The soldiers that were enlisted to go on this remote and dangerous expedition joined the army, as is usual in such cases, some willingly, from love of adventure, or the hope of opportunities for plunder, and for that unbridled indulgence of appetite and passion which soldiers so often look forward to as a part of their reward; others from hard compulsion, being required to leave friends and home, and all that they held dear, under the terror of a stern and despotic edict which they dared not disobey. It was even dangerous to ask for exemption.

The petition of Œbazus.
Darius's wanton cruelty.

As an instance of this, it is said that there was a Persian named Œbazus, who had three sons that had been drafted into the army. Œbazus, desirous of not being left wholly alone in his old age, made a request to the king that he would allow one of the sons to remain at home with his father. Darius appeared to receive this petition favorably. He told Œbazus that the request was so very modest and considerate that he would grant more than he asked. He would allow all three of his sons to remain with him. Œbazus retired from the king's presence overjoyed at the thought that his family was not to be separated at all. Darius ordered his guards to kill the three young men, and to send the dead bodies home, with a message to their father that his sons were restored to him, released forever from all obligation to serve the king.

Place of rendezvous.
The fleet of galleys.

The place of general rendezvous for the various forces which were to join in the expedition, consisting of the army which marched with Darius from Susa, and also of the troops and ships which the maritime provinces of Asia Minor were to supply on the way, was on the shores of the Bosporus, at the point where Mandrocles had constructed the bridge.[G] The people of Ionia, a region situated in Asia Minor, on the shores of the Ægean Sea, had been ordered to furnish a fleet of galleys, which they were to build and equip, and then send to the bridge. The destination of this fleet was to the Danube. It was to pass up the Bosporus into the Euxine Sea, now called the Black Sea, and thence into the mouth of the river. After ascending the Danube to a certain point, the men were to land and build a bridge across that river, using, very probably, their galleys for this purpose. In the mean time, the army was to cross the Bosporus by the bridge which had been erected there by Mandrocles, and pursue their way toward the Danube by land, through the kingdom of Thrace. By this arrangement, it was supposed that the bridge across the Danube would be ready by the time that the main body of the army arrived on the banks of the river. The idea of thus building in Asia Minor a bridge for the Danube, in the form of a vast fleet of galleys, to be sent round through the Black Sea to the mouths of the river, and thence up the river to its place of destination, was original and grand. It strikingly marks the military genius and skill which gave the Greeks so extended a fame, for it was by the Greeks that the exploit was to be performed.

Darius's march through Asia Minor.
Monuments.
Arrival at the Bosporus.

Darius marched magnificently through Asia Minor, on his way to the Bosporus, at the head of an army of seventy thousand men. He moved slowly, and the engineers and architects that accompanied him built columns and monuments here and there, as he advanced, to commemorate his progress. These structures were covered with inscriptions, which ascribed to Darius, as the leader of the enterprise, the most extravagant praise. At length the splendid array arrived at the place of rendezvous on the Bosporus, where there was soon presented to view a very grand and imposing scene.