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.