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 Acvakas on the north of the Cabul, and the
Gandaras to the south of that river. Of their neighbours, Bactria and
Arachosia had remained true during the great rebellion, though the
Sattagydae (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched
against the Sacae, and reduced them again to subjection. Herodotus tells
us, that he sent out a party to explore the Indus; in which was Scylax,
an inhabitant of Caryanda in Caria. They set out from the land of the
Pactyes (_i.e._ from Arachosia), and from the city of Caspatyrus (Cabul)
they followed the course of the Indus to the sea. Then they sailed to
the west, and in the thirtieth month they arrived at the point from
which the Phenicians started, who sailed round Africa at the command of
Necho (III. 313), _i.e._ they did not return to the Persian Gulf but
sailed round Arabia, and landed in the north-west corner of the Arabian
Gulf at Heroonpolis. After their return Darius made use of this sea, and
subjugated the Indians.[247] The extension of the Persian kingdom in the
land of the Indus, by Darius, is beyond a doubt. In the inscription
which he caused to be engraved on Mount Behistun after the suppression
of the rebellions, he enumerates the nations which obey him. We can find
but one name of an Indian nation to the right of the Indus--the
Gandaras. The inscription of the palace of Persepolis, which Darius
built a few years later, mentions the Idhus, _i.e._ the Indians, besides
the Gandarians. Herodotus further informs us that it was the Northern
Indians whom Darius had subjugated. They formed the twentieth satrapy of
his kingdom, while the Gandarians were united with the Arachoti in the
seventh satrapy. The twentieth satrapy of Northern Indians comprised the
lands to the north of Cabul, on the right bank of the stream, from the
land of the Acvakas as far as the summits of the Himalayas. It paid 360
talents of gold, the highest tax among all the satrapies of the
kingdom.[248]
In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had
trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea,
and carry the empire of Persia into Europe--a point which none of the
great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us,
that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of
almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power,
desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest
nations with less forces.[249] The first achievement of Darius in this
direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of
the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the
way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to
an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the
head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest
with Persia the possession of the AEgean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had
left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during
his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his
willingness to lay down his power. But when the 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 AEgean. This
co-operation was therefore the most essential. Darius called out the
navy of the Greek cities of his kingdom, and that navy only; employment
was found for the Phenician fleet was another direction. The Greeks had
to furnish no less than 600 triremes, _i.e._ a fleet of which the crews
reached the total of 120,000 men. That fleet was intended to convey the
land army, the levy of the entire kingdom, across the straits, and it
must 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 Sacae, 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
Melanchlaeni (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 Melanchlaeni would not help them in the contest, the
Scoloti determined to decline battle with the Persians and retire. Their
wives and children they placed on chariots together with the rest of
their goods, took their slaves and herds and marched to a secure
position in the north; only so much cattle was left with the army as was
necessary for its support. Then the army was divided into two parts. One
under the command of Scopasis was to unite with the Sarmatians and
retire straight towards the Don, if the Persians took that direction; it
was to keep one or two marches ahead of the Persians, to stop up the
springs and fountains, and destroy the pastures; but if Darius turned,
it was at once to pursue the Persians. The other part of the army, under
Idanthyrsus and Taxakis, was to unite with the Budini and Geloni, and to
march in a similar manner to the north as far as the land of the Neuri,
the Cannibals, and Melanchlaeni, in order to involve them in the war. The
army of Scopasis found the Persians already three days' march on their
side of the Danube. It retired, and the Persians pursued as far as the
Don. When the Scoloti and Sarmatians crossed the river, the Persians
crossed it also; in pursuit of the Scythians they marched through the
land of the Sarmatians, reached that of the Budini, where they burned
the great wooden city of the Geloni, which they found entirely deserted,
and at length came to the desert which extended for seven days' journey
to the north of the land of the Budini. When Darius reached the desert
he abandoned the further pursuit, and encamped his army on the bank of
the Oarus (_i.e._ the Volga). At the same time he built eight great
fortresses, at equal distances, each about sixty stades from the other,
the remains of which, Herodotus remarks, existed in his day. While
Darius was thus occupied, the army of Scopasis in the north marched back
into their own land and united with the army of Idanthyrsus. When the
Scythians were no more to be seen, Darius left the fortresses
unfinished, turned to the west, under the impression that the Scythians
would retire in that direction, hastened in rapid marches to the land of
the Scoloti, and there found the united army of the Scythians. Again the
Scoloti retired, and as Darius did not cease to press them, they passed,
as they had resolved, over the northern boundary of their land, into the
land of the Melanchlaeni, who dwelt beyond the Scoloti, between the Don
and the Gerrhus, a tributary of the Dnieper. From the land of the
Melanchlaeni they proceeded yet further to the west, through the land of
the Cannibals into that of the Neuri, who lay above the lake out of
which the Dniester flows (III. 231). All these tribes fled before the
approach of the Scoloti and the Persians to the north; but when the
Scoloti wished to cross the borders of the Agathyrsi, they prepared to
defend them, and compelled the Scoloti to return from the land of the
Neuri to the south into their own land.
When this went on, and there was no end, Darius sent a horseman to
Idanthyrsus with the request that he would either stand and fight, if he
had the forces to do so, or send earth and water to him as his master.
Idanthyrsus answered that the Scoloti had neither cities nor lands which
made it necessary to fight with the Persians in order to defend them;
but if Darius was eager for a battle, there were the tombs of their
fathers; let him discover these and attack them, he would then see
whether the Scoloti dare fight or not. On this the Scoloti sent the part
of the army which Scopasis commanded, with the Sarmatians, to the
Danube, in order to negotiate with the Ionians at the bridge, but the
army of Idanthyrsus was not to retire any longer, but to attack the
Persians as soon as they began to prepare the meal after the day's
march. This was done, and each time the Persian cavalry were put to
flight by the Scoloti; but as soon as the foot soldiers came to the
rescue of the cavalry, the Scoloti retired. In this way the Scoloti
attacked the Persians by night also. And their kings (Idanthyrsus and
Taxakis) sent to Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.
Gobryas, the father-in-law of Darius, interpreted these gifts to mean,
that the Scythian message was: Unless you become birds and fly into
heaven, or mice and creep into the earth, or frogs and leap into the
marshes, you will 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,
Melanchlaeni, and Cannibals find that the matter does not concern them,
for they had not invaded Media. But the distant tribes to the east
beyond the Don, the Sarmatians, Budini, and Geloni, come a distance of
hundreds of miles to 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.
Mueller.
[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 1-1/4 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._ 6-1/2 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 AEgean,--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 Ckudra, mentioned on the inscription,
we may understand the Thracians; in the place of the Caka who are
mentioned without any addition at Behistun and Persepolis, the
sepulchral inscription has three kinds of Caka:--_Caka humavarka_, who
must be interpreted to mean the Amyrgian Sacae of Herodotus; _Caka
tigrakhauda_, _i.e._ Sacae with pointed caps; and finally _Caka
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. Mueller.
[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 [Greek: Kalchedon]
here, and not [Greek: Karchedon]. 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.