Darius And The Scythians
The conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his Persian army was the first
step towards that invasion of Greece by the Persians which proved such a
vital element in the history of the Hellenic people. The next step was
taken in the reign of Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade
Europe. This ambitious warrior attempted to win fame by conquering the
country of the Scythian barbarians,--now Southern Russia,--and was
taught such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the perilous
enterprise was not repeated.
It was about the year 516 B.C. that the Persian king, with the
ostensible purpose--invented to excuse his invasion--of punishing the
Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only
by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here
divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered
seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred
ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,--on
which Constantinople now stands,--and the great Persian host reached
European soil in the country of Thrace.
Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek
its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians,
then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and
bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest
at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of
the overgrown Persian empire. Fortunately, he was bent on conquering the
barbarians of the north, and left Greece to grow in valor and
patriotism.
While the army marched from Asia into Europe across its bridge of boats,
the fleet was sent into the Euxine, or Black Sea, with orders to sail
for two days up the Danube River, which empties into that sea, and build
there also a bridge of boats. When Darius with his army reached the
Danube, he found the bridge ready, and on its swaying length crossed
what was then believed to be the greatest river on the earth. Reaching
the northern bank, he marched onward into the unknown country of the
barbarous Scythians, with visions of conquest and glory in his mind.
What happened to the great Persian army and its ambitious leader in
Scythia we do not very well know. Two historians tell us the story, but
probably their history is more imagination than fact. Ctesias tells the
fairy-tale that Darius marched northward for fifteen days, that he then
exchanged bows with the Scythian king, and that, finding the Scythian
bow to be the largest, he fled back in terror to the bridge, which he
hastily crossed, having left a tenth of his army as a sacrifice to his
mad ambition.
The story told by Herodotus is probably as much a product of the
imagination as that of Ctesias, though it reads more like actual
history. He says that the Scythians retreated northward, sending their
wives and children before them in wagons, and destroying the wells and
ruining the harvests as they went, so that little was left for the
invaders to eat and drink. On what the vast host lived we do not know,
nor how they crossed the various rivers in their route. With such
trifling considerations as these the historians of that day did not
concern themselves. There were skirmishes and combats of horsemen, but
the Scythian king took care to avoid any general battle. Darius sent him
a herald and taunted him with cowardice, but King Idanthyrsus sent word
back that if the Persians should come and destroy the tombs of the
forefathers of the Scythians they would learn whether they were cowards
or not.
Day by day the monster Persian army advanced, and day by day its
difficulties increased, until its situation grew serious indeed. The
Scythians declined battle still, but Idanthyrsus sent to his distressed
foe the present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. This
signified, according to the historian, "Unless you take to the air, like
a bird; to the earth, like a mouse; or to the water, like a frog, you
will become the victim of the Scythian arrows."
This warning frightened Darius. In truth, he was in a desperate strait.
Leaving the sick and weak part of his army encamped with the asses he
had brought,--animals unknown to the Scythians, who were alarmed by
their braying,--he began a hasty retreat towards his bridge of boats.
But rapidly as he could march, the swifter Scythians reached the bridge
before him, and counselled with the Ionian Greeks, who had been left in
charge, and who were conquered subjects of the Persian king, to break
down the bridge and leave Darius and his army to their fate.
And now we get back into real history again. The story of what happened
in Scythia is all romance. All we really know is that the expedition
failed, and what was left of the army came back to the Danube in hasty
retreat. And here comes in an interesting part of the narrative. The
fleet of Darius was largely made up of the ships of the Ionians of Asia
Minor, who had long been Persian subjects. It was they who had bridged
the Danube, and who were left to guard the bridge. After Darius had
crossed the bridge, on his march north, he ordered the Ionians to break
it down and follow him into Scythia, leaving only the rowers and seamen
in the ships. But one of his Greek generals advised him to let the
bridge stand under guard of its builders, saying that evil fortune might
come to the king's army through the guile and shrewdness of the
Scythians.
Darius found this advice good, and promised to reward its giver after
his return. He then took a cord and tied sixty knots in it. This he left
with the Ionians. "Take this cord," he said. "Untie one of the knots in
it each day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here
and guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if
by that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home."
Such were the methods of counting which then prevailed. And the
knowledge of geography was not more advanced. Darius had it in view to
march round the Black Sea and return to Persia along its eastern
side,--with the wild idea that sixty days would suffice for this great
march.
Fortunately for him, as the story goes, the Ionians did not obey orders,
but remained on guard after the knots were all untied. Then, to their
surprise, Scythians instead of Persians appeared. These told the Ionians
that the Persian army was in the greatest distress, was retreating with
all speed, and that its escape from utter ruin depended on the safety of
the bridge. They urged the Greeks to break the bridge and retire. If
they should do so the Persians would all be destroyed, and Ionia would
regain its freedom.
This was wise advice. Had it been taken it might have saved Greece from
the danger of Persian invasion. The Ionians were at first in favor of
it, and Miltiades, one of their leaders, and afterwards one of the
heroes of Greek history, warmly advised that it should be done. But
Histiaeus, the despot of Miletus, advised the other Ionian princes that
they would lose their power if their countries became free, since the
Persians alone supported them, while the people everywhere were against
them. They determined, therefore, to maintain the bridge.
But, to rid themselves of the Scythians, they pretended to take their
advice, and destroyed the bridge for the length of a bow-shot from the
northern shore of the stream. The Scythians, thinking that they now had
their enemies at their mercy, departed in search of their foes. That
night the Persian army, in a state of the greatest distress and
privation, reached the Danube, the Scythians having missed them and
failed to check their march. To the horror of Darius and his starving
and terror-stricken men, the bridge, in the darkness, appeared to be
gone. An Egyptian herald, with a voice like a trumpet, was ordered to
call for Histiaeus, the Milesian. He did so, an answer came through the
darkness, and the hopes of the fleeing king were restored. The bridge
was speedily made complete again, and the Persian army hastily crossed,
reaching the opposite bank before the Scythians, who had lost their
track, reappeared in pursuit.
Thus ended in disaster the first Persian invasion of Europe. It was to
be followed by others in later years, equally disastrous to the
invaders. As for the despots of Ionia, who had through selfishness lost
the chance of freeing their native land, they were to live to see,
before many years, Ionia desolated by the Persian tyrant whom they had
saved from irretrievable ruin. We shall tell how this came about, as a
sequel to the story of the invasion of Scythia.
Histiaeus, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for
Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his
return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras
in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus
made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The
effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed
by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to
think of a revolt from Persian rule.
While thus mentally engaged, he received a strangely-sent message from
Histiaeus, who was still detained at Susa, and who eagerly desired to get
away from dancing attendance at court and return to his kingdom.
Histiaeus advised his regent to revolt. But as this message was far too
dangerous to be sent by any ordinary channels, he adopted an
extraordinary method to insure its secrecy. Selecting one of his most
trusty slaves, Histiaeus had his head shaved, and then pricked or
tattooed upon the bare scalp the message he wished to send. Keeping the
slave in seclusion until his hair had grown again, he sent him to
Miletus, where he was instructed simply to tell Aristagoras to shave and
examine his head. Aristagoras did so, read the tattooed message, and
immediately took steps to obey.
Word of the proposed revolt was sent by him to the other cities along
the coast, and all were found ready to join in the attempt to secure
freedom. Not only the coast settlements, but the island of Cyprus,
joined in the revolt. At the appointed time all the coast region of Asia
Minor suddenly burst into a flame of war.
Aristagoras hurried to Greece for aid, seeking it first at Sparta.
Finding no help there, he went to Athens, which city lent him twenty
ships,--a gift for which it was to pay dearly in later years. Hurrying
back with this small reinforcement, he quickly organized an expedition
to assail the Persians at the centre of their power.
Marching hastily to Sardis, the capital of Asia Minor, the revolted
Ionians took and burned that city. But the Persians, gathering in
numbers, defeated and drove them back to the coast, where the Athenians,
weary of the enterprise, took to their ships and hastened home.
When word of this raid, and the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and
Ionians, came to the ears of Darius at his far-off capital city, he
asked in wonder, "The Athenians!--who are they?" The name of this
distant and insignificant Greek city had not yet reached his kingly
ears.
He was told who the Athenians were, and, calling for his bow, he shot an
arrow high into the air, at the same time calling to the Greek deity,
"Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians."
And he bade one of his servants to repeat to him three times daily, when
he sat down to his mid-day meal, "Master, remember the Athenians!"
The invaders had been easily repulsed from Sardis, but the revolt
continued, and proved a serious and stubborn one, which it took the
Persians years to overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one by
one, but the Persians were four years in preparing for the siege of
Miletus. Resistance here was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city
fell. The Persians now took a savage revenge for the burning of Sardis,
killing most of the men of this important city, dragging into captivity
the women and children, and burning the temples to the ground. The other
cities which still held out were quickly taken, and visited like
Miletus, with the same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495 B.C.,
more than twenty years after the invasion of Scythia.
As for Histiaeus, he was at first blamed by Darius for the revolt. But as
he earnestly declared his innocence, and asserted that he could soon
bring it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart. Reaching Miletus, he
applied at the gates for admission, saying that he had come to the
city's aid. But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the Milesians had
no use for their former tyrant. They refused him admission, and even
wounded him when he tried to force his way in at night. He then went to
Lesbos, obtained there some ships, occupied the city of Byzantium, and
began a life of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging the
Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and out of the Euxine Sea.
Thus ended the career of this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom
Darius owed his escape from Scythia.