The farther Darius advanced into the country,* tne greater hardships his army was exposed to. Just when it was reduced to the last extremity, there came a herald from the Scythian prince, who was commissioned to present to Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The king desired to know the meaning of those gifts. The messenger answered, that his orders were only to deliver them, and nothing more; and that it was left to the Persian king to find out the meaning. Darius concluded at first, that the Scythians thereby consented to deliver up the earth and water to him, which were represented by the mouse and frog; as also their cavalry, whose swiftness was represented by the bird; together with their own persons and arms, signified by the arrows. But Gobryas, one of the seven lords that had deposed the Magian impostoi, expounded the enigma in the following manner: Know, says he to the Persians, that unless you can fly in the air like birds, or hide yourselves in the earth like mice, or dive under the water like frogs, you shall in no wise be able to avoid the arrows of the Scythians.

And,† indeed, the whole Persian army, marching in a vast, uncultivated, and barren country, completely destitute of water, was reduced to so deplorable a condition, that they had nothing before their eyes but inevitable ruin: nor was Darius himself exempt from the common danger. He owed his preservation to a camel, which was loaded with water, and followed him with great difficulty through that wild and desert country. The king afterwards did not forget this benefactor; to reward him for the service he had done him, and the fatigues he had undergone, on his return to Asia, he settled a certain district of his own upon him for his peculiar use and subsistence, for which reason the place was called Gaugamela, that is in the Persian tongue, the Camel's habitation. It was near the same place that Darius Codomannus received a second overthrow by Alexander the Great.

Darius deliberated no longer, finding himself under an absolute necessity of quitting his rash enterprise. He began then to think in earnest of returning home; and saw but too plainly, that there was no time to be lost. As soon therefore as night came, the Persians, to deceive the enemy, lighted a great number of fires, as usual; and leaving the old men and the sick behind them in the camp, together with all their asses, which made a sufficient noise, they set out upon their march, in order to reach the Danube. The -Scythians did not perceive they were gone till the next morning; whereupon they immediately sent a considerable detachment to the Danube: this detachment being perfectly well acquainted with the roads of the country, arrived at the bridge a great while before the Persians. The Scythians had sent expresses beforehand to persuade the Ionians to break the bridge, and to return to their own country and the latter had promised to do it, but without designing to exe

*Herod. 1. iv. c. 128. 132.

⚫. 13-1. 140.

Strabo, l. vii. p. 305. 1. xvi. p. 737. t Herod. Lis

cute their promise. The Scythians now pressed them to it more earnestly, and repesented to them, that the time prescribed by Darius for staying there was elapsed; that they were at liberty to re turn home, without either violating their word or their duty; that they now had it in their power to throw off for ever the yoke of their subjection, and make themselves a happy and free people; and that the Scythians would render Darius incapable of forming any more enterprises against any of his neighbours.

The Ionians entered into consultation upon the affair. Miltiades the Athenian, who was prince, or, as the Greeks call it, tyrant, of the Chersonesus of Thrace, at the mouth of the Hellespont, was one of those that accompanied Darius, and furnished him with ships for his enterprise. Having the public interest more at heart than his private advantage, he was of opinion that they should comply with the request of the Scythians and embrace so favourable an opportunity of recover ing the liberty of Ionia: all the other commanders acquiesced in his sentiments, except Hystiæus, the tyrant of Miletus. When it came to his turn to speak, he represented to the Ionian generals, that their fortune was linked with that of Darius; that it was under that prince's protection that each of them was master in his own city; and if the power of the Persians should sink or decline, the cities of Ionia would not fail to depose their tyrants, and recover their freedom. All the other chiefs were influenced by his opinion; and, as is usual in most cases, the consideration of private interest prevailed over the public good. They resolved therefore to wait for Darius : but, in order to deceive the Scythians, and hinder them from undertaking any thing, they declared to them, that they had resolved to to retire, pursuant to their request; and, the better to carry on the fraud, they actually began to break one end of the bridge, exhorting the Scythians at the same time to do their part, to return speedily back to meet the common enemy, to attack and defeat them. The Scythians being too credulous, retired, and were deceived a second time.

They missed Darius,† who had taken a different route from that in which they expected to come up with him. He arrived by night at the bridge over the Danube; and, finding it broken down, he no longer doubted but the Ionians were gone, and that consequently he should be ruined. He made his people call out with a loud voice for Hystiæus, the Milesian, who at last answered, and put the king out of his anxiety. They entirely repaired the bridge; so that Darius repassed the Danube, and came back into Thrace. There he left Megabyzus, one of his chief generals, with part of his army, to complete the conquest of that country, and entirely reduce it to his obedience. After which he repassed the Bosphorus with the rest of his troops, and went to Sardis, where he spent the winter and the greatest part of the year following, in order to refresh his Amicior omnium libertati quàm suæ dominationi fuit. Corn. Nep. Herod. l. iv. c. 141. 144.

army, which had suffered extremely in that ill-concerted and unfortunate expedition.

Megabyzus continued some time in Thrace;* whose inhabitants, according to Herodotus, would have been invincible, had they had the discretion to unite their forces, and to choose one chief commander. Some of them had very particular customs. In one of their districts, when a child came into the world, all the relations expressed great sorrow and affliction, bitterly weeping at the prospect of the misery which the new-born infant had to experience. While, on the other hand, on the death of any of their family, they all rejoiced, because they looked upon the deceased person as happy only from that moment wherein he was delivered for ever from the troubles and calamities of this life. In another district, where polygamy was in fashion, when a husband died, it was a great dispute among his wives which of them was best beloved. She in whose favour the contest was decided, had the privilege of being sacrificed by her nearest relation upon the tomb of her husband, and of being buried with him; whilst all the other wives envied her happiness, and thought themselves in some sort dishonoured.

Darius,† on his return to Sardis, after his unhappy expedition against the Scythians, having learnt for certain that he owed both his own safety and that of his whole army to Hystiæus, who had persuaded the Ionians not destroy the bridge on the Danube, sent for that prince to his court, and desired him freely to ask any favour in recompense of his service. Hysticus hereupon desired the king to give him Mircina of Edonia, a territory upon the river Strymon in Thrace, together with the liberty of building a city there. His request was readily granted; and he returned to Miletus, where he caused a fleet of ships to be equipped, and then set out for Thrace. Having taken possession of the territory granted him, he immediately set about the execution of his project in building a city.

Megabyzus, who was then governor of Thrace for Darius, immediately perceived how prejudicial that undertaking would be to the king's affairs in those quarters. He considered, that this new city stood upon a navigable river; that the country round about it abounded in timber fit for building of ships; that it was inhabited by different nations, both Greeks and Barbarians, who were able to furnish great numbers of men for land and sea service; that, if once those people were under the guidance of a leader so skilful and enterprising as Hystiæus, they might become so powerful both by sea and land, that it would be no longer possible for the king to keep them in subjection; especially considering that they had a great many gold and silver mines in that country, which would enable them to carry on any project they might think fit to form. At his return to Sardis, he represented all these things to the king, whe

Herod 1 v. c. 1.

Ibid. lv. c. 11. 23

Ibid. L v. c. 23. 25.

was convinced by his reasons, and therefore sent for Hystiæus to come to him at Sardis, pretending to have some great designs in view, wherein he wanted the assistance of his counsel. When he had brought him to his court by this means, he carried him to Susa, making him believe that he set an extraordinary value upon a friend of such fidelity and understanding; two qualifications that rendered him very dear to him, and of which he had given such memorable proofs in the Scythian expedition; giving him to understand, at the same time, that he should be able to find something for him in Persia, which would make him ample amends for all that he could leave behind him. Hystiæus, pleased with so honourable a distinction, and finding himself likewise under a necessity of complying, accompanied Darius to Susa, and left Aristagoras to govern Miletus in his room.

Whilst Megabyzus was still in Thrace,* he sent several Persian noblemen to Amyntas, king of Macedonia, to require him to give earth and water to Darius his master: this was the usual form of one prince's submitting to another. Amyntas readily complied with that request, and paid all imaginable honours to the envoys. Towards the end of an entertainment which he made for them, they desired that the ladies might be brought in, which was a thing contrary to the custom of the country: however, the king would not venture to refuse them. The Persian noblemen, being heated with wine, and thinking they might use the same freedom as in their own country, did not observe a due decorum towards those princesses. The king's son, whose name was Alexander, could not see his mother and sisters treated in such a manner, without great resentment and indignation. Wherefore, upon some pretence or other, he contrived to send the ladies out of the room, as if they were to return again presently, and had the precaution to get the king, his father, also out of the company. In this interval he caused some young men to be dressed like women, and to be armed with poniards under their garments. These pretended ladies came into the room instead of the others; and when the Persians began to treat them as they had before treated the princesses, they drew out their poniards, fell violently upon them, and killed, not only the noblemen, but every one of their attendants. The news of this slaughter soon reached Susa; and the king appointed commissioners to take cognizance of the matter: but Alexander, by the power of bribes and presents, stifled the affair, so that nothing came of it. The Scythians, to be revenged of Darius for invading their country, passed the Danube, and ravaged all the part of Thrace that had submitted to the Persians, as far as the Hellespont. Miltiades, to avoid their fury, abandoned the Chersonesus: but after the enemy retired, he returned thither again, and was restored to the same power he had before over the inhabitants of the country

A. M. 3496.

SECTION V.

Darius's conquest of India.

About the same time, that is, in the thirteenth Ant. J. C. 50. year of Darius's reign, this prince having an ambition to extend his dominion eastwards, first resolved, in order to facilitate his conquests, to get a proper knowledge of the country. To this end,* he caused a fleet to be built and fitted out at Caspatyra, a city upon the Indus, and did the same at several other places on the same river, as far as the frontiers of Scythia.f The command of this fleet was given to Scylax, a Grecian of Caryandia, a town of Caria who was perfectly well versed in maritime affairs. His orders were to sail down that river, and get all the knowledge he possibly could of the country on both sides, quite down. to the mouth of the river; to pass from thence into the Southern Ocean, and to steer his course afterwards to the west, and so return back that way to Persia. Scylax, having exactly observed his instructions, and sailed quite down the river Indus, entered the Red Sea by the Straits of Babelmandel; and after a voyage of thirty months from the time of his setting out from Caspatyra, he arrived in Egypt at the same port from whence Necho, king of Egypt, had formerly sent the Phoenicians, who were in his service, with orders to sail round the coasts of Africa. Very probably this was the same port where now stands the town of Suez, at the farther end of the Red Sea. From thence Scylax returned to Susa, where he gave Darius an account of all his discoveries. Darius afterwards entered India with an army, and subjected all that vast country. The reader will naturally expect to be informed of the particulars of so important a war. But Herodotus says not one word about it: he only tells us, that India made the twentieth province,|| or government, of the Persian empire, and that the annual revenue accruing from hence to Darius was 360 talents of gold, which amount to near 11,000,000 livres French money, something less than 500,000. sterling.

A M. 3500

SECTION VI.

The revolt of the Ionians.

Darius, after his return to Susa from his Scythian Ant. J. C. 504. expedition, had given his brother Artaphernes the government of Sardis, and made Otanes commander in Thrace, and the adjacent countries along the sea-coast, in the room of Megabyzus.

*Ibid. l. iv. c. 44.

† Asiatic Scythia is meant.

There is a geographical treatise entitled Пegicus, and composed by one Scylax of Caryandia, who is thought to be the same person spoken of in this place. But that opinion is attended with some difficulties, which have given occasion to many learned dissertations. Herod. I. iv. c. 42.

Lib. iii. c. 94.

Lib. v. c. 25.