Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/598

570 PERSIA [MEDO-PERSIAN tion. 515-500. the enterprise against the Scythians. Profound motives for this expedition have been sought for, but it no doubt sprang simply from the longing to conquer unknown lands. That Darius, an energetic and valiant Eastern prince, always hitherto favoured by fortune, should have been free from lust of conquest is in itself very unlikely. Scythian The expedition against the Scythians falls about 515. expedi- "With regard to the preparations and the beginning of the expedition up to the crossing of the Danube we are well informed. The Greek subjects, of whom even by this time there were many on the European (Thracian) side such as the inhabitants of Byzantium and the Thracian Chersonese w r ere obliged to supply the fleet. Mandrocles of Samos built a bridge over the Bosphorus. The Persians must soon have found how useful the skill of the Greeks might be to them, without suspecting the dangers with which the Greek spirit threatened them. The king s march may be followed as far as the Danube ; it lay pretty nearly due north, the warlike Getas, a Thracian people, being subdued on the way. With the entry into the Scythian country itself Herodotus s narrative becomes completely fabulous. His chief error is in leaving out of sight the enormous distances in these regions (the southern part of modern Russia) and the great rivers. Hence he represents the native tribes and Darius as marching the distance between the Danube and the Don, or even the Volga, twice in not more than two months, as if the distances were as in Greece. Darius, who passed the Danube by a bridge in the neighbourhood, perhaps, of Isaktchi, can hardly have crossed even the Dniester. Strabo, who either possessed more exact accounts of the expedition, or drew correct inferences from the disaster which afterwards over took King Lysimachus in this neighbourhood, forms a very intelligent judgment on these matters. The expedition failed, not through the superior tactics of the Scythians, who behaved just as might be expected of such nomads, with a mixture of timidity and audacious greed of booty, but through the impassable and inhospitable nature of the country, through hanger and thirst, through exhaustion and disease. After sustaining heavy losses Darius was obliged to retreat across the Danube. The king, or at all events his army, was saved by the Greek tyrants, especially Histiaeus of Miletus, who refused to follow the advice of their colleague Miltiades to break down the bridge. But the damage to the prestige of the empire was great ; the Greeks had seen their lord and master in distress. Never theless the district south of the Danube was retained. That the Scythians immediately followed up their enemy, or that they even opened negotiations with the Spartans, as Herodotus states, 1 is not to be supposed. Moreover, Megabyzus, whom Darius on his return left behind in Europe, subdued great districts of Thrace along with the Greek cities on the coast. The king of Macedonia also acknowledged the great king as his liege lord. The cities on the Hellespont, 2 which after the failure of the expedi tion made no secret of their feeling towards the Persians, and in part expressed their hostility in overt acts against them, received sharp punishment. The islands of Lemnos and Imbros were occupied. At the mouth of the Hebrus (Maritza) Doriscus was converted into a fortress with a standing garrison. 3 1 The story of the dealings of King Cleomenes with the Scythians (Herod., vi. 84) rests on a joke, he drank immoderately, "like a Scythian." 2 This expression is used to designate the towns lying on the Helles pont, Propontis, and Bosphorus. 3 To the same time may be referred the foundation on the Asiatic side of Dareium, named after Darius, just as Harpagium probably has its name from Harpagus. It is to be observed that in the district of Old Phrygia such towns called after persons are found from of old, as Midseium, Gordiseium, Dascylium, and others. The eyes of the Persians were now turned towards Persian Greece proper. While the Greek coast of Asia Minor was relations indispensable to the power which held the interior, the toGreec possession of the mother-country of Hellas was, as we can easily see, not only unnecessary but positively dangerous to the Persians, especially as they were themselves absolutely unfitted for the sea. But to the Persians of those days, absorbed in schemes of universal empire, considerations such as these could not present themselves. Besides, the enterprises of the Persians against the Greeks were to a large extent suggested and furthered by the Greeks them selves. Repressed factions, tyrants in exile or in danger, were but too ready to invoke the help of the foreigner at the price of slavery. When the Persians attacked a Greek state there was always another at enmity with it which at once took their side. Even the inconsiderable enter prise which was the outward occasion of the Ionian revolt, namely, the attack of the Persians on Naxos, was brought about by the banished aristocrats of the island, who applied to Aristagoras, lord of Miletus, and hence to his superior, Artaphernes, the king s brother and satrap of Sardis. The enterprise failed, and in his embarrassment Aristagoras gave the signal for the revolt which he and his father-in-law Histia^us, the proper tyrant of Miletus, who was detained at the court of Susa, had planned long before. The great rising of the lonians and other Greeks and Revolt non- Greeks shows a vigorous love of freedom, and much Ionian; individual boldness and skill on the side of the insurgents ; but, quite apart from the vast odds against them and the unfavourableness of their geographical situation, their enterprise was from the outset doomed to failure, because they did not form a compact party, because not even the Ionian cities practised that discipline and subordination which for war are indispensable, and lastly because Arista goras and HistitBus were adventurous intriguers and tyrants, but without the gifts of rulers or generals. Of the history of the revolt, in addition to the excellent accounts which he derived from Hecatteus of Miletus, a contemporary and actor in the events he describes, Herodotus has all sorts of popular fables to tell. The chronology is uncertain; probably the revolt began in 500 or 499, and was substan tially ended by the capture of Miletus in 495 or 494 (six years later, Herod., vi. 18). Aristagoras made himself master of the fleet on its return from Naxos, took prisoner the tyrants on board at the head of the contingents of their cities, and restored the republic in Miletus, only of course with the view of thereby ruling the confederacy. The Spartans, admittedly at that time the first power of Greece, were sober enough to refuse the help requested. But the Athenians, who had already excited the wrath of the Persians by refusing to comply with the demand of Artaphernes that they should receive back Hippias as tyrant, had the courage or rather the foolishness to de spatch twenty ships to the help of the lonians. They thus mortally insulted the Persians without really benefiting their friends. The Athenians shared in the march on Sardis. The confederates burned the city, but could not capture the citadel ; on the contrary, they were obliged to beat a hasty retreat, and were after all routed at Ephesus. However, the Persian army did not as yet per manently take up quarters in Ephesus. The Athenians, who may have dreamed of pressing forward into the interior of Asia, returned home with their illusion dis pelled, and Athens took no further part in the war. But the impression produced by this unsuccessful expedition upon a modern critic is very different from that which it produced upon the Asiatics of those times. They said : " The lonians have risen against the king ; the lonians from beyond the sea have come to their help ; they have