CHAPTER VI.
SCYTHIA.
In wattled sheds on rolling cars aloft,
Accoutred with far-striking archery."
—Æschylus, "Prometheus."
Having disposed of Babylon, Darius next bethought himself of the Scythians. He had an old national grudge against this restless race, for having overrun Asia in the days of Cyaxares the Mede. The Behistun inscription only mentions the quelling of a revolt of the Sacæ, or Scythian subjects of Persia; but Herodotus speaks of an expedition on a vast scale against the independent nation.
The Scythians were, according to Herodotus, a people whose seat was in the steppes of northern Russia, more widely spread than the present Cossacks of the Don, but without any definite boundaries, sometimes encroaching on their neighbours and sometimes encroached upon by them, like the Tartar hordes at this day. Their name has been supposed by some to be a synonym for "archers." Their habits were very like those of the terrible Huns and Magyars who overran part of Europe in the last agonies of
