Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/292

J74 HTSTOlfl OF GREECE. argentiferous mountains. 1 It seems, however, that the Persian dominion in Thrace was disturbed by an invasion of the Scythi- ans, who, in revenge for the aggression of Darius, overran the country as far as the Thracian Chersonese, and are even said to have sent envoys to Sparta proposing a simultaneous invasion of Persia from different side*, by Spartans and Scythians. The Athenian Miltiades, who was despot, or governor, of the Cherso- nese, was forced to quit it for some time, and Herodotus ascribes his retirement to the incursion of these Nomads. But we may be permitted to suspect that the historian has misconceived the real cause of such retirement. Miltiades could not remain in the Chersonese after he had incurred the deadly enmity of Darius by exhorting the lonians to destroy the bridge over the Danube. 2 1 Herodot. v, 23. 1 Herodot. vi, 40-84. That Miltiades could have remained in the Cher sonese undisturbed, during the interval between the Scythian expedition of Darius and the Ionic revolt, when the Persians were complete masters of those regions, and when Otanes was punishing other towns in the neigh- borhood for evasion of service under Darius, after he had declared so pointedly against the Persians on a matter of life and death to the king and army, appears to me, as it does to Dr. Thirhvall (History of Gr. vol. ii, App. ii, p. 486, ch. xiv, pp. 226-249), eminently improbable. So forcibly does Dr. Thirhvall feel the difficulty, that he suspects the reported conduct and exhortations of Miltiades at the bridge over the Danube to have been a falsehood, fabricated by Miltiades himself, twenty years afterwards, for the purpose of acquiring popularity at Athens during the time immediately preceding the battle of Marathon. I cannot think this hypothesis admissible. It directly contradicts He- rodotus on a matter of fact very conspicuous, and upon which good means of information seem to have been within his reach. I have already observed that the historian Hekataeus must have possessed personal knowl- edge of all the relations between the lonians and Darius, and that he very probably may have been even present at the bridge : all the information given by Hekataeus upon these points would be open to the inquiries of Herodo- tus. The unbounded gratitude of Darius towards Histiaeus rhoTrs thai some one or more of the Ionic despots present at the bridge must have powerfully enforced the expediency of breaking it down. That the name of the despot who stood forward as prime mover of this resolution should have been forgotten and not mentioned at the time, is highly improbable ; yet such must have been the case if a fabrication by Miltiades twenty rears afterwards could successfully fill up the blank with his own name. vTie two most prominent matters talked of, after the retreat of Darius, im