hat, 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 A