related to have cut off his head and plunged it into a
vessel filled with blood, saying, "Cyrus, drink your fill." Such is the
account given us by Herodotus; and, even if it is to be rejected, it
serves to illustrate the difficulties of an invasion of Scythia; for
legends must be framed according to the circumstances of the case, and
grow out of probabilities, if they are to gain credit, and if they have
actually succeeded in gaining it.

7.

Our knowledge of the expedition of Darius in the next generation, is
more certain. This fortunate monarch, after many successes, even on the
European side of the Bosphorus, impelled by that ambition, which holy
Daniel had already seen in prophecy to threaten West and North as well
as South, towards the end of his life directed his arms against the
Scythians who inhabited the country now called the Ukraine. His pretext
for this expedition was an incursion which the same barbarians had made
into Asia, shortly before the time of Cyrus. They had crossed the Don,
just above the sea of Azoff, had entered the country now called
Circassia, had threaded the defiles of the Caucasus, and had defeated
the Median King Cyaxares, the grandfather of Cyrus. Then they overran
Armenia, Cappadocia, Pontus, and part of Lydia, that is, a great portion
of Anatolia or Asia Minor; and managed to establish themselves in the
country for twenty-eight years, living by plunder and exaction. In the
course of this period, they descended into Syria, as far as to the very
borders of Egypt. The Egyptians bought them off, and they turned back;
however, they possessed themselves of a portion of Palestine, and gave
their name to one town, Scythopolis, in the territory of Manasses. This
was in the last days of the Jewish monarchy, shortly before the
captivity. At length Cyaxares got rid of them by treachery; he invited
the greater number of them to a banquet, intoxicated, and massacred
them. Nor was this the termination of the troubles, of which they were
the authors; and I mention the sequel, because both the office which
they undertook and their manner of discharging it, their insubordination
and their cruelty, are an anticipation of some passages in the early
history of the Turks. The Median King had taken some of them into his
pay, made them his huntsmen, and submitted certain noble youths to
their training. Justly or unjustly they happened one day to be punished
for leaving the royal table without its due supply