mpts to institute satrapies
had taught him not only the condition and needs of Asia Minor, but of
the teaching the Scythians such a lesson as would prevent them from
bearing down upon his right flank during his march, or upon his rear
while engaged in a crucial struggle in the Hellenic peninsula. On the
other hand, the geographical information possessed by the Persians with
regard to the Danubian regions was of so vague a character, that Darius
must have believed the Scythians to have been nearer to his line of
operations, and their country less desolate than was really the case.* A
flotilla, commanded by Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, ventured across
the Black Sea in 515,** landed a few thousand men upon the opposite
shore, and brought back prisoners who furnished those in command with
the information they required.***

* The motives imputed to Darius by the ancients for making
this expedition are the desire of avenging the disasters of
the Scythian invasion, or of performing an exploit which
should render him as famous as his predecessors in the eyes
of posterity.

** The reconnaissance of Ariaramnes is intimately connected
with the expedition itself in Ctesias, and could have
preceded it by a few months only. If we take for the date of
the latter the year 514-513, the date given in the Table of
the Capitol, that of the former cannot be earlier than 515.
Ariaramnes was not satrap of Cappadocia, for Cappadocia
belonged then to the satrapy of Daskylion.

*** The supplementary paragraphs of the Inscription of
Behistun speak of an expedition of Darius against the Sako,
which is supposed to have had as its objective either the
sea of Aral or the Tigris. Would it not be possible to
suppose that the sea mentioned is the Pontus Euxinus, and to
take the mutilated text of Behistun to be a description
either of the campaign beyond the Danube, or rather of the
preliminary _reconnaissance_ of Ariaramnes a year before the
expedition itself?

Darius, having learned what he could from these poor wretches, crossed
the Bosphorus in 514, with a body of troops which tradition computed
at 800,000, conquered the eastern coast of Thrace, and won his way in
a series of conflicts as far as the Ister. The Ionian sailors built for
him a bridge of boats, which he entrusted to their care, and he then
started forward into the steppes i