n search of the enemy. The Scythians
refused a pitched battle, but they burnt the pastures before him on
every side, filled up the wells, carried off the cattle, and then slowly
retreated into the interior, leaving Darius to face the vast extent of
the steppes and the terrors of famine. Later tradition stated that he
wandered for two months in these solitudes between the Ister and the
Tanais; he had constructed on the banks of this latter river a series
of earthworks, the remains of which were shown in the time of Herodotus,
and had at length returned to his point of departure with merely the
loss of a few sick men. The barbarians stole a march upon him, and
advised the Greeks to destroy the bridge, retire within their cities,
and abandon the Persians to their fate. The tyrant of the Ohersonnesus,
Miltiades the Athenian, was inclined to follow their advice; but
Histiasus, the governor of Miletus, opposed it, and eventually carried
his point. Darius reached the southern bank without difficulty, and
returned to Asia.*

* Ctesias limits the campaign beyond the Danube to a fifteen
days' march; and Strabo places the crossing of the Danube
near the mouth of that river, at the island of Peuke, and
makes the expedition stop at the Dniester. Neither the line
of direction of the Persian advance nor their farthest point
reached is known. The eight forts which they were said to
have built, the ruins of which were shown on the banks of
the Oaros as late as the time of Herodotus, were probably
tumuli similar to those now met with on the Russian steppes,
the origin of which is ascribed by the people to persons
celebrated in their history or traditions.

The Greek towns of Thrace thought themselves rid of him, and rose in
revolt; but he left 80,000 men in Europe who, at first under Megabyzos,
and then under Otanes, reduced them to subjection one after another, and
even obliged Amyntas I., the King of Macedonia, to become a tributary of
the empire. The expedition had not only failed to secure the submission
of the Scythians, but apparently provoked reprisals on their part, and
several of their bands penetrated ere long into the Chersonnesus. It
nevertheless was not without solid result, for it showed that Darius,
even if he could not succeed in subjugating the savage Danubian tribes,
had but little to fear from them; it also secured for him a fresh
province, that of Thrace, and, b