Darius the Great by Jacob Abbott

Author:Jacob Abbott
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: BookRix

THE INVASION OF SCYTHIA

B.C. 513

Darius's authority fully established throughout his dominions.—The Scythians.—Ancient account of them.—Pictures of savage life.—Their diversity.—Social instincts of man.—Their universality.—Moral sentiments of mankind.—Religious depravity.—Advice of Artabanus.—Emissaries sent forward.—The petition of Oebazus.—Darius's wanton cruelty.—Place of rendezvous.—The fleet of galleys.—Darius's march through Asia Minor.—Monuments.—Arrival at the Bosporus.—The bridge of boats.—Reward of Mandrocles.—The group of statuary.—The Cyanean Islands.—Darius makes an excursion to them.—The two monuments.—Inscriptions on them.—The troops cross the bridge.—Movements of the fleet.—The River Tearus.—Its wonderful sources.—The cairn.—Primitive mode of census- taking.—Instinctive feeling of dependence on a supernatural power.—Strange religious observance.—Arrival at the Danube.—Orders to destroy the bridge.—Counsel of the Grecian general.—The bridge is preserved.—Guard left to protect it.—Singular mode of reckoning.—Probable reason for employing it.—Darius's determination to return before the knots should be all untied.

IN the reigns of ancient monarchs and conquerors, it often happened that the first great transaction which called forth their energies was the suppression of a rebellion within their dominions, and the second, an expedition against some ferocious and half-savage nations beyond their frontiers. Darius followed this general example. The suppression of the Babylonian revolt established his authority throughout the whole interior of his empire. If that vast, and populous, and wealthy city was found unable to resist his power, no other smaller province or capital could hope to succeed in the attempt. The whole empire of Asia, therefore, from the capital at Susa, out to the extreme limits and bounds to which Cyrus had extended it, yielded without any further opposition to his sway. He felt strong in his position, and being young and ardent in temperament, he experienced a desire to exercise his strength. For some reason or other, he seems to have been not quite prepared yet to grapple with the Greeks, and he concluded, accordingly, first to test his powers in respect to foreign invasion by a war upon the Scythians. This was an undertaking which required some courage and resolution; for it was while making an incursion into the country of the Scythians that Cyrus, his renowned predecessor, and the founder of the Persian empire, had fallen.

The term Scythians seems to have been a generic designation, applied indiscriminately to vast hordes of half-savage tribes occupying those wild and inhospitable regions of the north, that extended along the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, and the banks of the Danube. The accounts which are given by the ancient historians of the manners and customs of these people, are very inconsistent and contradictory; as, in fact, the accounts of the characters of savages, and of the habits and usages of savage life, have always been in every age. It is very little that any one cultivated observer can really know, in respect to the phases of character, the thoughts and feelings, the sentiments, the principles and the faith, and even the modes of life, that prevail among uncivilized aborigines living in forests, or roaming wildly over uninclosed and trackless plains. Of those who have the opportunity to observe them, accordingly,

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