Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/280

 262 HISTORY OF GREECE. summoned the whole force of his empire, army and nary, to th Thracian Bosphorus, a force not less than seven hundred thousand horse and foot, and six hundred ships, according to Herodotus. On these prodigious numbers we can lay no stress. But it appeal's that the names of all the various nations compos- ing the host were inscribed on two pillars, erected by order of Darius on the European side of the Bosphorus, and afterwards seen by Herodotus himself in the city of Byzantium, the in- scriptions were bilingual, in Assyrian cnaracters as well as Greek. The Samian architect Mandrokles had been directed to throw a bridge of boats across the Bosphorus, about half-way between Byzantium and the mouth of the Euxine. So peremp- tory were the Persian kings that their orders for military service should be punctually obeyed, and so impatient were they of the idea of exemptions, that when a Persian father named GEobazua entreated that one of his three sons, all included in the conscrip- tion, might be left at home, Darius replied that all three of them Scythian expedition; but as the accession of Darius is fixed to 521 B.C., and as the expedition is connected with the early part of his reign, we may con- ceive him to have entered upon it as soon as his hands were free ; that is, as soon as he had put down the revolted satraps and provinces, Orcetes, tho Medes, Babylonians, etc. Five years seems a reasonable time to allow foi these necessities of the empire, which would bring the Scythian expedition to 516-515 B.C. There is reason for supposing it to have been before 514 B.C., for in that year Hipparchus was slain at Athens, and Hippias the sur- viving brother, looking out for securities and alliances abroad, gave his daughter in marriage to ^Eantides son of Hippoklus, despot of Lampsakus, " perceiving that Hippoklus and his son had great influence with Darius," (Thucyd. vi, 59.) Now Hippoklus could not well have acquired this influ- ence before the Scythian expedition ; for Darius came down then for the first time to the western sea ; Hippoklns served upon that expedition (Herodot. iv, 138), and it was probably then that his favor was acquired, and farther confirmed during the time that Darius stayed at Sardis after hii return from Scythia. Professor Schultz (Beitrage zu gcnaueren Zeit-bestimmungen der Heller. Geschicht. von der 63n bis zur 72& Olympiade, p. 168, in the Kieler Phi- lolog. Studien) places the expedition in 513 B.C. ; but I think a year or t^o earlier is more probable. Larcher, "Wesseling, and Bahr (ad Herodot. iv. 145) place it in 508 B.C., which is later than the truth ; indeed, Larcher himself places the reduction of Lemnos and Imbros by Otanes in 511 B.C.. though that event decidedly came after the Scythian expedition (Herodot
 * , 87 ; Larcher, Table Chronologique, Trad. d'Hercdot. t. vii, pp. 633-6.15).