Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/284

 26fc HISTORY OF GRE2CE. take? that opportunity of communicating valuable particulars re- specting the habits and manners cf each. The kings of these nations discuss whether Darius is justified in his invasion, and whether it be prudent in them to aid the Scythians. The latter question is decided in the affirmative by the Sarmatians, the Budini, and the Geloni, all eastward of the Tanais, 1 in thn negative by the rest. The Scythians, removing their wagons with their wives and children out of the way northward, retreat and draw Darius after them from the Danube all across Scythia and Sarmatia to the northeastern extremity of the territory of the Budini, 2 several days' journey eastward of the Tanais. Moreover, they destroy the wells and ruin the herbage as much as they can, so that during all this long march, says Herodotus, the Persians " found nothing to damage, inasmuch as the country was barren ;" it is therefore not easy to see what they could rind to live upon. It is in the territory of the Budini, at this eastern- most terminus on the borders of the desert, that the Persians perform the only positive acts which are ascribed to them throughout the whole expedition. They burn the wooden wall before occupied, but now deserted, by the Geloni, and they build, or begin to build, eight large fortresses near the river Oarus. For what purpose these fortresses could have been intended, Herodotus gives no intimation ; but he says that the unfinished work was yet to be seen even in his day. 3 Having thus been carried all across Scythia and the other ter- ritories above mentioned in a northeasterly direction, Darius and his army are next marched back a prodigious distance in a north- westerly direction, through the territories of the Melanchlseni, the Androphagi, and the Neuri, all of whom flee affrighted into Herodot. iv, 118, 119. * Herodot. iv, 120-122. Herodot. iv, 123. "Oaov [icv drj %p6i>ov ol Hipoai f/'iaav fitti rr/r 2t)i9t/c^j Kal rf/r ZavpauuTidof ^wpj/f, ol 6e ei^ov ovdev oiveadai, UTC T% xuprif totxn/f jffoyyu TTCI -,'re /f rr/v ruv Bovdlvuv xupr/v loej3aAoi> etc. See Rennell, Geograph. System of Herodotus, p. 114, about the Oarus. The erections, whatever they were, which were supposed to mark the ex- treme point of the march of Darius, may be compared to those evidence! of the extreme advance of Dionysus, which the Macedonian army saw on the north of the Jaxartes " Liberi patris terminos." Qu'atus Curtw* Vii, 9, 15, (vii,37, 16, Zumpt)