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 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. Here we r center the world of reality, at the north bank of the Danube, the place where we before quitted it. All that is re ported to have passed in the interval, if tried by the tests of his- torical matter of fact, can be received as nothing better than a perplexing dream. It only acquires value when we consider it as an illustrative fiction, including, doubtless, some unknown matter of fact, but framed chiefly to exhibit in action those un- attackable Nomads, who formed the northeastern barbarous world of a Greek, and with whose manners Herodotus was pro- foundly struck. " The Scythians 1 (says he) in regard to one of the greatest of human matters, have struck out a plan cleverer than any that I know. In other respects I do not admire them ; but they have contrived this great object, that no invader of their country shall ever escape out of it, or shall ever be able to find out and overtake them, unless they themselves choose. For when men have neither walls nor established cities, but are all house-carriers and horse-bowmen, living, not from the plough, but from cattle, and having their dwellings on wagons, how can they be otherwise than unattackable and impracticable to meddle with ? " The protracted and unavailing chase ascribed to Darius, who can neither overtake his game nor use his arms, and who hardly even escapes in safety, embodies in detail this formidable attribute of the Scythian Nomads. That Darius ac- tually marched into the country, there can be no doubt. Nothing else is certain, except his ignominious retreat out of it to the Danube ; for of the many different guesses, 2 by which critics 1 Herodot. iv, 46. TGJ 6s ZnvdiKu yevsi EV fj.lv rb ne v ootyuTara nuvrav E^EVprjrai, TU>V Tjfielf 16/nev ru fievToi d/lAa OVK Td 6e [teyiarov OVTU avref ^ UTT' aporov, a/l^,' UTTO KTTJVEUV, rfe ai jj em ^evyeuv, nuf OVK uv elrjoav ovrot uua^oi re /cat u~ opoi -trpoafuo- yeiv; 'EtJEVpriTai 6i atyi ravra, r^f re y^f loixrrjf lirtTtjtiEijf, Kai TUV iroruftuv tJvruv oQi av/ifiuxuv, etc. Compare this with the oration of the Scythian envoys to Alexander the Great, as it stands in Quintus Curtius, vii. 8, 22 (vii, 35, 22, Zumpt). rha to the country between the Danube and the Tyras (Dniester) is justly
 * The statement of Strabo (vii, p. 305), which restricts the march of Da-