Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/289

 PLAN OF MARCH AS Pt)POSED BY DARIUS. 271 looks at a map of the Euxine and its surrounding terri- tories may be startled at so extravagant a conception. But he should recollect that there was no map of the same or nearly the same accuracy before Herodotus, much less before the contem- poraries of Darius. The idea of entering Media by the north from Scythia and Sarmatia over the Caucasus, is familiar to He- rodotus in his sketch of the early marches of the Scythians and Cimmerians : moreover, he tells us that after the expedition of Darius, there came some Scythian envoys to Sparta, proposing an offensive alliance against Persia, and offering on their part to march across the Phasis into Media from the north, 1 while the Spartans were invited to land on the shores of Asia Minor, and advance across the country to meet them from the west. When we recollect that the Macedonians and their leader, Alexxnder the Great, having arrived at the river Jaxartes, on the north of Sogdiana, and on the east of the sea of Aral, supposed that they had reached the Tanais, and called the river by that name,' 2 we shall not be astonished at the erroneous estimation of distance implied in the plan conceived by Darius. The lonians had already remained in guard of the bridge be yond the sixty days commanded, without hearing anything of the Persian army, when they were surprised by the appearance, not of that army, but of a body of Scythians, who acquainted them that Darius was in full retreat and in the greatest distress, and that his safety with the whole army depended upon that bridge They endeavored to prevail upon the lonians, since the sixty days included in their order to remain had now elapsed, to break the bridge and retire ; assuring them that, if this were done, the destruction of the Persians was inevitable, of course, the lonians themselves would then be free. At first, the latter were favorably disposed towards the proposition, which was warmly espoused by the Athenian Miltiades, despot, or governor, of the Thracian Chersonese. 3 Had he prevailed, the victor of Marathon rians and of the Scythians into Asia Minor and Media respectively (Herodot i, 103, 104, iv, 12). f, 4, vii, 8, 30 (vii, 29, 5, vii, 36, 7, Zumpt). ' Herodot iv 133, 136, 137.
 * Hcrodot. vi, 84. Compare his account of the marches of the Cimme-
 * Arrian, Exp. Al. iii, 6, 15 ; Plutarch, Alexa'd. c. 45 ; Quint. Curt, vii