Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA.
memory the Kimmerian inroad of a century before ;
and that he may have it judged well to ascertain for
himself the real nature of the populations who supplied
such hordes, and at the same time to let them see how
great his power really was. Again, as we know that he
had some time previously despatched one Democedes
on a cruise from Sidon to Europe, and that this officer
actually went as far as Crotona, we may be sure
that he had thereby acquired some knowledge of
the characteristics of the climate, productions, and
material wealth of the Greek nations to the West.
Anyhow, the expedition into Scythia, as far North,
Professor Eawlinson thinks, as the fiftieth parallel,
can hardly have been merely a raid. Nay, more
than this, as Darius was at this time master of the
whole of Asia Minor, it may have seemed to him
a wise policy to annex to his dominions a tract
of land in Europe, on which side his empire was
peculiarly vulnerable. His careful precautions are
further shewn, by his despatching Ariaramnes, the
satrap of Cappadocia, across the Black Sea with a
small fleet, to examine the Scythian coasts, a com-
mission he so successfully performed that even the
brother of the Scythian king was carried off, and
much valuable information obtained.
Darius then, with the aid of the Asiatic Greeks,
having collected a fleet of 600 ships and a vast army
composed of all or most of the nations tributary to
him, crossed the Bosphorus on a bridge constructed
for him by a Greek, passed along the line of the Little,
and crossed the Great Balkan, and conquered the
Getae, who lived between that range and the Danube.
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