herodotus

would come upon the cattle and take them, and having taken them theywere elated at what they had done. 131. As this happened often, atlength Dareios began to be in straits; and the kings of the Scythiansperceiving this sent a herald bearing as gifts to Dareios a bird and amouse and a frog and five arrows. The Persians accordingly asked thebearer of the gifts as to the meaning of the gifts which were offered;but he said that nothing more had been commanded to him but to givethem and get away as speedily as possible; and he bade the Persiansfind out for themselves, if they had wisdom, that which the gifts weremeant to express. 132. Having heard this the Persians took counselwith one another; and the opinion of Dareios was that the Scythianswere giving to him both themselves and also earth and water, makinghis conjecture by this, namely that a mouse is produced in the earthand feeds on the same produce of the earth as man, and a frog in thewater, while a bird has great resemblance to a horse;[119] andmoreover that in giving the arrows they were delivering up their ownmight in battle. This was the opinion expressed by Dareios; but theopinion of Gobryas, one of the seven men who killed the Magian, was atvariance with it, for he conjectured that the gifts expressed this:"Unless ye become birds and fly up into the heaven, O Persians, orbecome mice and sink down under the earth, or become frogs and leapinto the lakes, ye shall not return back home, but shall be smitten bythese arrows."133. The Persians then, I say, were making conjecture of the gifts:and meanwhile the single division of the Scythians, that which hadbeen appointed at first to keep guard along the Maiotian lake and thento go to the Ister and come to speech with the Ionians, when theyarrived at the bridge spoke as follows: "Ionians, we have comebringing you freedom, if at least ye are willing to listen to us; forwe are informed that Dareios gave you command to guard the bridge forsixty days only, and then, if he had not arrived within that time, toget you away to your own land. Now therefore, if ye do as we say, yewill be without blame from his part and without blame also from ours:stay the appointed days and then after that get you away." They then,when the Ionians had engaged themselves to do this, hastened backagain by the quickest way: 134, and meanwhile, after the coming of thegifts to Dareios, the Scythians who were left had arrayed themselvesagainst the Persians with both foot and horse, meaning to engagebattle. Now when the Scythians had been placed in battle-array, a haredarted through them into the space between the two armies, and eachcompany of them, as they saw the hare, began to run after it. When theScythians were thus thrown into disorder and were raising loud cries,Dareios asked what was this clamour arising from the enemy; andhearing that they were running after the hare, he said to those men towhom he was wont to say things at other times: "These men have very