PART I. These particulars enable us to discover, that the Scythians were a warlike and barbarous race of men, with a high sense of military honour; and that, like all northern barbarians, they were addicted to drinking. For this vice, indeed, they were so notorious, that, even among the convivial Greeks, a man who indulged in liquor to violent excess, was said to "play the Scythian"." Drinking and barbarity, in a word, accompanied their most important civil transactions. In ratifying their treaties, they poured wine into a large earthen vessel, and mingled it with blood drawn from the contracting parties; then having dipt into it a scimitar, a quiver of arrows, and other weapons of war, they mutually uttered many imprecations against the violators of the stipulations, and drank off the liquor". But the most remarkable feature in the character of the Scythians, considering their stage in the progress of society, was their superstitious veneration for their king, or great chief. Though they lived in a state so friendly to liberty, and without the restraint of positive laws, they were slaves to the will of a despot2. The most solemn oath they could take delineated the character of the Scythians. But Herodotus, who wrote four hundred and fifty years before the christian æra, and about sixty years after the expedition of Darius, only could describe the manners of the Scythians of those times. He had visited their country, and seen what he relates. 70. Herodot. lib. vi. cap. lxxxiv. 71. Id. Historiar. lib. iv. cap. lxx. 72. This mixture of barbarism and despotism, among a people in the hunting and herding state, although singular, is not without example: it has been found in the highlands of Scotland, as well as in the wilds of Scythia. Nor are its causes therly inexplicable. It may be partly accounted for, from the long continuance of the Scy. thians in that rude state; in consequence of their possessing an extensive champaign country, more fit for pasture than tillage; and partly from their respect, approaching adoration, to the royal race; supposed to be lineally descended from Jupiter, and a daughter of the XI. take was, to swear by the royal throne; and the king, LETTER on an accusation of perjury, which it was the interest of his ministers to prove, could order any obnoxious subject to be put to death; confiscate his property, and extirpate his offspring73. Nor does it appear, that any opposition was ever made against the execution of such mandate. Such were the people against whom the Persian monarch made war. Conscious of their inability to oppose, in battle, his numerous and disciplined army, the European Scythians, who always fought on horseback, and who had, on this occasion, been abandoned by their Asiatic confederates, retreated before him; wasting the country, and filling up the springs and wells74. By that mode of warfare, in which they hazarded only slight skirmishes, they drew him as far as the deserts beyond the Tanais; sending their wives and children, with the greater part of their cattle, into regions still more remote"5. Thus baffled in his hopes of conquest, and chagrined with disappointment, Darius gave over his fruitless pursuit; and, encamping on the banks of the river Oarus, sent a haughty message to Indathyrsus, king of the Scythians, desiring him either to try his strength in the field, or to acknowledge the Persian monarch as his master, by presenting him with earth and water, in testimony of submission. The Scythian prince, proud of his barbarous independency, returned an answer no less haughty, than the river Borysthenes, and who had held the throne about a thousand years, in uninterrupted succession, at the invasion of Scythia, by Darius Histaspes. Herodot. lib. iv. cap. v. vi. vii. 73. Herodot. lib. iv. cap. lxviii-lxx. In such accusations, the Scythian monarch was assisted by certain prophets or seers; whose spiritual authority was necessary to the exercise of his temporal despotism, and who were rewarded with the confiscations. Id. ibid. 75. Id. Historiar. 76. Herodot. lib. ix. cap. cxxvii. the 74. Herodotus, lib. iv, cap. cxx. eap. cxxi-cxxiv. VOL. II. P PART I. the message of the Persian monarch. After telling him, that he never fled from any man out of fear; and that, in declining to give him battle, he was not actuated by that motive, but pursued the mode of war best suited to his circumstances, and the state of his country, "I acknowledge," said he, "no su66 perior, but Jupiter, my progenitor, and Vesta, 66 queen of the Scythians"." And, instead of presenting Darius with earth and water, he sent him, by a herald, a bird, a mouse, a frog, and a quiver of arrows78. By this present, some of the Persians seemed to think, that the Scythians had made their submission. But Gobrias, one of the seven chiefs who had slain the magian usurper, explained it differently. "By that present," observed he, "the "Scythians mean to let us know, that unless we can "ascend into the air, like birds, conceal ourselves in "the earth, like mice, or plunge into the fens, like "frogs, we must perish by those arrows"9" Satisfied with the justness of this explication, and seeing the danger of losing his army, already much diminished, in an immense country, intersected with lakes and rivers, Darius took the resolution of returning into Asia Minor, and began his backward march. Meanwhile the Scythians, having collected their forces, pressed upon his rear. In every encounter, the barbarous enemy broke the Persian cavalry; but the Persian foot opposed an impenetrable barrier against their most furious attacks, and obliged them to seek safety in flight. At length the Persian monarch approached the Danube. But here a new danger threatened him. 77. Id. ibid. 78. Herodot. lib. iv. cap. cxxxi. 79. Id. Historiar. lib. iv. cap. cxxxii. 80. Herodotus. lib. iv. cap. cxxviii—cxxxvi. 81. Id. ibid. A body XI. A body of Scythians had arrived at the Danube, LETTER by a different rout, and endeavoured to persuade the Asiatic Greeks to remove the bridge of boats, which they had been left to guard; and by such bold measure, to free themselves and their countrymen from subjection to the Persian power, as Darius and his whole army must, in that event, inevitably perish, either by famine or the weapons of war82. This proposal was eagerly embraced by Miltiades, prince or tyrant (under the Persian monarch) of Cardia, in the Thracian Chersonesus; and strenuously opposed by Histiæus, chief of Miletus 83. Histiæus might have reprobated such treachery to a superior sovereign, upon the purest principles of moral justice. That he was actuated by honourable sentiments, there is reason to believe; notwithstanding what has been advanced to the contrary by Greek and Roman writers, in their enthusiastic zeal for liberty. But he chose to employ political arguments, as of more certain effect, in order to confirm his brother chiefs in their loyalty to Darius. He, therefore, represented to them, that their authority over their fellow-citizens was intimately connected with the dominion of the great king, whose vassals they were; and that, if they should restore liberty and independency to the Asiatic Greeks, the people of every state would choose a democratical form of government, and no longer submit to the will of a master, or the controul of any one man 84. Influenced by these arguments, all the other Grecian chiefs, in the service of Darius, agreed to preserve the bridge, and to wait his arrival, except 82. Cornel. Nep. Vit. Miltiades, cap. iii. Herodot. lib. iv. cap. cxxxvii. 83. Id. ibid. 84. Herodot, et Cornel. Nep. ubi sup. Miltiades, PART I. Miltiades, who adhered to his former opinion35; and, Ant. Chr. 512. Olymp. Jxvii. x. finding himself obnoxious on that account, he afterward retired to Athens, his native city, where we shall see him distinguished as a hero and commander, and become the champion of the liberties of Greece. Thé Persian monarch accordingly repassed the Danube unmolested, with the remains of his army. And having left eighty thousand men in Thrace, under Megabyzus, one of his generals, to secure the conquest of that country, he proceeded with the main body to Asia Minor, and took up his residence at Sardis, which he made the seat of his court. There he spent the winter, and the greater part of the following year; during which time, he accomplished most of the ends he could have proposed to himself by his Scythian expedition, though he had not vanquished the roving enemy in battle. While Darius resided at Sardis, Megabyzus, his general in Europe, subdued all the Thracian tribes that refused to acknowledge the Persian sway, and received the submission of Macedonia 88. This submission was readily yielded by Amyntas, the Macedonian monarch, who was afraid to resist the arms of the great king. But his son Alexander, a prince of high spirit, ashamed of his father's pusillanimity, and enraged at the licentious behaviour of seven Persian lords (who had been sumptuously entertained on that occasion) to some Macedonian ladies, introduced at their request, and contrary to the custom of Greece, to grace the feast, conspired the destruction of those violators of decency, and the deliverance of Macedonia from foreign dominion. For that purpose, he disguised, in the dress of virgins, a 85. Id. ibid. 86. Cornel. Nep. Vit. Miltiades, cap. iii. et seq. 88. Herodotus, lib. v. cap. xiv-xviii. certain |