excellent soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a
sudden and vast influx of gold into Persia, which led probably to the
introduction of the gold coinage, and the establishment of commercial
relations with the natives, which issued in a regular trade carried
on by coasting-vessels between the mouths of the Indus and the Persian
Gulf.

The next important expedition--one probably of still greater
magnitude--took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two
places to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic
rivers. The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the
Hellespont seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite
bank of a pretty wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of
Asia Minor, and separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier
from fertile tracts of vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were
nowhere else to be found on the borders of his empire, naturally turned
his thoughts of conquest to this quarter. His immediate desire was,
probably, to annex Thrace; but he may have already entertained wider
views, and have looked to embracing in his dominions the lovely isles
and coasts of Greece also, so making good the former threats of Cyrus.
The story of the voyage and escape of Democedes, related by Herodotus
with such amplitude of detail, and confirmed to some extent from other
sources, cannot be a mere myth without historical foundation. Nor is
it probable that the expedition was designed merely for the purpose of
"indulging the exile with a short visit to his native country," or of
collecting "interesting information." If by the king's orders a vessel
was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of Greece under the
guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona in Magna
Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at the
bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end as
the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require
to have it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or
actually, surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to
him, he saw that in this direction only there was an attractive country
readily accessible. Elsewhere his Empire abutted