of game: without more
ado, the savages in revenge murdered and served up one of these youths
instead of the venison which had been expected of them, and made
forthwith for the neighbouring kingdom of Lydia. A war between the two
states was the consequence.

But to return to Darius:--it is said to have been in retaliation for
these excesses that he resolved on his expedition against the Scythians,
who, as I have mentioned, were in occupation of the district between the
Danube and the Don. For this purpose he advanced from Susa in the
neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, through Assyria and Asia Minor to the
Bosphorus, just opposite to the present site of Constantinople, where he
crossed over into Europe. Thence he made his way, with the incredible
number of 700,000 men, horse and foot, to the Danube, reducing Thrace,
the present Roumelia, in his way. When he had crossed that stream, he
was at once in Scythia; but the Scythians had adopted the same sort of
strategy, which in the beginning of this century was practised by their
successors against Napoleon. They cut and carried off the green crops,
stopped up their wells or spoilt their water, and sent off their
families and flocks to places of safety. Then they stationed their
outposts just a day's journey before the enemy, to entice him on. He
pursued them, they retreated; and at length he found himself on the Don,
the further boundary of the Scythian territory. They crossed the Don,
and he crossed it too, into desolate and unknown wilds; then, eluding
him altogether, from their own knowledge of the country, they made a
circuit, and got back into their own land again.

Darius found himself outwitted, and came to a halt; how he had
victualled his army, whatever deduction we make for its numbers, does
not appear; but it is plain that the time must come, when he could not
proceed. He gave the order for retreat. Meanwhile, he found an
opportunity of sending a message to the Scythian chief, and it was to
this effect:--"Perverse man, take your choice; fight me or yield." The
Scythians intended to do neither, but contrived, as before, to harass
the Persian retreat. At length an answer came; not a message, but an
ominous gift; they sent Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows;
without a word of explanation. Darius himself at first hailed it as an
intimation of submission; in Greece to offer earth and water was the
sign of capitulation, as, in a sale of land in our own cou