ar after year
embarked in one desperate adventure after another, must have found great
difficulty in filling up the gaps which even victories made in their
ranks; enervated by the relaxing nature of the climate, they could offer
little resistance to disease, and excess completed what the climate had
begun, the result being that most of them died on the way, and only
a few survived to rejoin the main body with their booty. For several
months the tide of invasion continued to rise, then it ebbed as quickly
as it had risen, till soon nothing was left to mark where it had passed
save a pathway of ruins, not easily made good, and a feeling of terror
which it took many a year to efface. It was long before Judah forgot
the "mighty nation, the ancient nation, the nation whose language thou
knowest not, neither understandest thou what they say."* Men could
still picture in imagination their squadrons marauding over the plains,
robbing the fellah of his crops, his bread, his daughters, his sheep and
oxen, his vines and fig trees, for "they lay hold on bow and spear; they
are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and
they ride upon horses; every one set in array as a man to the battle,**
against thee, O daughter of Sion. We have heard the fame thereof; our
hands wax feeble; anguish hath taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman
in travail."*** The supremacy of the Scythians was of short duration. It
was said in after-times that they had kept the whole of Asia in a state
of terror for twenty-eight years, dating from their defeat of Cyaxares;
but the length of this period is exaggerated.****

* Jer. v. 15; it seems curious that the Hebrew prophet
should use the epithet "ancient," when we remember that the
Scythians claimed to be the oldest nation in the world,
older than even the Egyptians themselves.

** An obvious allusion to the regular formation adopted by
the Scythian squadrons.

*** Jer. v. 17; vi. 23, 24.

**** The authenticity of the number of years given in
Herodotus has been energetically defended by some modern
historians, and not less forcibly denied by others, who
reduce it, for example, in accordance with a doubtful
passage of Justin, to eight years. By assigning all the
events relating to the Scythian invaders to the mean period
of twenty years, we should obtain the length of time which
best corresponds to what is actu