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The Tale of the Great Persian War From the Histories of Herodotus
The Tale of the Great Persian War From the Histories of Herodotus Author:Herodotus General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1861 Original Publisher: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts Subjects: Iran Greece Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free ... more »trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAP. III. THE INROAD OF THE PERSIANS INTO 8CYTHIA. -- THE TALE OF ARISTAGORAS AND HISTLEUS. -- MILTIADES AND MA- BATHON. Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame The battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word. Btbon. Then King Darius led forth his armies against the Scythians, as he was before minded; and they crossed over into Europe at the Thracian 87 Bosporus, where a bridge had been built by Man- drocles the Samian. At the first the king thought to have the bridge unloosed, as soon as all should 9 have gone over; but Goes, a man of Mitylene, besought him to let it remain, lest there should be no way to escape if any evil befell them in the war. So Darius charged the lonians to keep the bridge for sixty days, and then he marched away against the Scythians. But he fared not well in the war, for the people dwelt in desert regions, THE GIFTS OF THE SCYTHIANS. 35 and it was hard to track them out. And Darius iv.-j and his host were in sore distress, when there came 131 a man from the Scythians, bringing with him a bird and a mouse, a frog and five arrows. But when the Persians asked him what these gifts might mean, the man said that he had received no charge but to give them and to return. Then the Persians took counsel; and the king thought isa that by these gifts the Scythians yielded up themselves, their land and their water, because the mouse lives on the land and the frog in the w...« less