Scythians. Detailed History

In Herodotus’s account of the Persian Wars, the story of the Scythian invasion moved from the historical attack on Thrace and a raid across the Danube to an act of hubris, with Persia’s invasion of the Ukraine and southern Russia in an attempt to conquer the entire Scythian nation. The Scythians probably represented a variety of tribes with similar backgrounds and cultures. The term, when used by the Greeks, represented any of the Eurasian tribes across the Russian steppes.

One theory has them coming from inner Asia, modern Turkestan, and Siberia, while another had them from the local Black Sea region. The Scythians, therefore, may have been a conglomeration of various peoples. The Scythians and Cimmerians may have been from the same tribal organization, although Herodotus has the Scythians pushing the Cimmerians out of Russia. The Cimmerians had swept into the Russian steppes, probably in the ninth century, and by the seventh century, they had moved across the Caucuses and attacked the Middle East. They dominated the Medes for a short period of time (650-630).

The Persian king Darius stated that his purpose was to punish the (Cimmerians, often calling them Scythians as well for an invasion of Media a century earlier. The real purpose was something more strategic and realistic. The invasion by Darius into Thrace was the primary objective. By controlling the region to the Danube, Darius could move against Greece with a secure northern border. Eight years later, Darius now moved against Thrace, and perhaps Greece.

Darius moved into Thrace after crossing the Bosporus to make the Danube River his northern boundary. After this, he desired to move into Macedon to the west of Thrace to control northern Greece. Thrace was a rough, mountainous country, with warlike tribes. Darius, therefore, needed a large army to subdue the region. North of Byzantium at the Bosporus, a pontoon bridge was built, where Darius ordered pillars erected with the names of the nations that composed his army and the Persian army crossed the bridge. The Ionian Greeks sent a large fleet that accompanied Darius sailing along the western shore of the Black Sea, accompanying the army to the Danube, supplying and providing assistance to it. The Ionian Greeks in Darius’s army were commanded by their tyrants, including Histiaeus of Miletus and Miltiades of the Thracian Chersonese.

The Thracians are said to have submitted except the Getae, who indicated that they would not submit without a fight. It seems probable that the other Thracian tribes did not just give in, but in fact fought. The tribes on both sides of the Danube were probably similar to each other, and the river did not create a boundary. The Scythians in the west approximated the Thracians, while those in the east were culturally close to the Persians. The Thracians probably had connections with these Scythians across southern Russia and may have sought their aid against the Persians.

With Darius’s preparations known, the Thracians would have had time to request aid. With the Greek fleet sailing to the Danube, they threw across another bridge, allowing Darius’s army to invade Dacia (modern Romania), with its gold mines controlled by the Agathyrsi. This was probably one of the goals for Darius. From the accounts, it is probable that the Agathyrsi opposed the Persian advance. Darius then erected a series of forts on the Oaros River (which is unknown, but probably was a tributary of the Danube, perhaps in the east). Finally, his march across the Danube resulted in loss of contact with the Greek fleet stationed at the Danube delta. As a consequence, some of the Ionian Greek commanders thought of leaving, but they did not, and Darius subsequently rewarded them for their loyalty.

Their loyalty was even more poignant since the states of Byzantium, Perin- thus, and Chalcedon had revolted. He had to avoid the Bosporus and instead marched to the Hellespont. When he marched back through Thrace, Darius left an army under Megabazus, who was to continue the conquest of Thrace, as well as conquer the Greek cities along the northern coast of the Aegean and Propontis. He successfully established Persian control over the region between the Strymon and Axius rivers, and Macedon submitted into allegiance. Persian control would last for the next fifteen years.

This reality was different from Herodotus’s version, which gave rise to the legend to the Scythian invasion. Although Darius’s expedition was successful, it has been told in a completely different way. In Herodotus’s story, the expedition was not to conquer Thrace, but rather to take over all of Scythia in the southern steppes of Russia. The story presented Thrace as nothing more than a convenient thoroughfare on the way to Scythia. The success was now slight in comparison to the disaster in Scythia that followed. Darius planned to avenge the invasion of Media by the Scythians. The Greeks in this story were there only to construct the bridge across the Danube. In this story, he told the commander of the fleet to wait sixty days, and then, if the Persian army did not come back, to leave. Darius and his men then attacked the Scythians across the steppes of Russia, failing to lure the Scythians into battle.

Herodotus then had Darius traveling to the Don and beyond. Here, Herodotus put the Oaros River not in the Danube region, but beyond the Don, in the Maeotic Sea. According to Herodotus, the Persians are successful in their plan, but upon their return to the Danube, they were harassed by the Scythians in hit-and-run attacks. During this invasion, the sixty days had elapsed, and Darius feared that the Greek fleet had left. In the story, the Scythians arrived at the bridge and urged the Greeks to destroy it. The Ionians decided to only take apart the boats on the Scythian side so that the Scythians would leave. Miltiades urged the Greeks to destroy the bridge completely and return home to rebel. This is probably due to the later struggle between Miltiades, the victor at Marathon, presenting himself as an enemy of the Persians instead of their ally.

Histiaeus, however, argued against the plan since their power in Ionia depended upon Persian power. Darius now returned to the Danube, and an Egyptian called out for Histiaeus, who answered and had the bridge rebuilt. In Herodotus’s story, the Milesian Histiaeus saved Darius, and if they had agreed to Miltiades’s plan, then the attack on Greece would not have taken place. The story here set up the struggle between East and West and the Persian attack on Greece. Herodotus desired to show how immense the Persian Empire was by having the invasion of Scythia as a prelude to the attack, not on Darius, but on Xerxes. The account also wanted to highlight the wisdom of Miltiades, the victor at Marathon, and how his plans were sound.

The Scythians became the archetype of the enemy that could not be defeated. The Persians had attempted to conquer them and Darius’s attempt was a show of hubris or outrageous arrogance. His attempt to conquer the wind was elusive, and even trying showed his contempt for the gods.