DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS.

Tue conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his
Persian army was the first step towards that in-
vasion of Greece by the Persians which proved
such a vital element in the history of the Hellenic
people. The next step was taken in the reign of
Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade
Kurope. This ambitious warrior attempted to win
fame by conquering the country of the Scythian
barbarians,—now Southern Russia,—and was taught
such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the peril-
ous enterprise was not repeated.

It was about the year 516 n.c. that the Persian
king, with the ostensible purpose—invented to ex-
cuse his invasion—of punishing the Scythians for a
raid into Asia a century before, but really moved
only by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bos-
phorus, the strait that here divides Europe from
Asia. He had with him an army said to have
numbered seven hundred thousand men, and on the
seas was a fleet of six hundred ships. A bridge of
boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,—on
which Constantinople now stands,—and the great
Persian host reached European soi! in the country

of Thrace.
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