European Scythian campaign of Darius I

European Scythian campaign of Darius I
	; Map of the European Scythian campaign of Darius I
Date	513 BC
Location	Balkans and Eastern Europe proper (modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia)
Result	Relative Achaemenid success; expansion of Achaemenid empire into Europe
Belligerents
Achaemenid Empire ; Ionian allies	Royal Scythians ; Allies:; Tauri ; Agathyrsi ; Neuri ; Androphagi ; Melanchlaeni ; Budini & Gelonians ; Sauromatae ; Getae
Commanders and leaders
Darius I ; Megabazus ; Ionian allies:; Miltiades the Athenian; Strattis of Chios ; Histiaeus of Miletus; Aiaces of Samos; Coes of Mytilene ; Laodamas of Phocaea; Aristagoras of Cymae; Daphnis of Abydos; Hippoclus of Lampsacus; Herophantus of Parium; Metrodorus of Proconnesus; Aristagoras of Cyzicus; Ariston of Byzantium	Idanthyrsus ; Scopasis ; Unnamed others
Units involved
Mostly infantry; [1] 80,000 after Darius' return to Asia (Herodotus) [2]	Unknown number of Scythian horsemen [3]

Last updated March 31, 2019

The European Scythian campaign of Darius I was a military expedition into parts of European Scythia by Darius I, the king of the Achaemenid Empire, in 513 BC.^[4] The Scythians were an East Iranian-speaking people who had invaded Media, revolted against Darius and threatened to disrupt trade between Central Asia and the shores of the Black Sea as they lived between the Danube and Don Rivers and the Black Sea.^[5]^[6] The campaigns took place in parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper, while principally in what is modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia.

Scythia was a region of Central Eurasia in classical antiquity, occupied by the Eastern Iranian Scythians, encompassing Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula River, with the eastern edges of the region vaguely defined by the Greeks. The Ancient Greeks gave the name Scythia to all the lands north-east of Europe and the northern coast of the Black Sea.

The Achaemenid Empire, also called the First Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia founded by Cyrus the Great. Ranging at its greatest extent from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, it was larger than any previous empire in history, spanning 5.5 million square kilometers. Incorporating various peoples of different origins and faiths, it is notable for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration, for building infrastructure such as road systems and a postal system, the use of an official language across its territories, and the development of civil services and a large professional army. The empire's successes inspired similar systems in later empires.

The Scythians, also known as Scyth, Saka, Sakae, Sai, Iskuzai, or Askuzai, were Eurasian nomads, probably mostly using Eastern Iranian languages, who were mentioned by the literate peoples to their south as inhabiting large areas of the western and central Eurasian Steppe from about the 9th century BC up until the 4th century AD. The "classical Scythians" known to ancient Greek historians, agreed to be mainly Iranian in origin, were located in the northern Black Sea and fore-Caucasus region. Other Scythian groups documented by Assyrian, Achaemenid and Chinese sources show that they also existed in Central Asia, where they were referred to as the Iskuzai/Askuzai, Saka, and Sai, respectively.

The Scythians managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the Persian army due to their mobile lifestyle and lack of any settlement (except Gelonus), while the Persians suffered losses due to the Scythians' scorched earth tactic. However, the Persians conquered much of their cultivated lands and damaged their allies, forcing the Scythians to respect the Persian force. Darius halted the advance to avoid further losses, and built a defence line.

Gelonus was, according to Herodotus, the capital of the Gelonians.

A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy while it is advancing through or withdrawing from a location. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, for example food sources, water supplies, transportation, communications, industrial resources, and even the local people themselves.

The campaign

Darius crossed the Black Sea at the Bosphorus Straits using a bridge of boats. Darius conquered large portions of Eastern Europe, even crossing the Danube to wage war on the Scythians. Darius invaded Scythia with his general Megabazus, where the Scythians evaded Darius's army, using feints and retreating eastwards while laying waste to the countryside, by blocking wells, intercepting convoys, destroying pastures and continuous skirmishes against Darius's army.^[7] Seeking to fight with the Scythians, Darius's army chased the Scythian army deep into Scythian lands, mostly in what is modern-day Ukraine, where there were no cities to conquer and no supplies to forage. In frustration Darius sent a letter to the Scythian ruler Idanthyrsus to fight or surrender. The ruler replied that he would not stand and fight with Darius, unless the Persians found and desecrated the graves of the Scythians' forefathers. Until then, they would continue their strategy as they had no cities or cultivated lands to lose.^[8] Despite the evading tactics of the Scythians, Darius' campaign was so far relatively successful.^[9] As presented by Herodotus, the tactics of the Scythians resulted in the loss of their best lands and damage to their loyal allies.^[9] The fact is thus that Darius held the initiative.^[10] As he moved eastwards in the cultivated lands of the Scythians, he remained resupplied by his fleet and lived to an extent off of the land.^[9]

The Black Sea is a body of water and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean between the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Western Asia. It is supplied by a number of major rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Southern Bug, Dniester, Don, and the Rioni. Many countries drain into the Black Sea, including Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.

A pontoon bridge, also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load they can carry.

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the precise area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".

While moving eastwards in the European Scythian lands, he captured Gelonos, the large fortified city of the Budini, one of the allies of the Scythians, and burnt it.^[9]

The Budini was a group of people described by Herodotus and several later classical authors. Described as nomads living near settled Gelonians, Herodotus located them east of the Tanais river beyond the Sarmatians.

Towards the end of the campaign

Darius ordered a halt at the banks of Oarus, where he built "eight great forts, some eight miles distant from each other", no doubt as a frontier defence.^[9] As the Cambridge Ancient History: Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean C. 525 to 479 B.C. states, this evidently was as far eastwards as Darius intended to go, at least for the time being. After chasing the Scythians for a month, Darius's army was suffering losses due to fatigue, privation and sickness.^[9] In his Histories , Herodotus states that the ruins of the forts were still standing in his day.^[11] Concerned about losing more of his troops, Darius halted the march at the banks of the Volga River and headed towards Thrace.^[12] He had failed to bring the Scythians to a direct battle, and until he did so he did not have much reason to secure the conquered territories. The initiative still lay with him.^[9] As the tactics of evading Darius' army and scorched earth were continued by the Scythians, they had failed however completely, though Darius had failed too as still he wasn't able to bring it to a direct confrontation.^[9] He had conquered enough Scythian territory to force the Scythians to respect the Persian forces.^[13]

The Histories of Herodotus is considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time. Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world.

The Volga is the longest river in Europe with a catchment area of 1,350,000 square kilometres. It is also Europe's largest river in terms of discharge and drainage basin. The river flows through central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia.

Thrace is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the east. It comprises southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece and the European part of Turkey.

Further reasons behind the invasion past the Danube

The whole area from central Thrace to Georgia and from the Ukraine to the north-east Mediterranean formed a compact area with mutual economic interests between Scythians, Thracians or Ionians, and Iranians.^[9] In strategic terms, Darius must have seen that some Scythian-type peoples extended from the Ukraine all the way to what is modern-day Uzbekistan, forming a continuum of dangerous nomadic raiders.^[9] Furthermore, control of the Black Sea recognized no international divisions. The Persians and the Greeks (many of whom lived in the Persian Empire, while another number lived in the Greek colonies in what is nowadays southern Ukraine) had a common interest in seeking to control the source of Scythian exports of gold, grain, hides, and furs. As the Cambridge Ancient History further states, Ctesias, a Greek doctor at the Persian court ca. 400 BC, wrote that before the invasion of Darius into the European Scythian lands a satrap of Cappadocia named Ariaramnes had crossed the Black Sea to the north, raiding the European Scythian regions with a fleet of thirty penteconters, returning with Scythian men and women, including the brother of a Scythian king.^[9]

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres (26,911 sq mi), and its 2017 population is about 3.718 million. Georgia is a unitary semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.

Ukraine, sometimes called the Ukraine, is a country in Eastern Europe. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religions in the country are Eastern Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism. Ukraine is currently in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km² (233,062 sq mi), making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world.

The Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting a large area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. The study of Thracians and Thracian culture is known as Thracology.

While some have supposed that the reason for Darius' invasions was merely to destroy the Scythian lands, the erection of a bridge over the Hellespont contradicts this; his superior fleet could have easily shipped the troops over as the Scythians had no navy at all.^[9]

Date of the invasion

Though Herodotus does not mention the season of the year, as the Cambridge Ancient History states, it is possible to infer it, knowing that if Darius marched from Susa in spring 513, he would have reached Chalcedon in May, and mustered his forces on the European side in June. Thus, he may have started to go beyond the Danube in late August.^[9]

Aftermath

As the Cambridge History states, Darius inflicted widespread damage on the Scythians and their allies, weakened the prestige of the Royal Scythians especially, and upset the balance of power among the various peoples of the region.^[9] But because he failed to bring the Scythians to battle, he was unable to secure any territorial gains and he did not even complete the building of the forts at what could have been a frontier.^[9] The campaign was little more than an expansive stalemate.^[9] As winter now had come, Darius did not return to attack, and marched towards Thrace, towards his firmly secured territories.^[9]

Some form of Persian authority perhaps remained after Darius withdrew, for the "Scythians across the Sea" (Old Persian cuneiform: 𐎿𐎣𐎠𐏐𐎫𐎹𐎡𐎹𐏐𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎼𐎹, Sakā tayaiya paradraya)^[15] are mentioned at Naqsh-e Rustam as one of the peoples the king conquered outside of Persia.^[16] Persian rule could have never extended beyond the Danube in any strength, however.^[16]

Assessment

The Scythian campaign was decisive in that the Persians abandoned the attempt to subjugate the European Scythians.^[9] Herodotus was correct in his assessment that the Scythians owed their escape to their mobility, their lack of inhabited centres, and the skill of their mounted archers.^[9] He furthermore states that their refusal to yield to Persia was due to such factors as the authoritarian power of the kings, the widespread hatred of foreigners (IV.76.1),^[9] and the ordinary man's belief that what brought him and his tribe honour was the killing of enemies.^[9] The various Scythian tribes co-operated with each other, winning support of other neighboring peoples as well.^[9] In that regard, as the Cambridge Ancient History states, they showed more of a sense of a community than the Greek city-states were to show through much of the subsequent Greco-Persian Wars.^[9]

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References

↑ Herodotus, Histories, 4.136.2
↑ Herodotus, Histories, 4.143.3
↑ Herodotus, Histories, 4.136.2
↑ Miroslav Ivanov Vasilev. "The Policy of Darius and Xerxes towards Thrace and Macedonia" ISBN 9004282157 p 70
↑ Shahbazi 1996, p. 41.
↑ Woolf 2004, p. 686.
↑ Ross 2004, p. 291.
↑ Beckwith 2009, p. 68-69.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Boardman 1982, pp. 239-243.
↑ Boardman 2012, pp. 239-243.
↑ Herodotus 2015, pp. 352.
↑ Chaliand 2004, p. 16.
↑ Shahbazi 1996, p. 45.
↑ Hartley, Charles W.; Yazicioğlu, G. Bike; Smith, Adam T. (2012). The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia: Regimes and Revolutions. Cambridge University Press. p. 83. ISBN 9781107016521.
↑ DNa - Livius.
1 2 Boardman 1982, p. 67.

Sources

Ross, William; H. G. Wells (2004), The Outline of History: Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): Prehistory to the Roman Republic (illustrated ed.), Barnes & Noble Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7607-5866-3 , retrieved 28 July 2011
Boardman, John, ed. (1982). The Cambridge Ancient History . 10: Persia, Greece, and the Western Mediterranean. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 239–243. ISBN 978-0521228046.
Herodotus, ed. (2015). The Histories . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 352. ISBN 978-0375712715.
Shahbazi, Shapur (1996), "Darius I the Great", Encyclopedia Iranica, 7, New York: Columbia University
Woolf, Alex; Steven Maddocks; Richard Balkwill; Thomas McCarthy (2004), Exploring Ancient Civilizations (illustrated ed.), Marshall Cavendish, ISBN 978-0-7614-7456-2