THE NATURE OF OUR INFORMATION

We rely almost entirely on Herodotus. Some have despaired of his account, for instance, of Darius' advance into Scythia, but others have claimed to make some sense of parts of it. We have to be on our guard against Herodotus' own outlook. He saw the actions of Darius as ‘precedents' for those of Xerxes, the centrepiece of his history; and it was in all matters his habit to look for ‘precedents’, e.g. to Cleisthenes' invention of ten Attic tribes. These ‘precedents’ included the revenge-motive for the war (VI. I; VII. 5.2–3), the real aim of conquering all Europe (IV.118.1; VII.8.a2 and 54.2), the disregard of Artabanus' wise advice (IV.83 and VII. 10), the levy from all nations of the empire and conscription in areas newly conquered (IV.83.1 and 96.2; VII.185), the bridging of the waters which separate the two continents (III. 134.4 and IV. 118.1; VII. 33.1), the loyalty to Persia of most but not all Ionian Greeks (IV.137 and VIII.85.1), the failure and flight of the Persian king (IV.135; VIII. 115), and his escape only because the Greeks failed to accept the advice of a leading Greek to destroy the bridge which led to Asia (IV.137.1; VIII.108.2; cf.VIII.97.1).

Some of these ‘precedents’ have rightly been suspected. The revenge-motive arising from Scythian attacks on the Medes in Asia a century or so earlier will hardly account for a Persian king attacking Scythians in Europe. The failure of Darius seems greatly exaggerated. The story of Miltiades advising the destruction of the bridge over the Danube cannot be true in the light of his subsequent history (see below).