The court of Darius the Great by Zvonimir Grbasic

October 25, 2022

The court of Darius the Great by Zvonimir Grbasic

"The Scythian horse always routed the Persian horse, and when the Persian cavalry would fall back in flight on their infantry, the infantry would come up to their aid; and the Scythians, once they had driven in the horse, turned back for fear of the infantry. The Scythians attacked in this fashion by night as well as by day.

Very strange to say, what aided the Persians and thwarted the Scythians in their attacks on Darius' army was the braying of the asses and the appearance of the mules.

For, as I have before indicated, Scythia produces no asses or mules; and there is not in most of Scythia an ass or a mule, because of the cold. Therefore the asses frightened the Scythian horses when they brayed loudly; and often, when they were in the act of charging the Persians, the horses would shy in fear if they heard the asses bray or would stand still with ears erect, never having heard a noise like it or seen a like creature.

The Persians thus gained very little in the war, for when the Scythians saw that the Persians were shaken, they formed a plan to have them remain longer in Scythia and, remaining, be distressed by lack of necessities: they would leave some of their flocks behind with the shepherds, moving away themselves to another place; and the Persians would come and take the sheep, and be encouraged by this achievement.

After such a thing had happened several times, Darius was finally at a loss; and when they perceived this, the Scythian kings sent a herald to Darius with the gift of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

The Persians asked the bearer of these gifts what they meant; but he said that he had only been told to give the gifts and then leave at once; he told the Persians to figure out what the presents meant themselves, if they were smart enough.

When they heard this, the Persians deliberated. Darius' judgment was that the Scythians were surrendering themselves and their earth and their water to him; for he reasoned that a mouse is a creature found in the earth and eating the same produce as men, and a frog is a creature of the water and a bird particularly like a horse; and the arrows signified that the Scythians surrendered their fighting power.

This was the opinion declared by Darius; but the opinion of Gobryas, one of the seven who had slain the Magus, was contrary to it. He reasoned that the meaning of the gifts was,

“Unless you become birds, Persians, and fly up into the sky, or mice and hide in the earth, or frogs and leap into the lakes, you will be shot by these arrows and never return home.”

-Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4.128-132