Note 497 — Chapter XXXIV · DEMOKEDES. — DARIUS INVADES SCYTHIA.

The statement of Strabo (vii, p. 305), which restricts the march of Darius to the country between the Danube and the Tyras (Dniester) is justly pronounced by Niebuhr (Kleine Schriften, p. 372) to be a mere supposition suggested by the probabilities of the case, because it could not be understood how his large army should cross even the Dniester: it is not to be treated as an affirmation resting upon any authority. “As Herodotus tells us what is impossible (adds Niebuhr), we know nothing at all historically respecting the expedition.”

So again the conjecture of Palmerius (Exercitationes ad Auctores Græcos, p. 21) carries on the march somewhat farther than the Dniester,—to the Hypanis, or perhaps to the Borysthenês. Rennell, Klaproth, and Reichard, are not afraid to extend the march on to the Wolga. Dr. Thirlwall stops within the Tanais, admitting, however, that no correct historical account can be given of it. Eichwald supposes a long march up the Dniester into Volhynia and Lithuania.

Compare Ukert, Skythien, p. 26; Dahlmann, Historische Forschungen, ii, pp. 159-164; Schaffarik, Slavische Alterthümer, i, 10, 3, i, 13, 4-5; and Mr. Kenrick, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Herodotus, prefixed to his Notes on the Second Book of Herodotus, p. xxi. The latter is among those who cannot swim the Dniester: he says: “Probably the Dniester (Tyras) was the real limit of the expedition, and Bessarabia, Moldavia, and the Bukovina, the scene of it.”