The messenger sent by the Scythian kings brought the Persian king Darius four gifts: a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.

The Persians asked him what the gifts meant. He said he had been told only to hand them over and leave as fast as he could; no one had told him anything else. Then he added: if you Persians are clever enough, work out for yourselves what these gifts are trying to say.

With that he was gone. What remained in Darius' camp were four things that could not speak, and a riddle no one could be sure of.

I. After the Flocks

The messenger came when Darius was at his lowest.

For days the Scythians had been leaving flocks of sheep behind with only a few shepherds to watch them, and slipping away. The Persians would come and take the sheep, and each time they took heart as if they had won a battle. This happened again and again, until at last Darius was at a loss. The Scythian kings saw it, and that was when they sent the gifts.

Readers may remember that not long before, Darius had sent a horseman to the Scythian king Idanthyrsus, telling him either to stand and fight or to come with earth and water and acknowledge his master. Idanthyrsus had answered: earth and water I will not give you; I will send you other gifts, the kind you deserve. Now gifts had come. It is I who put these two things side by side; the Scythians did not say that these were those gifts.

II. Two Readings

When they had heard the messenger, the Persians sat down to deliberate.

Darius' view was that the Scythians were surrendering to him themselves, together with their earth and their water. His reasoning went like this: a mouse lives in the earth and eats the same grain as men; a frog lives in the water; a bird is most like a horse; and the five arrows meant the Scythians were handing over their fighting strength. As for why a bird should be most like a horse, that is how it was told to me, and that is how I record it.

One man saw it differently. His name was Gobryas, and he was one of the seven who had burst into the palace and killed the Magus who passed himself off as a prince. It was those seven together who had put Darius on the throne.

Gobryas said the gifts meant this: Persians, unless you turn into birds and fly up into the sky, or into mice and burrow into the earth, or into frogs and leap into the lakes, you will be shot down by these arrows and never get home.

The king read the gifts as surrender; Gobryas read them as a warning. At the time no one could say which was right.

III. Scythians at the Bridge

While the Persians were still puzzling over the gifts, a band of Scythians had already come to the bridge of boats on the Ister.

This division had first been posted to keep watch by the Maeetian lake, and had then been sent to the Ister to talk with the Ionians guarding the bridge. As soon as they reached it they said:

Ionians, we have come to bring you freedom, if only you will listen to us. We hear that Darius told you to guard this bridge for sixty days only, and to go home if he had not come back by then. Do just that, and you will be blameless in his eyes and in ours: stay the days you were given, and then leave.

The Ionians promised to do it, and the Scythians hurried back.

So the sixty days Darius had set at the bridge had reached Scythian ears too.

IV. A Hare

After the gifts had been delivered, the Scythians who had stayed near Darius came out with foot and horse and drew up facing the Persians, as if to fight it out.

The lines were barely formed when a hare dashed out into the space between the armies. Every Scythian who saw it went after it. The Scythian ranks fell into confusion, and shouting broke out.

Darius asked what the uproar was among the enemy. When he heard they were chasing a hare, he said to the men he usually talked with: these men hold us in deep contempt. I think now that Gobryas read the Scythian gifts rightly. Since I see it that way myself, we need good counsel on how to get home safely.

Gobryas answered: O King, I had almost worked out by reasoning alone how hard these men would be to deal with; coming here, I have learned it better, watching them make sport of us. My advice is this. As soon as night falls, we light our campfires as we always do, deceive the men in the army least able to bear hardship, tether all the asses here, and go. We must get away before the Scythians make straight for the Ister to break the bridge, or the Ionians decide on something that could be the end of us.

V. Campfires and Asses

When night came, Darius did as Gobryas advised.

He left behind in the camp the men who were worn out, and those whose loss he would least regret, and he left all the asses tethered there. The asses were left so that they would bray. The men were left because they could not keep up, but they were given another reason: the king was going to attack the Scythians with the fit part of his army, and they were to guard the camp in the meantime.

Having told this to those staying behind, and having lit the fires, Darius made with all speed for the Ister.

When the crowd was gone and the asses found themselves alone, they brayed louder than ever. The Scythians heard them and were quite sure the Persians were still where they had been.

Not long before, the braying of the asses had frightened the Scythian horses and helped the Persians. That night they helped once more, at the price of being left tethered where they stood, along with the men left beside them.

VI. At Daybreak

When day came, the men left in the camp understood that Darius had betrayed them. They held out their hands to the Scythians and told them what had happened.

At once the Scythians gathered their forces: their own two divisions, together with the one that had the Sauromatae, Budini and Geloni in it, and made straight for the Ister after the Persians.

The Persian army was mostly infantry and did not know the way, and there were no marked roads in that country; the Scythians were all on horseback and knew the short cuts. The two forces went wide of each other and never met, and the Scythians reached the bridge long before the Persians.

Seeing that the Persians had not yet come, they said to the Ionians, who were aboard their ships:

Ionians, your days are all used up, and you are in the wrong to stay here still. Before, it was fear that kept you; now break the crossing as fast as you can and go home free and happy, thanking the gods and the Scythians. As for the man who used to be your master, we will deal with him so that he will never again lead an army against anyone.

VII. A Council on the Ships

The Ionians took counsel.

Miltiades the Athenian was general and tyrant of the Chersonese on the Hellespont. His opinion was that they should do as the Scythians said and set Ionia free.

Histiaeus of Miletus was of the opposite opinion. He said: each of us is tyrant of his city today because of Darius. If Darius' power is brought down, I will no longer be able to rule Miletus, and none of you will be able to rule anywhere. For every city will want democracy rather than a tyrant.

As soon as Histiaeus had said this, everyone there turned to his view, though at first they had sided with Miltiades.

The men who voted, and who carried weight with the king, were these: from the Hellespont, the tyrants Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus and Ariston of Byzantium; from Ionia, Strattis of Chios, Aiaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, and Histiaeus of Miletus, the one who opposed Miltiades. Of the Aeolians, the only notable man present was Aristagoras of Cyme.

The Scythians had carried "freedom" to the bridgehead; what the men on the bridge were weighing was the seat each of them held at home.

VIII. One Bowshot

Having chosen Histiaeus' plan, they agreed on what to do and what to say.

What to do: break the bridge, but only at the Scythian end, and only as far as an arrow would carry. That way they would seem to be doing something while doing nothing, and the Scythians could not force their way across the Ister by the bridge. What to say: while breaking it, tell the Scythians that the Ionians would do everything they wished.

Then Histiaeus answered for them all:

Scythians, you have brought us good news, and you have come at the right moment. You have set us on a good road, and we are doing you a useful service. As you see, we are breaking the bridge, and we will put all our effort into it, because we want to be free. While we break it, this is your chance to go and find the Persians, and when you find them, to take the vengeance they deserve, for our sake and your own.

IX. Wells They Had Filled Themselves

For the second time the Scythians trusted the Ionians' word, and turned back to look for the Persians. But they missed the Persians' route entirely.

The Scythians had only themselves to blame. They had ruined the grazing for horses in that region and stopped up the wells and springs. Had they not done so, they could easily have found the Persians if they wished. As it was, the very part of their plan they had thought best was what undid them.

The Scythians searched through the parts of their own land where there was still fodder and water, thinking the Persians too would run that way. The Persians instead kept to the tracks they had made on the way in, and so, with great trouble, they found the crossing.

They arrived at night. When they found the bridge broken, they were terrified that the Ionians had abandoned them.

X. The Loudest Voice in the World

There was an Egyptian with Darius who had the loudest voice of any man alive. Darius had him stand on the bank of the Ister and call for Histiaeus of Miletus.

The Egyptian called. Histiaeus heard him at the first shout and answered, sent every ship to ferry the army across, and joined the bridge again.

In the end the army's way home hung on one man's voice, and on whether another man would answer it.

XI. Two Things the Scythians Said

That is how the Persians escaped. The Scythians searched for them and missed them a second time.

Ever since, the Scythians have said this about the Ionians: if you count them as free men, they are the basest and most cowardly people in the world; if you count them as slaves, they are the slaves who love their masters most and are least inclined to run away.

That is the taunt the Scythians have flung at the Ionians.

XII. A Pomegranate

Darius marched through Thrace to Sestos in the Chersonese, and from there crossed by ship to Asia. He left a Persian named Megabazus as his commander in Europe, with eighty thousand of his men.

Darius had once honored Megabazus in front of the Persians. He was about to eat pomegranates, and had just opened the first one, when his brother Artabanus asked him what he would most like to have as many of as there were seeds in that pomegranate. Darius said he would rather have that many men like Megabazus than have all of Greece under his rule.

Megabazus also left the people of the Hellespont a remark they have never forgotten. At Byzantium he was told that the Calchedonians had founded their city seventeen years before the Byzantines founded theirs. In that case, he said, the Calchedonians must have been blind for those seventeen years; otherwise, with the better site right there, they would never have chosen the worse. Left in Europe, he set about subduing the people of the Hellespont who would not take the Persian side.

As for the two men at the bridge, each had a sequel. When Darius reached Sardis, he remembered the good service Histiaeus of Miletus had done him, and the advice Coes of Mytilene had given about keeping the bridge, and sent for them both to choose their own rewards. Histiaeus was already tyrant of Miletus and wanted no other city to rule; he asked for Myrcinus in the land of the Edonians, to found a city there. Coes was no tyrant but a private citizen, and he asked to be made tyrant of Mytilene.

XIII. Four Gifts

Look again at the four gifts.

Gobryas had said the Persians would never get home unless they turned into birds, or mice, or frogs. The Persians did not turn into birds, and they did not burrow into the earth or leap into the lakes. They got home because they slipped away by night with their campfires burning, left their asses and their weakest men tethered behind them, and then found the Ionian tyrants doing sums of their own.

The bridge of boats on the Ister was joined again. At one end of it stood an Egyptian with the loudest voice in the world; at the other, a Milesian who answered at the first call. Of the five arrows the Scythians had sent, not one was ever shot.

Sources, versions, and editorial boundaries

1. Core narrative: Herodotus, Histories 4.130-144, with 5.11. 4.130-131 (flocks left as bait; after this happened many times Darius was at a loss; the Scythian kings send a herald with a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows; the herald says he was told only to deliver them and leave quickly, and tells the Persians to work out the meaning if they are clever); 4.132 (Darius' reading: surrender of themselves, earth and water, since the mouse lives in the earth and eats men's grain, the frog lives in water, the bird is most like a horse, and the arrows mean handing over their strength; Gobryas, one of the seven who killed the Magus, reads it as: unless you become birds, mice or frogs, you will be shot by these arrows and not return home); 4.133 (the division first posted by the Maeetian lake reaches the bridge, says it has heard of the sixty days, and urges the Ionians to stay out the term and then leave; the Ionians agree); 4.134 (the remaining Scythians draw up for battle; a hare runs between the armies and they chase it; Darius says they hold the Persians in contempt and accepts Gobryas' reading; Gobryas advises lighting the usual fires, deceiving the weakest men, tethering the asses and leaving before the Scythians reach the bridge or the Ionians decide otherwise); 4.135 (Darius leaves the worn-out men and those whose loss mattered least, with the asses tethered so they would bray, on the pretext that he was attacking with the fit part of the army; the deserted asses bray louder and the Scythians think the Persians still there); 4.136 (at daybreak the men left behind surrender and explain; the Scythians, all three divisions with the Sauromatae, Budini and Geloni, make for the Ister; the Persians, mostly infantry and ignorant of the unmarked roads, miss them; the Scythians reach the bridge first and tell the Ionians on their ships that the days are past); 4.137 (Miltiades the Athenian, general and tyrant of the Chersonesites of the Hellespont, urges them to obey the Scythians and free Ionia; Histiaeus of Miletus argues that their rule depends on Darius and that every city would prefer democracy to tyranny; all go over to him, though at first they had sided with Miltiades); 4.138 (the list of voters); 4.139 (they break only a bowshot's length at the Scythian end, to seem to act while doing nothing and to prevent a forced crossing; Histiaeus' answer); 4.140 (the Scythians trust the Ionians a second time and miss the Persians' route, because they themselves had destroyed the pasture and blocked the wells; they search where there is fodder and water, while the Persians keep to their own former tracks and find the crossing with difficulty; arriving at night and finding the bridge broken, they fear the Ionians have deserted them); 4.141 (the loud-voiced Egyptian calls Histiaeus, who answers at the first call, ferries the army over with all the ships and joins the bridge); 4.142 (the Persians escape; the Scythians miss them again; their verdict on the Ionians); 4.143 (Darius through Thrace to Sestos, across to Asia; Megabazus left in command in Europe with 80,000 men; the pomegranate); 4.144 (Megabazus on the blind Calchedonians; his conquests on the Hellespont); 5.11 (at Sardis Darius rewards Histiaeus, who asks for Myrcinus in Edonian territory to found a city, and Coes, who as a private citizen asks to be tyrant of Mytilene). Read in A. D. Godley's public-domain translation (1920; PerseusDL canonical-greekLit, tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng2), with 4.131-144 and 5.11 checked section by section against the Greek (tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-grc2).

2. Levels of evidence: Herodotus did not march with Darius and does not say who told him this story; the text therefore treats it as his record and claims no eyewitness. The words of the herald, Darius, Gobryas, the Scythians at the bridge (both times) and Histiaeus, and the Scythian verdict on the Ionians, are speech recorded by Herodotus, retold from the translation and the Greek without additions. The list of voters follows 4.138 in full. The figure of 80,000 is Herodotus' and is reported without judgment.

3. Key Greek: the gifts, "ὄρνιθά τε καὶ μῦν καὶ βάτραχον καὶ ὀιστοὺς πέντε," and the herald's challenge, "εἰ σοφοί εἰσι, γνῶναι τὸ θέλει τὰ δῶρα λέγειν" (4.131); Darius' reading, "ὄρνις δὲ μάλιστα ἔοικε ἵππῳ," "τοὺς δὲ ὀιστοὺς ὡς τὴν ἑωυτῶν ἀλκὴν παραδιδοῦσι"; Gobryas', "ἢν μὴ ὄρνιθες γενόμενοι ἀναπτῆσθε ἐς τὸν οὐρανόν, ὦ Πέρσαι ... οὐκ ἀπονοστήσετε ὀπίσω ὑπὸ τῶνδε τῶν τοξευμάτων βαλλόμενοι" (4.132); the first embassy, "ἐλευθερίην ἥκομεν ὑμῖν φέροντες," "ἑξήκοντα ἡμέρας μούνας" (4.133); the hare, "λαγὸς ἐς τὸ μέσον διήιξε," and Darius, "οὗτοι ὧνδρες ἡμέων πολλὸν καταφρονέουσι" (4.134); the asses, "οἱ δὲ ὄνοι ἐρημωθέντες τοῦ ὁμίλου οὕτω δὴ μᾶλλον πολλῷ ἵεσαν τῆς φωνῆς" (4.135); the second embassy, "αἵ τε ἡμέραι ὑμῖν τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ διοίχηνται," "ἄπιτε χαίροντες ἐλεύθεροι" (4.136); Histiaeus, "βουλήσεσθαι γὰρ ἑκάστην τῶν πολίων δημοκρατέεσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ τυραννεύεσθαι" (4.137); the bridge, "λύειν δὲ ὅσον τόξευμα ἐξικνέεται, ἵνα καὶ ποιέειν τι δοκέωσι ποιεῦντες μηδέν" (4.139); the Scythian miscalculation, "νῦν δὲ τά σφι ἐδόκεε ἄριστα βεβουλεῦσθαι, κατὰ ταῦτα ἐσφάλησαν" (4.140); the Egyptian, "ἀνὴρ Αἰγύπτιος φωνέων μέγιστον ἀνθρώπων," "ἐπακούσας τῷ πρώτῳ κελεύσματι" (4.141); the verdict, "ἀνδράποδα φιλοδέσποτα φασὶ εἶναι καὶ ἄδρηστα" (4.142); the pomegranate, "Μεγαβάζους ἄν οἱ τοσούτους ἀριθμὸν γενέσθαι βούλεσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὑπήκοον" (4.143).

4. Names and wording: "κῆρυξ" (herald) is rendered "messenger." "ἐν ἀπορίῃσι εἴχετο" (Godley: "was finally at a loss") is "at a loss." "λαγός," which Godley gives as "rabbit," is "hare." "τῶν ἦν ἐλάχιστος ἀπολλυμένων λόγος" is "those whose loss he would least regret." "πόρος" (the crossing, the bridge) is "the crossing." "τόξευμα" is a bowshot. "ἄδρηστα" means "not given to running away." "ὀκτὼ μυριάδας" is 80,000. The Chersonese is the Gallipoli peninsula; the Maeetian lake is the Sea of Azov; the Ister is the Danube.

5. Other versions, set side by side without judgment: (a) Pherecydes, quoted at second hand (his work is lost): Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.8.44.2-4 (Greek text in Stählin's edition, GCS, vol. 2 p. 355; English after Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2, 1885; online texts: New Advent, Sophia Scriptura). When Darius crossed the Ister threatening war, Idanthyrsus sent him, instead of a letter, a mouse, a frog, a bird, an arrow and a plough (Greek "μῦν, βάτραχον, ὄρνιθα, ὀιστόν, ἄροτρον"; ὀιστόν is an arrow, though the ANF translation has "javelin"); the chiliarch Orontopatas (Ὀροντοπάτας; ANF "Orontopagas") read it as surrender of their rule (dwellings, waters, air, arms, land), while Xiphodres read the opposite: unless we fly like birds, or get below the earth like mice, or beneath the water like frogs, we shall not escape their arrows, for we are not lords of the territory. Attribution: Clement's text says "Pherecydes of Syros" (Φερεκύδης ὁ Σύριος), but the sixth-century cosmologist of Syros fits neither the date nor the subject, and modern scholars generally do not accept that literal attribution. Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker prints the passage among the fragments of the Athenian historian Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 174), and that is how it is usually cited. As to the author, Jacoby (Abh. 132-135) and Huxley assign it to Pherecydes of Leros, emending Σύριος to Λέριος (a change proposed by Vossius and others); Momigliano claims it for the Athenian (RivFC 1932) (Huxley, "The Date of Pherekydes of Athens," GRBS 14, 1973, p. 137 n. 2). How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (1912), on 4.131, call him Herodotus' contemporary Pherecydes (FHG fr. 113) and call the plough, meaningless as a threat, probably an unintelligent addition. The gifts are nearly the same: Clement's version also has an arrow, though one rather than five, adds a plough, and orders them differently; the interpreters and the moment differ. The story here follows Herodotus. (b) Ctesias, quoted at second hand (the Persica is lost): Photius, Bibliotheca cod. 72 (trans. J. H. Freese, 1920; Greek text in R. Henry's Budé Photius, Bibliothèque vol. 1, 1959; see also D. Lenfant, Ctésias de Cnide, Budé 2004; online text: tertullian.org): Darius crosses the Bosporus and the Ister with 800,000 men and enters Scythia in fifteen days; the two kings exchange bows; seeing the Scythian bow is stronger, Darius flees across the bridges, destroying some before the whole army has crossed, and the 80,000 men left behind in Europe are killed by the Scythian ruler. There are no gifts and no Ionian council; and the same number, 80,000, is in Herodotus the force left with Megabazus (4.143) but in Ctesias the men who were killed. How and Wells (on 4.131) judge Ctesias' bow story far less picturesque or apt. (c) Cornelius Nepos, Miltiades 3 (Latin text, Perseus 1999.02.0136): Darius left the bridge in the care of the leading men he had brought from Ionia and Aeolis; Miltiades, one of them, urged the guards, when frequent reports said Darius was faring badly and hard pressed by the Scythians, not to lose this chance of freeing Greece; Histiaeus opposed; when most followed Histiaeus, Miltiades, expecting his plan to reach the king's ears, left the Chersonese and went back to Athens. Herodotus says instead that Miltiades later fled the Chersonese before an invasion of nomad Scythians (6.40), and that the Phoenicians who captured his son Metiochus brought him to Darius expecting thanks precisely because of Miltiades' advice at the bridge, whereupon Darius treated Metiochus generously (6.41). (d) On Miltiades' role, How and Wells (on 4.137) call it "full of difficulty": if he openly proposed to destroy the Great King, how did he escape Persian vengeance so long? They note three explanations: (1) Rawlinson's, which they reject at once, that Darius did not know who had proposed his destruction until Miltiades himself boasted of it after 500 B.C.; (2) the usual one, that treason was talked at the bridge and suppressed by Histiaeus, but Miltiades had no part in it and later claimed the credit at his trial in Athens (6.104), supported by the point that Darius returned to Asia through Miltiades' territory (4.143) with no hint of disloyalty; (3) Grote's, accepting Nepos. The story follows Herodotus and only lists the doubt here. (e) Strabo, Geography 7.3.14 (trans. H. L. Jones, 1924; Perseus), says that between the Ister and the Tyras, facing the Pontus, lies the flat, waterless "Desert of the Getae," where Darius, crossing the Ister against the Scythians, was caught and nearly perished of thirst with his whole army before he realized his error and turned back. This differs from Herodotus' route; the story does not use it.

6. Date: Herodotus gives no year. The map time is "c. 513 BCE." Modern dates range from 520 to 507 BCE, 513 being the most likely, as reported at second hand from Encyclopaedia Iranica, A. Ivantchik, "Scythians i. History" (2018), citing P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (2002), pp. 141-146, 904. The ancient basis is the Tabula Capitolina, which dates the expedition against the European Scythians to 513; J. Harmatta, Acta Antiqua 24 (1976), judges the list broadly reliable and prefers 514/513. J. M. Balcer, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 76 (1972), pp. 99-132, identifies the expedition with the Saka campaign of the Bisitun inscription, c. 519; the story does not follow him. The rewards of 5.11 come after Darius' return to Sardis, in an unstated year, and are not given a map time.

7. Geography: the Ister bridge lay two days upstream where the mouths divide (4.89); its exact site is unknown, and as in no. 32 the map point uses Tulcea at the head of the Danube Delta (English Wikipedia "Tulcea," 45.1775 N, 28.8036 E) as a low-confidence regional marker. Sestos uses English Wikipedia "Sestos" (40.2328 N, 26.4225 E). The camp Darius abandoned, the field of the hare, Sardis (5.11, a later time), Byzantium and Calchedon (4.144, undated) and Myrcinus are not mapped.

8. History and literary boundaries: the opening paragraphs summarize 4.131; "four things that could not speak, and a riddle" is the narrator's phrase. In Section I the link between Idanthyrsus' promise of "the gifts you deserve" (4.127) and the gifts of 4.131 is the narrator's, and the text says the Scythians did not make it. In Section II, "that is how it was told to me" is the narrator's stance, since Herodotus does not explain the bird; "It was those seven together who had put Darius on the throne" summarizes 3.70-88 (see nos. 24 and 25 of this series); the closing comment ("a surrender ... a challenge ... no one could say") is the narrator's. In Section III, "While the Persians were still puzzling" follows the order of narration at the start of 4.133, which does not say the two happened at the same moment; the last line follows "we hear" in 4.133. The last paragraph of Section V, linking the braying of 4.129 and 4.135, is the narrator's. The last line of Section VII is the narrator's comment on Histiaeus' argument in 4.137, as is the last line of Section X. The final paragraph of Section XII summarizes 5.11. Section XIII is a literary close: "They got home because ..." summarizes 4.134-141; "Of the five arrows the Scythians had sent, not one was ever shot" refers to the arrows sent as a gift and is the narrator's closing line; Herodotus does not say what became of the gifts.

9. Not covered here: Libya and Cyrene (4.145-205), left for later stories; Histiaeus' city at Myrcinus, his summons to Susa (5.23-25) and his end (6.30); Miltiades' family, flight from the Chersonese and the years after Marathon (6.34-41, 6.103-136).

10. Rights: the ancient text and Godley's 1920 translation are public domain; the Greek was checked in short passages against PerseusDL's open TEI. The Clement translation (1885), Freese's Photius (1920) and How and Wells (1912) are public domain in the United States; Nepos was read in the Latin on Perseus and Strabo in a short passage of Jones' 1924 translation on Perseus. The Chinese and English stories are original contemporary retellings by Clio Walker. Wikipedia was used only for coordinates.