page_title: Scythian campaign of Darius I
section_title: Further reasons behind the invasion past the Danube
hierarchical_section_title: Scythian campaign of Darius I / Further reasons behind the invasion past the Danube
caption_attribution_description: DrawingEnglish: Achaemenid soldiers against Scythians
context_page_description: The 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. 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. The campaigns took place in parts of what is now the Balkans, Ukraine and southern Russia.
  The Scythians managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the Persian army due to their mobile lifestyle and lack of any settlement, 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.
context_section_description: 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. 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. 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.
  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.
caption: Achaemenid soldiers fighting against either Scythians or Sogdians. Cylinder seal impression (drawing).[14]
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