European Scythian campaign of Darius I



The European Scythian campaign of Darius I was a military incursion into parts of European Scythia by Darius I, the king of the Achaemenid Empire, in 513 BC. The Scythians were a group of north Iranian nomadic tribes, speaking an Iranian language (Scythian languages) 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 river, river Don and the Black Sea.

Darius crossed the Black Sea at the Bosphorus Straits using a bridge of boats. Darius conquered large portions of Eastern Europe, even crossing the Danube to wage war on the Scythians. Darius invaded Scythia with his general Megabazus, where the Scythians evaded Darius's army, using feints and retreating eastwards while laying waste to the countryside, by blocking wells, intercepting convoys, destroying pastures and continuous skirmishes against Darius's army. Seeking to fight with the Scythians, Darius's army chased the Scythian army deep into Scythian lands, where there were no cities to conquer and no supplies to forage. In frustration Darius sent a letter to the Scythian ruler Idanthyrsus to fight or surrender. The ruler replied that he would not stand and fight with Darius until they found the graves of their fathers and tried to destroy them. Until then, they would continue their strategy as they had no cities or cultivated lands to lose. Darius ordered a halt at the banks of Oarus, where he built eight frontier fortresses spaced at intervals of eight miles. After chasing the Scythians for a month, Darius's army was suffering losses due to fatigue, privation and sickness. Concerned about losing more of his troops, Darius halted the march at the banks of the Volga River and headed towards Thrace. He had conquered enough Scythian territory to force the Scythians to respect the Persian forces.

This campaign of Darius through Scythia is sometimes identified by some Isalmic scholars as the story of Dhul Qarnayn mentioned in Quran who traveled to west and the east of the world and who traveled to a nation asking to set a barrier against barbarian nations called Gog and Magog sometimes identified as Sythians.