4.97.6
Darius was very pleased with this advice, and he answered Cöes thus: “My friend from Lesbos, do not fail to show yourself to me when I return to my house safe, so that I may make you a good return for your good advice.”
ch. 98
4.98.1
After saying this, he tied sixty knots in a thong, and summoning the Ionian sovereigns to an audience said to them:
4.98.2
“Gentlemen of Ionia, I take back the decision which I delivered before about the bridge; now, take this thong and do as follows. Begin to reckon from the day when you see me march away against the Scythians, and untie one knot each day: and if the days marked by the knots have all passed and I have not returned, embark for your own homes.
4.98.3
But until then, since the plan is changed, guard the bridge, making every effort to keep and watch it. You will please me very much if you do this.” Having said this, Darius hastened to march further.
ch. 99
4.99.1
Thrace runs farther out into the sea than Scythia; and Scythia begins where a bay is formed in its coast, and the mouth of the Ister, facing southeast, is in that country.
4.99.2
Now I am going to describe the coast of the true Scythia from the Ister, and give its measurements. The ancient Scythian land begins at the Ister and faces south and the south wind, as far as the city called Carcinitis.
4.99.3
Beyond this place, the country fronting the same sea is hilly and projects into the Pontus; it is inhabited by the Tauric nation as far as what is called the Rough Peninsula; and this ends in the eastern sea. note
4.99.4
For the sea to the south and the sea to the east are two of the four boundary lines of Scythia, just as seas are boundaries of Attica; and the Tauri inhabit a part of Scythia like Attica, as though some other people, not Attic, were to inhabit the heights of Sunium from Thoricus to the town of Anaphlystus, if Sunium jutted farther out into the sea.
4.99.5
I mean, so to speak, to compare small things with great. Such a land is the Tauric country. But those who have not sailed along that part of Attica may understand from this other analogy: it is as though in Calabria some other people, not Calabrian, were to live on the promontory within a line drawn from the harbor of Brundisium to Tarentum. I am speaking of these two countries, but there are many others of a similar kind that Tauris resembles. note
ch. 100
4.100.1
Beyond the Tauric country the Scythians begin, living north of the Tauri and beside the eastern sea, west of the Cimmerian Bosporus and the Maeetian lake, as far as the Tanaïs river, which empties into the end of that lake.
