58 Before Chrift 514- 



509 years before the Chriftian aera. Moft of the other iflands had at this 

 time fome {hipping and trade. 



514 Darius king of Perfia, defirous of an opportunity to difplay his 



warHke prowefs, refolved to invade the Scythians of Europe, in order, 

 as the Greeks tell the ftory, to revenge upon them an invafion of Afia 

 by their anceftors about one hundred and twenty years before. For this 

 purpofe he collected a fleet of fix hundred veflels, furniflied by his mari- 

 time vaflals of Phoenicia, Ionia, and the iflands : but the tranfportation 

 of his army was effeded by the ingenuity of Mandrocles, a Samian en- 

 gineer, who conflirucked a bridge connecting the European and Afiatic 

 Ihores of the Thracian Bofphorus. The wile conduct of the Scythians, 

 who defeated Darius without fighting him, made him next look to the 

 eaftward for an extenfion of his empire Previous to his expedition 

 he fitted out fome veflels at Caipatyrus (a town on the River Indus, orSind) 

 under the command of Skylax of Caryandia, whom he directed to explore 

 the banks of that river and the maritime country weftward from its 

 mouth. He performed his voyage in two years and a half, and con- 

 cluded it (a". 506) in that part of the Red fea, whence the Phoenicians 

 in the fervice of Necos king of Egypt had fet out in the circumnaviga- 

 tion of Africa. This Skylax is believed to have been the original au- 

 thor of a geographical work, fl:ill extant, which if really his, is older by 

 fome centuries than any other work profefledly upon geography, which 

 has come down to our times *. The report made by Skylax ftimulated 

 the ambition and the avarice of Darius, who made himfelf maflier of the 

 whole fertile and populous country fouth-eaft of Perfia to the Ocean, and 

 apparently as far as the Indus. The territory acquired in this expedi- 

 tion conftituted the richefl: province of the Perfian empire. {Herod, 

 L. iv, c. 44, 84, 87 ; L. iii, c. 94.] 



Darius feems to have undertaken the conquefl: of the Indian terri- 

 tories adjacent to Perfia, partly with a view to promote the comm.erce 

 of his fubjedts, and to facilitate their intercourfe with a country, which 

 has in all ages been a principal object of commercial attention, as well 

 as of military depredation. This appears the more probable from his 

 refuming the undertaking of a navigable canal between the Nile and 

 the Red fea, The canal, originally planned by Sefo(Tris or his fon, was 

 afterwards carried on by Necos, but abandoned, as already related. It 

 branched off from the eaflern mouth of the Nile a little below the fe- 

 paration of its flrcam, and following the level of the country, terminated 

 in the Red lea about forty miles below the head of its weftern branch. 



* Tills work, which is cjuotcJ with the name of others have afcribeil it to another Skylax of Cat) - 



Skylax by Arillotle, [Po/ilic. L. \\\, c. 14] has andia who lived about 35c years later: but this 



had the misfortune to be lo much corrupted by opinion rells chiefly upon the latencfs of fome naf- 



thc interpolations of tranfcribcrs, that its authenti- fagcs, which are probably inteq)olations. 

 city has been (jueftloned by fome critics ; and 



