[480] Herodot. iv, 1, 83. There is nothing to mark the precise year of the Scythian expedition; but as the accession of Darius is fixed to 521 B. C., and as the expedition is connected with the early part of his reign, we may conceive him to have entered upon it as soon as his hands were free; that is, as soon as he had put down the revolted satraps and provinces, Orœtês, the Medes, Babylonians, etc. Five years seems a reasonable time to allow for these necessities of the empire, which would bring the Scythian expedition to 516-515 B. C. There is reason for supposing it to have been before 514 B. C., for in that year Hipparchus was slain at Athens, and Hippias the surviving brother, looking out for securities and alliances abroad, gave his daughter in marriage to Æantidês son of Hippoklus, despot of Lampsakus, “perceiving that Hippoklus and his son had great influence with Darius,” (Thucyd. vi, 59.) Now Hippoklus could not well have acquired this influence _before_ the Scythian expedition; for Darius came down then for the first time to the western sea; Hippoklus served upon that expedition (Herodot. iv, 138), and it was probably then that his favor was acquired, and farther confirmed during the time that Darius stayed at Sardis after his return from Scythia. Professor Schultz (Beiträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen der Hellen. Geschicht. von der 63n bis zur 72n Olympiade, p. 168, in the Kieler Philolog. Studien) places the expedition in 513 B. C.; but I think a year or two earlier is more probable. Larcher, Wesseling, and Bähr (ad Herodot. iv, 145) place it in 508 B. C., which is later than the truth; indeed, Larcher himself places the reduction of Lemnos and Imbros by Otanês in 511 B. C., though that event decidedly came after the Scythian expedition (Herodot. v, 27; Larcher, Table Chronologique, Trad. d’Hérodot. t. vii, pp. 633-635). [481] Herodot. iv, 84. [482] Herodot. vii, 39.