uninhabited and vast in extent. The only men of whom I can hear who
dwell beyond the Ister are those who are said to be called Sigynnai,
and who use the Median fashion of dress. Their horses, it is said,
have shaggy hair all over their bodies, as much as five fingers long;
and these are small and flat-nosed and too weak to carry men, but when
yoked in chariots they are very high-spirited; therefore the natives
of the country drive chariots. The boundaries of this people extend,
it is said, to the parts near the Enetoi, who live on the Adriatic;
and people say that they are colonists from the Medes. In what way
however these have come to be colonists from the Medes I am not able
for my part to conceive, but everything is possible in the long course
of ages. However that may be, the Ligurians who dwell in the region
inland above Massalia call traders /sigynnai/, and the men of Cyprus
give the same name to spears. 10. Now the Thracians say that the other
side of the Ister is occupied by bees, and that by reason of them it
is not possible to pass through and proceed further: but to me it
seems that when they so speak, they say that which is not probable;
for these creatures are known to be intolerant of cold, and to me it
seems that the regions which go up towards the pole are uninhabitable
by reason of the cold climate. These then are the tales reported about
this country; and however that may be, Megabazos was then making the
coast-regions of it subject to the Persians.

11. Meanwhile Dareios, so soon as he had crossed over the Hellespont
and come to Sardis, called to mind the service rendered to him by
Histiaios the Milesian and also the advice of the Mytilenian Coës, and
having sent for them to come to Sardis he offered them a choice of
rewards. Histiaios then, being despot of Miletos, did not make request
for any government in addition to that, but he asked for the district
of Myrkinos which belonged to the Edonians, desiring there to found a