ABSTRACT
Political and military history, after the accession of Darius I (522/1, see Chapter 5 ), is preserved for us only very partially, because of the nature of the sources at our disposal (cf. Chapter 1 ). Darius mentions, briefly, two campaigns in the two years following his successful suppression of the multiple revolts against him (520/19–519/18): the first against Elam, the second against the Pointed Hat Scythians of Central Asia (5, no. 1, paras.71–6). For our knowlege of subsequent events, we are dependent on Graeco-Roman writers, with Herodotus’ masterly narrative dominating the picture for Darius I and his successor, Xerxes. The chronology is also problematical: hazy in the 510s and 500s, with rather more precision possible in the 490s and 480s – although even then, despite some chronologically fixable points (e.g. 6, no. 44(18)), the course of events is often unclear.
