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.
