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τὰ ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν refers to both sides, the western and the eastern frontier. We have to infer what these are; the western frontier is the Danube (80. 2, 97. 1); the eastern frontier is a small part of the Black Sea and the Cimmerian Bosporus (vid. sup.) with the Palus Maeotis and part of the Don. This last point is proved (Rawlinson, iii. 203) from the movements of Darius' army (cf. 120. 2, 122. 3), and from the fact that, though Darius marches through the territory of the Sauromatae and the Budini, he never gets far from Scythia (cc. 124, 125).

The story of the campaign is not history, but it is evidence for the geographical conceptions of its author. Niebuhr and Stein are therefore wrong in representing the Don as flowing into the Palus Maeotis just at the north-east corner of Scythia, and thereby excluding that river from the eastern boundary of ‘the square’.

For H.'s love of symmetry in making Scythia ‘square’ cf. App. XIII. 7.

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