sites in Egypt, where he ruled from afar as a pharaoh
during the 27th dynasty with the name Setut-re. He also
began the construction of a water canal from the Nile to
the Red Sea, the first attempt to build what is now the
Suez Canal.
Although Darius may have been the first major ad-
ministrative leader in world history, he is best known for
his armed conflicts and for his military reforms. In 512,
he began a war against the Scythians to the north, send-
ing his forces across the Bosporus strait and the Danube
River. However, when the army marched into what are
now the steppes of the Ukraine, they met fierce resis-
tance and withdrew. Unfortunately for historians, the
story of this conflict, chiseled into the rock at Behistun,
has been nearly obliterated by time and wear, so its full
details will probably never be known. When the Greeks
supported Greek colonies in Asia rebelling against
Darius’s rule, he sent his fleet to punish them, but it
was destroyed by a storm at Mt. Athos. He then sent
an army and fought the Greeks at Marathon (Septem-
ber 490 b.c.). With a force of 60,000 Persians against
just 10,000 Athenian hoplites (infantry men), his forces
nonetheless suffered one of the most one-sided defeats
in history: Some 6,500 Persians were slaughtered, with a
loss of only 192 Athenians.
Darius was readying a third attempt to invade
Greece when he died in 486 b.c. He was succeeded as
the head of Persia by his son xerxes. He is considered
one of the greater of the earliest military commanders,
despite his loss at Marathon, which historian Edward
Creasy named as one of the 10 most important battles
in world history. Further, in additon to consolidating
many parts of the Persian Empire, Darius is known for
the systematic program of running local governments
through satraps, or local governors or viceroys, a system
held in such high regard that alexander the great
utilized it when he conquered and controlled numerous
foreign lands.
References: Abbott, Jacob, History of Darius the Great
(London: Thomas Allman, 1850); “Darius the Great,” in
The Hutchinson Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval War-
fare (Oxford, U.K.: Helicon Publishing, Ltd., 1998), 92;
Grundy, George Beardoe, The Great Persian War and its
Preliminaries: A Study of the Evidence, Literary and Topo-
graphical (New York: Scribner, 1901), 48–64; Bury, John
B., “The European Expedition of Darius,” The Classical
Review II, no. 6 (July 1897): 277–282; Bruce, George,
“Marathon,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow,
Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 154; Stirling,
William Alexander, earl of Stirling, The Tragedie of Darius
(Edinburgh: Printed by Robert Walde-graue, 1603).Davout, Louis-Nicolas (Louis Davoût, Louis
Davoust, duc d’Auerstadt, prince d’Eckmühl)
(1770–1823) French marshal
Although Louis-Nicolas Davout played an important
part in naPoleon bonaParte’s numerous military
successes, most Napoleonic histories hardly men-
tion him, if at all, and he remains a shadowy and
obscure figure; sources on his life list his name as
Davoût and even Davoust. He was born in the
French village of Annoux on 10 May 1770 and joined
the French army in 1788, when he was about 18
years old. In 1791, he became part of the volunteer
corps of the Yonne in the Army of Belgium. Dur-
ing the Wars of the French Revolution, he distin-
guished himself at the major battle of Neerwinden
(18 March 1793), when the Austrian army, under
the command of General Prince Frederick of Saxe-
Coburg-Gotha, defeated a French-Belgian force and
compelled the French to withdraw from Belgium.
Davout was promoted to the rank of brigadier gen-
eral, but he was struck from the officers’ roll when it
was discovered he was of noble birth and unable to serve
in the rank he held. Despite this, he remained in the
military, seeing action in the French campaigns on the
Rhine River from 1794 to 1797. When Napoleon went
to Egypt, Davout served there under Chevalier Louis-
Charles-Antoine Desaix de Veygoux, his close friend,
who brought him to Napoleon’s attention. Davout’s
service in Egypt impressed Napoleon: On 10 October
1798, he wrote, “The commanding general wishes to
give General of Brigade Davout a testimony of the sat-
isfaction of the government for the service which he has
rendered to the armies of the Republic.”
Despite this commendation, when Napoleon re-
turned to France he did not select Davout to accompany
him, and when Davout was recalled to Paris in 1800,
he was not immediately given a command. Some histo-
rians have questioned Napoleon’s motives for this. Per-
haps a reason can be found in a letter written by General
Jean-Andoche Junot, a friend to both Napoleon and DAvout, louiS-nicolAS