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The group represented the Bosporus with the bridge thrown over it, and the king on his throne reviewing his troops as they passed over the structure. This statuary was placed, when finished, in a temple in Greece, where it was universally admired. Darius was very much pleased both with the idea of this sculpture on the part of Mandrocles, and with the execution of it by the artist.
He commended Mandrocles for his skill and fidelity in the highest terms, and loaded him with rewards and honors. Mandrocles used the money which Darius thus gave him in employing an artist to form a piece of statuary which should at once commemorate the building of the bridge and give to Darius the glory of it.
Advice of Artabanus. Emissaries sent forward. The petition of Oebazus. Darius's wanton cruelty. Place of rendezvous. The fleet of galleys. Darius's march through Asia Minor. Monuments. Arrival at the Bosporus. The bridge of boats. Reward of Mandrocles. The group of statuary. The Cyanean Islands. Darius makes an excursion to them. The two monuments. Inscriptions on them.
To preserve the memory of so singular a work, Mandrocles represented in a picture, the Bosphorus, the bridge, the king of Persia seated on a throne, and the army that passed over it.
Among other preparations, they were to construct a bridge of boats across the Bosporus at Chalcedon. This work was intrusted to the charge and superintendence of an engineer of Samos named Mandrocles. The people of the provinces were also to furnish bodies of troops, both infantry and cavalry, to join the army on its march.
Mandrocles, probably a Greek architect in the service of Darius, King of Persia, who flourished about B. C. 500, acquired a great name for the bridge which he constructed across the Thracian Bosphorus, or Straits of Constantinople, by order of that monarch. This bridge was formed of boats so ingeniously and firmly united that the innumerable army of Persia passed over it from Asia to Europe.
After ascending the Danube to a certain point, the men were to land and build a bridge across that river, using, very probably, their galleys for this purpose. In the mean time, the army was to cross the Bosporus by the bridge which had been erected there by Mandrocles, and pursue their way toward the Danube by land, through the kingdom of Thrace.
Collecting a fleet of 600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and an army estimated at from 700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up of contingents from all the nations under his rule, he crossed the Bosphorus by a bridge of boats constructed by Mandrocles a Samian; marched through Thrace along the line of the Little Balkan, receiving the submission of the tribes as he went; crossed the Great Balkan; conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that range and the Danube; passed the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian Greeks had made with their vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and so invaded Scythia.
This picture was preserved in the Temple of Juno at Samos, where Herodotus saw it, with this inscription: "Mandrocles, after having constructed a bridge of boats over the Bosphorus, by order of the king Darius of Persia, dedicated this monument to Juno, which does honor to Samos, his country, and confers glory on the artificer."
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