When he reached this uninhabited area, Darius called a halt on the banks of the Oarus, and began to build eight large forts, spaced at regular intervals of approximately eight miles. The remains of them were still to be seen in my day. While these forts were under construction, the Scythians whom he had been following changed the direction of their march, and by a broad sweep through the country to the northward returned to Scythia and completely disappeared. Unable to see any sign of them, Darius left his forts half finished and himself turned back towards the west, supposing that the Scythians he had been chasing were the whole nation, and that they were now trying to escape in that direction. He made the best speed he was capable of, and on reaching Scythia fell in with the other two combined divisions of the Scythian army; at once he gave chase, and they, as before, withdrew a day’s march in front of him. As Darius continued to press forward in hot pursuit, the Scythians now carried out their plan of leading him into the territory of the people who had refused, in the first instance, to support them in their resistance to Persia. The first were the Melanchlaeni, and the double invasion of their country, first by the Scythians and then by the Persians, caused great alarm and disturbance; the turn of the Androphagi came next, and then the Neuri, and in both cases the result was the same – chaos and dismay. Finally, still withdrawing before the Persian advance, the Scythians approached the frontiers of the Agathyrsi. These people, unlike their neighbours, of whose terrified attempt to escape they had been witness, did not wait for the Scythians to invade them, but sent a representative to forbid them to cross the frontier, adding a warning that, if they attempted to do so, they would be resisted by force of arms. This challenge they followed up by putting their frontiers into a state of defence. The other tribes – the Melanchlaeni, Androphagi, and Neuri – offered no resistance to the successive invasions of Scythians and Persians, but forgot their former threats and in great confusion made the best of their escape to the uninhabited regions of the north. The Scythians, finding the Agathyrsi prepared to keep them out, did not attempt to penetrate into their territory, but turned back and drew the Persians into Scythia.