Book 7
3.14
Between [the Getae and] the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester,The ancient Tyras. lies the desert of the Getae.Bessarabia and the southern part of Moldavia. It is entirely a plain and destitute of water. It was there that Darius the son of Hystaspes, at the time he crossed the Danube, was in danger of being cut off with his whole army for want of water; this he found out before it was too late, and returned. At a subsequent period, when Lysimachus was waging war against the Getae and their king Dromichaetes, he not only incurred the risk,Peter the Great, at the beginning of the last century, incurred the risk of falling into the hands of the Turks almost on the same spot where Darius and Lysimachus had been in distress. but he fell into the hands of the enemy; but his life was spared by the courtesy of the barbarian, as I have before related.
