Johann Strauss Jr., the King of Waltzes, once wrote a piece called The Blue Danube. Legend said it was like a blue ribbon linking together more than a dozen European countries.
It truly was a beautiful river, beautiful and navigable. But in Alexander the Great's time, this region was far from peaceful. It had been occupied by many tribes. Herodotus had traveled here, yet left only descriptions and no maps, and many place names could no longer be verified in modern times.
One of those countries was called Scythia. Its king, Ateas, had once considered adopting Philippe and making him heir to the Scythian kingdom.
The Scythians lived along the lower Danube and were famed for their mounted archery. According to Arrian's records, the advance force that Alexander the Great sent to attack Thebes seemed to have been light cavalry. They charged into the city before the Thebans could close the gates, leaving the Thebans with no choice but to resist in the arena.
That force had been ruthlessly brutal, yet the Greek city-states did not condemn them. During the wars between Greece and Persia, Thebes had betrayed Greece repeatedly. During a truce, it had even seized Plataea and reduced the entire city's population to slavery. During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta had proposed enslaving all of Athens, and Thebes had voted in favor.
So people said there had been omens before this great disaster befell Thebes. It was simply that no one had noticed them at the time.
Scythia was divided into Royal Scythia and Nomadic Scythia. They roughly lived east of the Dnieper River, which flowed through Kyiv, while Thrace lay south of the Danube. After Philippe was assassinated in 335 BC, several tribes rebelled. This was the northern front the Thebans had imagined.
The rebellion was mainly concentrated