Arkesilaos III.

Arkesilaos III. ( Greek  Ἀρκεσίλαος ) was from about 535 / 30-520 / 15 BC. As successor of his father Battos III. King of Cyrene .

Arkesilaos was unwilling to recognize the restriction of royal power imposed by Demonax under his father. After a failed coup attempt around 530 he went to Samos , where he recruited an army with the tyrant Polykrates under promises of land. With his help he wanted to break the power of the big landowners in Cyrene and redistribute the land.

The forcible return to the throne in the style of the establishment of tyranny succeeded, his opponents mostly fled to Barke. In 525 Arkesilaos sent tribute to the Persian king Cambyses II , who had won Egypt for the Achaemenid Empire .

When his stay in Cyrene became threatening for him, he fled to Barke , the stronghold of the oligarchs , to his father-in-law, King Alazeir. Both were murdered by the Cyrenian opposition. With the help of the Persian satrap Aryandes , his mother Pheretime then took cruel revenge on the barbeques.

swell

• Herodotus , Historien , 4, 162-165, 167, 200

literature

• Helmut Berve : The tyranny among the Greeks . Munich 1967.
• Eduard Meyer : Arkesilaos 6 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 1, Stuttgart 1895, Col. 1163.

predecessor	Office	successor
Battos III.	King of Cyrene 535 / 530-520 / 515 BC Chr.	Battos IV.