Artabazos I.

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The Persian Wars

Artabazus ( Old Persian Rtuvazdah; Greek  Ἀρτάβαζος ;.. † after 460 BC), son of Pharnaces from the family of Pharnakiden , was a commander under the Persian Great King Xerxes I.

Life

During the Persian march (480 BC) against the alliance of free Greek Poleis ( Hellenic League ), Artabazos commanded the troops provided by the Parthians and Khorasmi .

According to the for the Persians 480 BC. After the lost battle of Salamis , Artabazos led the departing Xerxes I with 60,000 men from Thessaly to the Hellespont . On the way back from there to the winter camp of the Persian army in Thessaly and Macedonia , a revolt of the Greeks on the Pallene peninsula caused him to intervene there. First he besieged during the winter of 480/79 BC. Chr. Olynth , which he could conquer. He forced the inhabitants to leave their city, had them slaughtered and handed the place over to befriended Chalcisans . He then attempted to capture the rebellious city of Potidaia by treason, but his treacherous connections were discovered; as a result, his plan failed. After the siege had dragged on for three months, the extremely low ebb tide enabled his soldiers to approach the city wall from the seaside in order to get across the isthmus to the Pallene peninsula and enclose Potidaia. However, the troops were surprised by the rapidly returning, very high tide as they approached . Many drowned, while others were slain by Potidaiians who came on boats when they fell out. Artabazos lost a large part of his army. With the remnants of his armed forces he moved to Thessaly and met in the spring of 479 BC. To Mardonios , the local commander in chief of the Persian troops.

As a result, Artabazos advised Mardonios from a decisive battle against the Greeks immediately before the Battle of Plataiai . Instead, he was to march with his soldiers to Thebes, as much food for them and fodder for the cattle had been brought there; here the army could linger quietly and await the effect of the distribution of Persian gold among the leading men of several Greek states. By means of such bribery, rule over Greece would certainly be won. Artabazos was unable to enforce his ideas because Mardonios did not want to know anything about this plan. According to Herodotus , Artabazos deliberately did not lead the reserves under his command, around 40,000 men, into battle during the battle. After the decisive defeat of the Persians, he fled with his troops through Phocis , Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace to Byzantium and finally led the remnants of his army, which had been decimated by exhaustion, hunger and attacks by the Thracians, across the Hellespont to Asia Minor .

477 BC Artabazos took over the province of Hellespontian Phrygia as satrap with the Daskyleion residence , where he replaced Megabates . In the same year he acted as a mediator in the secret negotiations between Pausanias and the Great King, which, however, were unsuccessful because the Hellenes found out about them. Herodotus has a different story to tell about the secret negotiations, which he himself doubts.

Possibly Artabazos is identical with the commander of the same name of the great king Artaxerxes I , who, according to Diodorus , was supposed to suppress a rebellion of the Egyptians under their Pharaoh Inaros II together with Megabyzos . The two Persian generals advanced in 456 BC. BC advanced with a strong force against Memphis and fought successfully against the Egyptians and the Athenians allied with them. Thucydides only mentions Megabyzos as the leader of the Persian army, but not Artabazos. 450 BC Artabazos defended Cyprus with a fleet of 300 Phoenician ships against the Athenian general Kimon , while Megabyzos commanded the Persian land army. 449 BC Artabazos opened the negotiations in Athens that led to a peace agreement .

Succession

Artabazos was followed by his son Pharnabazos I (cl. 455 BC - 430 BC)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herodotus , Histories 7, 66.
  2. ↑ Herodotus, Historien 8, 126–129; see. Polyainos , Strategemata 7, 33, 1 ..
  3. ↑ Herodotus, Histories 9, 41 and 9, 58.
  4. ↑ Herodotus, Historien 9, 66; 9, 77; 9.89; Diodor , Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 11, 31, 1 and 11, 33, 1; Plutarch , Aristides 19, 4; see. Polyainos, Strategemata 7, 33, 3.
  5. ↑ Thucydides ¸ Peloponnesian War 1, 129–132; Diodor, Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 11, 44, 4; Cornelius Nepos , Pausanias 2, 5.
  6. ↑ Herodotus, Histories 5, 32.
  7. ↑ Diodor, Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 11, 74 and 11, 77; see. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 1, 109.
  8. ↑ Diodor, Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 12, 3 f.
personal data
SURNAME Artabazos I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rtuvazdah (old Persian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian military leader
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 5th century BC Chr.