Damasithymos

Damasithymos ( ancient Greek Δαμασίθυμος Damasíthymos ), son of Kandaules, was a king of Kalynda , located in the border area between Lycia and Caria .

Damasithymos took part on the side of the Persians in the campaign of Xerxes against the Greeks and, as a taxiarchus, commanded part of the Carian fleet alongside Histiaios, son of Tymnes. In the sea ​​battle of Salamis 480 BC He fell victim to a ruse by the ruler of Halicarnassus , Artemisia I. When her ship was attacked and overtaken by an Athenian, she deliberately rammed the ship commanded by Damasithymos and allied with her, which sank as a result. According to Herodotus , therefore, the commander of the Attic ship decided that the crew on the Artemisia's ship must be either Greeks or Persian deserters and refrained from further action. Damasithymus found death during this maneuver, whether by accident or because Artemisia was at odds with him, Herodotus leaves open. Xerxes, who attended the event as an observer and was specially drawn to the action of Artemisia by those around him, said appreciatively that his men had become women, but his wives had become men.

In the case of Polyainos , who describes the procedure of Artemisia in a similar way, but has a different motivation and ends, the dynastine ordered, under the pressure of persecution from the Greeks, to obtain the Persian ship's mark and to attack a Persian ship that was in the way. On top of it was Damasithymos, who drowned with his Kalyndeic crew.

literature

• Peter Högemann : Damasithymos. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 3, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01473-8 , Sp. 291.
• Johann Melber : About the sources and the value of the Polyäns stratagem collection. In: Yearbooks for Classical Philology. Supplementum 14, 1885, pp. 417-688, here: pp. 480-483 ( digitized version ).

Remarks

1. ↑ Herodotus 7.98 ( English ).
2. ↑ Herodotus 8:87 ( English ).
3. ↑ Herodotus 8:88 ( English ).
4. ↑ Polyainos, Strategemata 8.53 ( English ).