Mazares

Mazares was around 542 BC. Chr. Into service of the Achaemenid king Cyrus II. Standing Median army commander.

Life

When Cyrus II. After defeating Croesus with target Ekbatana had left, instigated PAKTYES in Lydia an uprising against the Persian domination and advertised with the placed under its oversight Gold an army. With this he stepped to the siege of the governor Tabalos appointed by Cyrus II in Sardis .

When the Persian king heard of this uprising, the Medes Mazares went to Lydia with an army on his orders to get Paktyes into their hands as alive as possible. The rebel first sought refuge in Kyme . Despite allegedly two requests from an oracle to deliver Paktyes, he was sent on from his first place of refuge to Mytilene . Mazares negotiated with this city about the conditions for the surrender of the fugitive, who has since escaped to Chios . But there his journey came to an end, because the islanders handed him over to the Persians at the cost of the possession of Atarneus.

Mazares himself died of an unknown disease after his vengeance campaigns against Priene and Magnesia am Meander .

Historical credibility

Herodotus' statements are judged critically by Hartmut Erbse , since he suspects that Herodotus served as a template for the report by Charon von Lampsakos and that Herodotus developed it into a "moralizing novella ." Wolfgang Aly researched similarly in his investigations.

literature

Reinhold Bichler: Herodotus world. The structure of history based on the image of foreign countries and peoples, their civilization and their history . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-05-003429-7 , p. 254.
J. Miller: Paktyes 2). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XVIII, 2, Stuttgart 1942, Sp. 2440.
Hartmut Erbse: Studies to Understand Herodotus . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-11-013621-X .

Notes and individual references

↑ Herodotus 1, 153-161.
↑ Charon's story according to FGrHist 262 F9, just a short note: "... Paktyes fled from Cyrus in a hurry to Mytilene and Chios". in Hartmut Erbse: Studies to Understand Herodotus , de Gruyter, Berlin 1992, p. 37.
↑ Wolfgang Aly: Folk tales, sagas and novels in Herodotus and his contemporaries. An investigation into the folk elements of ancient Greek prose narration. Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969.

personal data
SURNAME	Mazares
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Median general of Cyrus II.
DATE OF BIRTH	7th century BC BC or 6th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	around 542 BC Chr.

[1] Herodotus 1, 153-161.

[2] Charon's story according to FGrHist 262 F9, just a short note: "... Paktyes fled from Cyrus in a hurry to Mytilene and Chios". in Hartmut Erbse: Studies to Understand Herodotus , de Gruyter, Berlin 1992, p. 37.

[3] Wolfgang Aly: Folk tales, sagas and novels in Herodotus and his contemporaries. An investigation into the folk elements of ancient Greek prose narration. Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969.