Megabyzos II.

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Megabyzos ( Old Persian: Baghabuxša , Greek  Μεγάβυζος ; * around 516 BC; † around 440 BC), son of Zopyros , was a Persian nobleman and general in the great empire of the Achaemenids .

Life

According to Ktesias , Megabyzos took over in 484 BC. A rebelling Babylon , which wanted to break away from the Persian Empire after the assumption of rule of Xerxes I. This episode and the ruse with which he is said to have taken the city, however, Ktesias had taken from the tradition of Herodotus , from whom it was in turn attributed to Zopyros in a different time context.

Megabyzos was married to the princess Amytis , a daughter of Xerxes I, and accompanied his father-in-law on the campaign in Greece as the commander of his own army unit. In 479 BC he refused. The royal order to destroy the Apollo shrine at Delphi . Following the campaign, Megabyzos was appointed governor ( satrap ) of Syria . He also had to ask his father-in-law to help him cope with his marital crisis, because Amytis had a reputation for having a lively sex life outside of marriage. After an admonition from the great king, she had to vow prudence. After the violent death of Xerxes I. 465 BC BC tried his murderer, Artabanos , also against the new great king, Artaxerxes I , to forge a plot and harnessed Megabyzos. But he betrayed the conspiracy in time, whereupon Artabanos came to an end.

After Artaxerxes I came to power, revolts broke out in peripheral parts of the Persian Empire. In Egypt , the people under Inaros revolted , supported by Greek mercenaries from Athens , where Prince Achaimenes , governor of the country and brother of the new great king, was killed. Not until 456 BC BC Megabyzos was sent to Egypt with Artabazos to put down the revolt. With a large army he successfully appalled Memphis , which had withstood a siege of the Inaros all these years. After Thucydides , the rebels then fled to the island of Prosopitis in the Nile Delta , where Megabyzos besieged them for the next year and a half until he died in the spring of 454 BC. He diverted the blocking arm of the Nile and was able to attack the island with his army and defeat the last rebels. After Ktesias, however, the rebels had fled to the city of Byblos, where they could finally be defeated. Megabyzos took Inaros prisoner, but gave him his word to spare his life. Five years later, however, the Queen Mother Amestris retaliated for her slain son and obtained the crucifixion of Inaros, which led to the alienation of the Megabyzo from the royal court. In the years 449/448 BC BC he again carried on the war against Athens in cooperation with Artabazos and brought Cyprus under Persian control. His subsequent diplomatic efforts led to the so-called Peace of Callias with Athens.

In the following years Megabyzos waged a private war against Great King Artaxerxes I, winning against two royal armies, whereupon he was again accepted by the Great King in grace at the royal court. Megabyzos was the first Persian military leader to use Greek mercenaries for his uprising, a practice that made school in the further course of the Persian Empire. Despite the reconciliation, a new rift soon erupted when Megabyzos saved the king's life during a hunt by killing the lion that threatened the king with his spear. Despite his efforts, Megabyzos again drew the wrath of the king, as he was entitled to the first javelin throw on a hunt. He escaped the beheading demanded by the king only through the intercession of his wife and mother-in-law, but was banished to a city on the Persian Gulf . He was only able to return to court five years later and died a little later at the age of seventy-six.

Megabyzos had two sons, Zopyros and Artyphios .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herodotus 3.160
  2. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F13 §26
  3. ↑ Herodotus 7.82
  4. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §31
  5. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §33
  6. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §37; after him the army was 200,000 strong.
  7. ↑ Thucydides 1.109
  8. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §38-39
  9. ↑ Diodorus 12.3
  10. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §40; Dinon FGrH 690 F29 §21-23
  11. ↑ Ktesias, Persika , FGrH 688 F14 §43
personal data
SURNAME Megabyzos II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baghabuxša, Μεγάβυζος
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian nobleman and general, satrap of Syria
DATE OF BIRTH around 516 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 440 BC Chr.