Otanes

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the judge and general of the same name, see Otanes (son of Sisamnes)

Otanes (also Onophas ; pers .: Utâna ) son of Pharnaspes, was a high-ranking member of the nobility in the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC.

According to the Greek historian Herodotus , he was the driving force behind the coup d'état against the alleged false great king Bardiya (Smerdis), who is actually said to have been the magician Gaumata , paving the way for Darius I to the Persian throne.

Coup in 522 BC Chr.

Otanes had already when the Bardiya came to power in the spring of 522 BC. Chr. Suspected that this is not who he said he was. Mainly because the new great king in the palace of Susa sealed himself off from the outside world and only allowed his closest confidants, who were mainly magicians from the media, to come in. Otanes had a daughter, Phaidyme, who was initially one of the wives of the late Great King Cambyses II and now belonged to the harem of Bardiya. But because Phaidyme had not yet been ordered into the Great King's chamber, she could not give her father any information about his true identity. As soon as she was to sleep with Bardiya for the first time, Otanes told her to feel him by the ears. Because the magician Gaumata, whom Otanes suspected behind the person of Bardiya, was once the ears cut off on the orders of the great king Cyrus II . After Phaidyme was finally called into the Bardiya's room in the eighth month of the reign of the Bardiya, she was finally able to inform her father the next day that the great king was actually missing his ears.

Otanes was now certain that the throne of the Persians had been usurped by Gaumata by assuming the identity of Bardiya. The real Bardiya was still executed on the orders of his brother Cambyses II, which, however, had been kept secret from the public by the magicians. Otanes then let his friends Ardumaniš and Gobryas in on the secret, and they also included Intaphrenes , Megabyzos , Hydarnes and finally Dareios in the circle of trust . Together the seven penetrated the palace of Susa and killed the magicians and Gaumata with them.

The constitutional debate

As can be seen above all from the sources of Herodotus, Otanes advocated the establishment of a democracy after the coup , which he justified in Herodotus' famous constitutional debate with the fact that an autocratic ruler would be able to do whatever he liked and such irresponsible behavior is unavoidable. He also argued that it does not depend on a person's character whether he fails or not, but that even the most good-natured man would one day deceive his country because he was filled with envy and arrogance and could then no longer please him.

So Otanes pleaded for the people to be made rulers, because all the disadvantages of the monarchy would then have disappeared and only then could one speak of real justice. Ultimately, however, Darius I decided to continue the monarchy .

It should be noted that the constitutional discussion was not historical; the monarchy was never in question with the Persians, not even after the coup d'état of Darius. Rather, it reflects the views of Herodotus, who used Persian-Greek mythology as the basis of his discussion. It is also possible that Herodotus wanted to clarify the contrasts between Greeks and Persians.

Attack on Samos

Otanes was ordered to head an army immediately after the coup d'état by Darius I, with which he was supposed to march against Samos in order to return Syloson , the brother of Polycrates , to rule there. He managed to land on the island without a fight and move into the city. The ruler Mäandrios had holed up on the Acropolis of Samos, but was ready to negotiate his withdrawal. But there was betrayal when the men of the meander attacked the Persian negotiating delegation and killed them. Otanes then ordered, in spite of explicitly different orders from Darius I, a criminal court against Samos by killing all male inhabitants of the island regardless of age. Meanders managed to escape to Sparta and Syloson could only rule on a depopulated island. However, Otanes was actively involved in the repopulation of Samos after a dream face appeared to him and a disease had attacked his genitals.

The attack on Samos was the first ever confrontation between the Greek world and the expanding Persian Empire under Darius I and thus represented a preliminary to the Ionian uprising and the Persian Wars.

family

His sister was probably Kassandane , the wife of Cyrus II and mother of Cambyses II, who received the same patronymic from Herodetus as that of Otanes.

Otanes himself had two wives, the first of which he had the daughter Phaidyme, who was married first to Cambyses II and then to Bardiya / Gaumata. After the coup, he married a daughter of Darius I, with whom he daughter Amestris had, later the Great King Xerxes I married. He also had a son, Smerdomenes , who lived in 480 BC. Was a general in the campaign against Greece.

source

• Herodotus III 68-72; 79-82; 141-149; VII 61; 82

literature

• Klaus Bringmann: The Constitutional Debate with Herodotus 3.80-82 and Darius' rise to royal rule , Hermes 104, 1976

Web links

• Jonah Lendering: Otanes . In: Livius.org (English)