What I will now relate happened about the time of Cambyses' sickness. The viceroy of Sardis appointed by Cyrus was Oroetes, a Persian. This man purposed to do a great wrong; for though he had received no hurt by word or deed from Polycrates of Samos, nor had even seen him, he formed the desire of seizing and killing him. The reason alleged by most was this: — As Oroetes and another Persian, Mitrobates by name, governor of the province of Dascyleium, sat by the king's door, they fell from talk to wrangling and comparing of their several achievements: and Mitrobates taunted Oroetes, saying, "You are not to be accounted a man; the island of Samos lies close to your province, yet you have not added it to the king's dominion — an island so easy to conquer that some native of it rose against his rulers with fifteen men at arms, and is now lord of it. Some say that Oroetes, angered by this taunt, was less desirous of punishing the utterer of it than of by all means destroying the reason of the reproach, namely Polycrates.
Oroetus became the first satrap recorded as demonstrating insubordination towards the central power of Persia. When Cambyses (ruled 530-522 BC), who succeeded his father Cyrus, died, the Persian Empire was in chaos prior to Darius the Great (522-486 BC) finally securing control. Oroetus defied Darius' orders to assist him, whereupon the Achaemenid nobleman Bagaeus was sent by Darius to arrange his murder.
After Cambyses had died and the Magians won the kingship, Oroetes stayed in Sardis, where he in no way helped the Persians to regain the power taken from them by the Medes, but contrariwise; for in this confusion he slew two notable Persians, Mitrobates, the governor from Dascyleium, who had taunted him concerning Polycrates, and Mitrobates' son Cranaspes; and besides many other violent deeds, when a messenger from Darius came with a message which displeased him, he set an ambush by the way and killed that messenger on his journey homewards, and made away with the man's body and horse. So when Darius became king he was minded to punish Oroetes for all his wrongdoing, and chiefly for the killing of Mitrobates and his son.
The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC.
Cambyses II was the second King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 530 to 522 BC. He was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great and his mother was Cassandane.
Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
This article concerns the period 529 BC – 520 BC.
Year 408 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Iullus, Ahala and Cossus. The denomination 408 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Bardiya or Smerdis, also named as Tanyoxarces by Ctesias, was a son of Cyrus the Great and the younger brother of Cambyses II, both Persian kings. There are sharply divided views on his life. Bardiya either ruled the Achaemenid Empire for a few months in 522 BC, or was impersonated by a magus called Gaumāta ; whose name is given by Ctesias as Sphendadates, until he was toppled by Darius the Great.
The Ionian Revolt, and associated revolts in Aeolis, Doris, Cyprus and Caria, were military rebellions by several Greek regions of Asia Minor against Persian rule, lasting from 499 BC to 493 BC. At the heart of the rebellion was the dissatisfaction of the Greek cities of Asia Minor with the tyrants appointed by Persia to rule them, along with the individual actions of two Milesian tyrants, Histiaeus and Aristagoras. The cities of Ionia had been conquered by Persia around 540 BC, and thereafter were ruled by native tyrants, nominated by the Persian satrap in Sardis. In 499 BC, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, launched a joint expedition with the Persian satrap Artaphernes to conquer Naxos, in an attempt to bolster his position. The mission was a debacle, and sensing his imminent removal as tyrant, Aristagoras chose to incite the whole of Ionia into rebellion against the Persian king Darius the Great.
The Battle of Lade was a naval battle which occurred during the Ionian Revolt, in 494 BC. It was fought between an alliance of the Ionian cities and the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, and resulted in a decisive victory for the Persians which all but ended the revolt.
Artaphernes, flourished circa 513–492 BC, was a brother of the Achaemenid king of Persia, Darius I, satrap of Lydia from the capital of Sardis, and a Persian general. In his position he had numerous contacts with the Greeks, and played an important role in suppressing the Ionian Revolt.
Polycrates, son of Aeaces, was the tyrant of Samos from the 540s BC to 522 BC. He had a reputation as both a fierce warrior and an enlightened tyrant.
Histiaeus, the son of Lysagoras, was a Greek ruler of Miletus in the late 6th century BC. Histiaeus was tyrant of Miletus under Darius I, king of Persia, who had subjugated Miletus and the other Ionian states in Asia Minor, and who generally appointed Greeks as tyrants to rule the Greek cities of Ionia in his territory.
Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. Spanning from the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, the empire created by Cyrus was the largest the world had yet seen. At its maximum extent under his successors, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of the Balkans and Southeast Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.
The siege of Naxos was a failed attempt by the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras, operating with support from, and in the name of the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, to conquer the island of Naxos. It was the opening act of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would ultimately last for 50 years.
The siege of Sardis was the first major engagement of the Ionian Revolt. An allied Greek army launched an attack on the Persian satrapal capital of Sardis but were ultimately repelled by Persian forces, however most of the city was set alight during the siege.
The Satrapy of Lydia, known as Sparda in Old Persian, was an administrative province (satrapy) of the Achaemenid Empire, located in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, with Sardis as its capital.
The Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the First Egyptian Satrapy, was effectively a province (Satrapy) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire between 525 BC and 404 BC. It was founded by Cambyses II, the King of Persia, after the Battle of Pelusium and the Achaemenid conquest of Egypt, and his subsequent crowning as Pharaoh of Egypt. It was disestablished upon the rebellion and crowning of Amyrtaeus as Pharaoh. A second period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt occurred under the Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt.
Syloson governed Samos as a vassal ruler on behalf of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. He was appointed by king Darius I and was the brother of Polycrates of Samos.
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, was the ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC; the First Persian Empire. Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen at its time, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.
Bagaeus, son of Artontes, was an Achaemenid nobleman, who was ordered by Darius I to kill the rebellious satrap of Lydia, Oroetes. Oroetes was accused of having killed Mitrobates, the satrap of Daskyleion and his son, but is best known as the murderer of Polycrates of Samos. Herodotus recounts how Bagaeus used written orders from Darius in order to assure himself of the obedience of the bodyguards of Oroetes to the orders of Darius, and when assured, produced a final order to kill Oroetes:
So when Darius became king, he wanted to punish Oroetes for all his wrongdoing, and especially for killing Mitrobates and his son. But he thought it best not to send an army openly against the satrap, seeing that everything was still in confusion and he was still new to the royal power; moreover he heard that Oroetes was very powerful, having a guard of a thousand Persian spearmen and being governor of the Phrygian and Lydian and Ionian province. He had recourse, then, to the following expedient: having summoned an assembly of the most prominent Persians, he addressed them as follows: “Persians, which of you will promise to do this for me, not with force and numbers, but by cunning? Where there is need for cunning, force has no business. So then, which of you would either bring me Oroetes alive or kill him? For he has done the Persians no good, but much harm; he has destroyed two of us, Mitrobates and his son, and is killing my messengers that are sent to recall him, displaying an insolence that is not to be borne. So, then, before he does the Persians some still greater harm, he has to be punished by us with death.” Darius asked this and thirty men promised, each wanting to do it himself. Darius told them not argue but draw lots; they did, and the lot fell to Bagaeus, son of Artontes. Bagaeus, having drawn the lot, did as follows: he had many letters written concerning many things and put the seal of Darius on them, and then went with them to Sardis.
Mitrobates ; was an Achaemenid satrap of Daskyleion under the reigns of Cyrus the Great, who nominated him for the role, and Cambyses. After Cambyses died, and during the struggles for succession that followed, he is said to have been assassinated, together with his son Cranaspes, by the neighbouring satrap of Lydia, Oroetes, who wanted to expand his Anatolian territories. After the assassination, Oroetes added the territory of Hellespontine Phrygia to his own.
After Cambyses had died and the Magians won the kingship, Oroetes stayed in Sardis, where he in no way helped the Persians to regain the power taken from them by the Medes, but contrariwise; for in this confusion he slew two notable Persians, Mitrobates, the governor from Dascyleium, who had taunted him concerning Polycrates, and Mitrobates' son Cranaspes; and besides many other violent deeds, when a messenger from Darius came with a message which displeased him, he set an ambush by the way and killed that messenger on his journey homewards, and made away with the man's body and horse. So when Darius became king he was minded to punish Oroetes for all his wrongdoing, and chiefly for the killing of Mitrobates and his son.
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