Amestris ( el, Άμηστρις, ''Amēstris'', perhaps the same as Άμαστρις, ''Amāstris'', from

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ( ...

''Amāstrī-'', "strong woman"; died c. 424 BC) was a Persian queen, the wife of

Xerxes I of Persia Xerxes I ( peo, 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 ; grc-gre, Ξέρξης ; – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, ruling from 486 to 465 BC. He was the son and successor of ...

, mother of Achaemenid King of Kings

Artaxerxes I of Persia Artaxerxes I (, peo, 𐎠𐎼𐎫𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎠 ; grc-gre, Ἀρταξέρξης) was the fifth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, from 465 to December 424 BC. He was the third son of Xerxes I. He may have been the "Artasy ...

. She was poorly regarded by

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

historians.

Life

Amestris was the daughter of Otanes, one of the seven noblemen reputed to have killed the

magus Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius th ...

who was impersonating King

Bardiya Bardiya or Smerdis ( peo, 𐎲𐎼𐎮𐎡𐎹 ; grc, Σμέρδις ; possibly died 522 BC), also named as Tanyoxarces ( grc, Τανυοξάρκης ) by Ctesias, was a son of Cyrus the Great and the younger brother of Cambyses II, both P ...

in 522 BC. After this, Darius I the Great of Persia assumed the throne. According to

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known for ...

, Otanes was honoured with royal marriages. Darius I married Otanes' daughter Phaedymia while Otanes married a sister of Darius, who gave birth to Amestris. When Darius died in 486 BC, Amestris was married to the crown prince, Xerxes. Herodotus describes Amestris as a cruel despot: The origin of this story is unclear, since known records and accounts indicate that

human sacrifices Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...

were not permitted within the Persian religion. Also since most accounts of the time are from Greek sources, and due to the involvement of Greece as an opponent of Persia, it is possible that not all accounts are accurate. Circa 478 BC, her son Crown Prince Darius was married to his cousin Artaynte at Sardis. She was the daughter of Xerxes' brother Masistes. At the behest of Xerxes, Artaynte committed adultery with him (Xerxes). When Amestris found out, she did not seek revenge against Artaynte, but against her mother, Masistes' wife, as Amestris thought that it was her connivance. On Xerxes' birthday, Amestris sent for his guards and mutilated Masistes' wife by cutting off her breasts and threw them to dogs, and her nose and ears and lips also, and cutting out her tongue as well. On seeing this, Masistes fled to Bactria to start a revolt, but was intercepted by Xerxes' army who killed him and his sons.

Popular depictions

The anime and manga series

Fullmetal Alchemist is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. It was serialized in Square Enix's ''shōnen'' manga anthology magazine ''Monthly Shōnen Gangan'' between July 2001 and June 2010; the publisher later collected the ...

features the fictional country of Amestris. 400 years prior to the start of the show, there existed a country known as Xerxes. Amestris is a character in the opera '' Serse'' by George Frideric Handel (italianized as "Amastre"). In the opera, Amestris is about to marry Xerxes (Serse), yet he falls in love with another woman and wants to marry her instead. Amestris disguises herself as a man in order to be near him. At the end of the opera, Xerxes is sorry for the things he did and asks Amestris once more to be his wife. Deutsche Oper am Rhein: ''Xerxes'' (issued in 2015), a book containing information on the opera itself as well as on a contemporary production

Notes

Sources

Amestris
by

Jona Lendering Jona Lendering (born 29 October 1964) is a Dutch historian and the author of books on antiquity, Dutch history and modern management. He has an MA in history from Leiden University and an MA in Mediterranean culture from the Amsterdam Free Unive ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amestris 5th-century BC women 6th-century BC births 5th-century BC deaths Queens of the Achaemenid Empire Babylonian captivity 5th-century BC Iranian people