Artazostre (or Artozostre) (

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

*''Artazauštrī'') was a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

princess, daughter of king

Darius the Great Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), 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 d ...

(521-485 BC) by

Artystone Artystone ( peo, *R̥tastūnā; grc, Ἀρτυστώνη ; Elamite , {{transl, elx, Ir-da-iš-du-na) was a Persian princess, daughter of king Cyrus the Great, and sister or half-sister of Cambyses II, Atossa and Smerdis (Bardiyā). Along with At ...

, daughter of

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...

. According to the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

historian

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 f ...

(VI, 43) Artazostre was given in marriage to Mardonius, young son of the noble

Gobryas Gobryas ( grc, Γοβρύας; peo, 𐎥𐎢𐎲𐎽𐎢𐎺 g-u-b-ru-u-v, reads as ''Gaub(a)ruva''?; Elamite: ''Kambarma'') was a common name of several Persian noblemen. Gobryas (Cyrus the Great's general) This Gobryas is mentioned in the Cyro ...

, not much before he took the command of the Persian army in

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...

and

Macedon Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...

(c. 493/492 BC). Artazostre seems not to be mentioned by name in the

Persepolis Fortification Tablets The Persepolis Fortification Archive and Persepolis Treasury Archive are two groups of clay administrative archives — sets of records physically stored together – found in Persepolis dating to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The discover ...

(administrative documents found at

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

), but there are references (in tablets dated on the year 498 BC) to a "wife of Mardonius, daughter of the king", who received rations for a trip she made with Gobryas and a woman called ''Radušnamuya'' or ''Ardušnamuya'', perhaps Gobryas' wife. However, another interpretation of the text suggests that ''Ardušnamuya'' was actually the anonymous "wife of Mardonius" See Lendering. Mardonius had a son, probably by Artazostre, named Artontes.

Notes

References

*Brosius, M: ''Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BC'', Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. *Kellens, J
"Artazostra"
in

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

*Lendering, J:
Mardonius
, in http://www.livius.org. *Lewis, D: "Persians in Herodotus", in ''Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History'', pp. 345–362, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Persepolis Fortification Archive Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Artazostre Achaemenid princesses 5th-century BC women 5th-century BC Iranian people Family of Darius the Great