Idanthyrsus (

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 peri ...

: ,

romanized Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

: ;

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ) is the name of a

Scythian The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...

king who lived in the 6th century BCE, when he faced an invasion of his country by the

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 ...

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

Name and etymology

The name () is the Hellenized form of a

name whose original form is not attested. The Scythian name has been tentatively suggested by

Ferdinand Justi Ferdinand Justi (2 June 1837 in Marburg, Germany – 17 February 1907 in Marburg) was a German linguist and Orientalist. He finished his studies of linguistics at the University of Marburg and the University of Göttingen. In 1861 he lived in Ma ...

and

Josef Markwart Josef Markwart (originally spelled Josef Marquart: December 9, 1864 in Reichenbach am Heuberg – February 4, 1930 in Berlin) was a German historian and orientalist. He specialized in Turkish and Iranian Studies and the history of the Midd ...

to have been composed of the Iranian term "finding, attaining" or ; the linguist

Alexis Manaster Ramer Alexis Manaster Ramer (born 1956) is a Polish-born American linguist (PhD 1981, University of Chicago). Work Ramer has published extensively on syntactic typology (esp. in relation to Australian, Eskimo, and Austronesian languages); on phonol ...

has reconstructed it as or , or as or , meaning "prospering the ally", with the final part modified into , referring to the composite vegetal wand of Bacchus, in Greek because the ancient Greeks associated Scythian peoples with Bacchic rites.

Life

Background

Idanthyrsus was the son of his predecessor, the Scythian king Saulius, who was himself the brother and slayer of

Anacharsis Anacharsis (; grc, Ἀνάχαρσις) was a Scythian philosopher; he travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea, to Ancient Athens, in the early 6th century BC, and made a great impression as a forthright and outspok ...

Persian invasion

When

Darius I of Persia 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 ...

invaded Scythia, about 513 BC, and the Scythians retreated before him, he sent a message to Idanthyrsus, calling upon him either to fight or submit. The Scythian king answered that, in fleeing before the Persians, he was not urged by fear, but was merely living the wandering/

nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

life to which he was accustomed, that there was no reason why he should fight the Persians, as he had neither cities for them to take nor lands. He, however did reply, "But if all you want is to come to fight, we have the graves of our fathers. Come on, find these and try to destroy them: you shall know then whether we will fight you." In his '' Histories'',

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 ...

writes the following about the dialogue between the Persian king and Idanthyrsus (2015 publication, ''

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

''); To which the Scythian king replied;

Legacy

Graeco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

authors confused several early Scythian kings such as

Išpakaia Ishpakaia (Scythian ; Akkadian: ) was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in Western Asia in the 7th century BCE. Name is the Akkadian form of the Scythian name , which was a hypocorostic derivation of the word ...

, Protothyes, and

Madyes Madyes ( Median: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ;: " “intoxicating drink” (in )" Latin: ) was a Scythian king who ruled during the period of the Scythian presence in West Asia in the 7th century BCE. Madyes was the son of the Scythian king Ba ...

, into a single figure, also named Madyes, who led Scythians into defeating the Medes and the legendary

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

king Sesōstris, before imposing their rule over Asia for many years before returning to

Scythia Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Hi ...

. Later Graeco-Roman authors named this Scythian king as Idanthyrsos or

Tanausis {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 Tanausis was a legendary king of the Goths, according to Jordanes's ''Getica'' (5.47). The 19th-century scholar Alfred von Gutschmid assigned his reign to 1323 BC - 1290 BC. According to the ''Getica'', he was the ...

, although this Idanthyrsos is a legendary figure separate from the later historical Scythian king Idanthyrsos, from whom the Graeco-Romans derived merely his name.

Explanatory notes

References

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Ariapeithes Ariapeithes (Scythian: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ) was a king of the Scythians in the early 5th century BCE. Name Ariapeithes's name originates from the Scythian name , and is composed of the terms , meaning “ Aryan” and “Iranian,” a ...

(?) Scythian rulers 6th-century BC rulers Foreign contacts of ancient Egypt Achaemenid Thrace