William Rainey - Death of the Persian admiral at Salamis

Ariabignes ( peo, Ariyabigna, el, Ἀριαβίγνης) was one of the sons of the Persian king

Darius I 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 ...

and his mother was a daughter of Gobryas (). He participated in the

Second Persian invasion of Greece The second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasio ...

, as one of the four admirals of the fleet of his brother

Xerxes I 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 D ...

, and was killed in the

Battle of Salamis The Battle of Salamis ( ) was a naval battle fought between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles and the Persian Empire under King Xerxes in 480 BC. It resulted in a decisive victory for the outnumbered Greeks. The battle was ...

in 480 BC. Ariabignes was the commander of the

Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joine ...

n and Ionian forces.

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

calls him, Ariamenes (),Plutarch ''Parallel Lives'' "Themistocles", 14 and speaks of him as a brave man and the most just of the brothers of Xerxes. The same writer relates that this Ariamenes laid claim to the throne on the death of Darius, as the eldest of his sons, but was opposed by Xerxes, who maintained that he had a right to the crown as the eldest of the sons born after Darius had become king. The Persians appointed Artabanus to decide the dispute; and upon his declaring in favour of Xerxes, Ariamenes immediately saluted his brother as king, and was treated by him with great respect. 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 fo ...

Herodotus vii. 2 who calls the eldest son of Darius, Artabazanes (), this dispute, and its resolution, occurred while Darius I was still alive. Plutarch also says that the men who killed him, during the Battle of Salamis, were Ameinias of Decelea (according to Herodotus he was from Pallene) and Socles () of Pallene, when they hit him with their spears while he was trying to board on their ship and threw his body to the sea. In addition, he says that it was Artemisia who recognized his body floating among the shipwrecks and brought it back to Xerxes.

References

Sources

* *

, '' The Histories'' *

, Parallel Lives, Themistocles {{Authority control Battle of Artemisium Battle of Salamis Admirals of the Achaemenid Empire Persian people of the Greco-Persian Wars Family of Darius the Great 5th-century BC Iranian people