Pherendates ( peo,
*Farnadātaʰ;
grc,
Φερενδάτης ) was an
Achaemenid
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 emp ...
satrap of
ancient Egypt in the early 5th century BCE, at the time of the Achaemenid
27th Dynasty of Egypt.
Career
A son of
Megabazus
Megabazus ( Old Persian: ''Bagavazdā'' or ''Bagabāzu'', grc, Μεγαβάζος), son of Megabates, was a highly regarded Persian general under Darius, to whom he was a first-degree cousin. Most of the information about Megabazus comes from ...
, and an army commander under king
Darius I, Pherendates is mainly attested from three letters written in
Egyptian Demotic. He replaced the satrap
Aryandes who was deposed by Darius around 496 BCE;
[ although the exact accession date of Pherendates is unknown. Pherendates was definitely the satrap in 492 BCE.ARYANDES]
at the ''Encyclopædia Iranica
''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.
Scope
The ''Encyc ...
''.
In the aforementioned letters, certain priests of the local temple of
Khnum
Khnum or also romanised Khnemu (; egy, 𓎸𓅱𓀭 ẖnmw, grc-koi, Χνοῦβις) was one of the earliest-known Egyptian deities, originally the god of the source of the Nile. Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt an ...
at
Elephantine asked Pherendates to take care of some of their business in their place, a rather standard request to the pharaoh (or his representative, such as in this case) in any period of
ancient Egyptian history
The history of ancient Egypt spans the period from the early prehistoric settlements of the northern Nile valley to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The pharaonic period, the period in which Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh, is dated from the ...
.
In 486–485 BCE a revolt occurred in Egypt, which was quelled in 484 BCE by a new satrap,
Achaemenes
Achaemenes ( peo, 𐏃𐎧𐎠𐎶𐎴𐎡𐏁 ; grc, Ἀχαιμένης ; la, Achaemenes) was the apical ancestor of the Achaemenid dynasty of rulers of Persia.
Other than his role as an apical ancestor, nothing is known of his life or a ...
. It is possible that Pherendates lost his life during the turmoil.
References
Further reading
*
*
Achaemenid satraps of Egypt
Year of birth unknown
5th-century BC Iranian people
5th century BC in Egypt
Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt
Officials of Darius the Great
{{AncientEgypt-bio-stub