Artachaees (), son of

Artaeus Artaeus ( Ancient Greek: ''Ἀρταῖος''. Old Persian: ''R̥taya''), is the legendary sixth king of Media mentioned by Ctesias, who succeeded Arbian, and not Sardanapalus. Artaeus was the father of Artachaees and Azanes. History During h ...

, was an

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...

engineer of

ancient Persia The history of Iran (also known as Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, which is a socio-cultural region encompassing all of the areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence exerted by the Iranian peoples and the Iranian ...

, who lived around the 5th century BCE. He was reputed to be the tallest man in his country. He was described as being "four fingers short of five royal cubits". It is not possible to know with any precision what modern length was meant here, but most scholars agree it was somewhere between seven and eight feet tall. Aside from his height, Artachaees was most noted for his architecting of the

Xerxes Canal The Xerxes Canal () was a navigable canal through the base of the Mount Athos peninsula in Chalkidiki, northern Greece, built in the 5th century BC. King Xerxes I of Achaemenid Empire, Persia ordered its construction, which was overseen by his eng ...

across the peninsula at the base of

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

, and his direct role in overseeing its construction. He died while

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...

was with his army at Athos; and Xerxes, who was deeply grieved at his loss, gave him a lavish funeral, and commanded his army to raise a mound for Artachaees. This mound was said to have been visible as late as the 19th century. In the time of the historian

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, the Acanthians, in pursuance of an oracle, sacrificed to Artachaees as a hero.

, ''

Histories Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to: * the plural of history * ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus * ''The Histories'', by Timaeus * ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius * ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust) ...

'' 7.22, 117 Herodotus also mentions a couple of commanders who were the sons of Artachaees. These were Artaÿntes, who commanded a segment of the Persian navy, and Otaspes, who commanded a group of

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n soldiers in the army.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Artachaees Ancient Persian engineers Persian people of the Greco-Persian Wars 5th-century BC Iranian people