Artazostre or Artozostre (

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

*''Artazauštrī'') was a Persian princess, daughter of king

Darius the Great Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

(522-485 BC) by Artystone, daughter of

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

. According to the Greek 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 ...

(VI, 43) Artazostre was given in marriage to Mardonius, young son of the noble Gobryas, not much before he took the command of the Persian army in

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and

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

(c. 493/492 BC). Artazostre seems not to be mentioned by name in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (administrative documents found at

Persepolis Persepolis (; ; ) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (). It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros mountains, Fars province of Iran. It is one of the key Iranian cultural heritage sites and ...

), 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: , in

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

*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 Daughters of kings