Artaÿntes (), son of

Artachaees Artachaees (), son of Artaeus, was an Achaemenid engineer of ancient Persia, 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 no ...

, was one of the generals in the army of

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 ...

. When Xerxes had returned to Asia after the

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

, Artaÿntes, Ithamitres, and some other generals, sailed to

Samos Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...

in order to watch the

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

ns, and in the hope that the land-force under Mardonius in northern Greece might still be successful. But after the

Battle of Plataea The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Polis, Greek city-states (including Sparta, Cla ...

and

Battle of Mycale The Battle of Mycale was one of the two major battles (the other being the Battle of Plataea) that ended the second Persian invasion of Greece during the Greco-Persian Wars. It took place on 27 or 28 August, 479BC on the slopes of Mount Myc ...

in 479 BCE, Artaÿntes and Ithamitres took to flight. While Artaÿntes was passing through Asia, he was met by the prince

Masistes Masistes (Old Persian 𐎶𐎰𐎡𐏁𐎫, ''Maθišta''; Greek Μασίστης, ''Masístēs''; Old Iranian *''Masišta''; died 478 BC) was a Persian prince of the Achaemenid Dynasty, son of king Darius I (reign: 520-486 BC) and of his wi ...

, brother of Xerxes, who censured him severely for his cowardly flight. Artaÿntes, enraged, drew his sword and would have killed Masistes, had he not been saved by Xeinagoras, a Greek, who seized Artaÿntes at the moment and threw him on the ground, for which act he was liberally rewarded.

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 ...

, ''

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) ...

'' 8.130, 9.102, 107

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Artayntes 5th-century BC Iranian people Persian people of the Greco-Persian Wars Xerxes I