Onesilus or Onesilos (, "useful one"; died 497 BC) was the brother of king Gorgos (Gorgus) of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

city-state of Salamis on the island of

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. He is known only through the work of

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'', V.104–115).

Background

Cyprus was a part of the

Persian Empire 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 larg ...

, but, when the Ionians rebelled from Persian rule, Onesilus captured the city of Salamis and usurped his brother’s throne. He was able to win over every city on the island except for the Graeco-Phoenician city-state of Amathus, which stayed loyal to the Persians despite being besieged by Onesilus' troops. In 497 BC, the Persians mounted an attack on Cyprus with the help of the

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n navy. Some of the Ionian colonies sent ships to assist Onesilus, and in the ensuing battle they were able to defeat the Phoenician navy. Onesilus then led an army against the Persian general, Artybius. Although Artybius died in the battle, the Persians were victorious and Onesilus was killed. As a result, the Ionian fleet retreated from Cyprus and five months later the Persians regained control of the island. Onesilus’ brother, Gorgus Chersides, was then reinstated by the Persians as king of Salamis. Herodotus also reports that in retaliation for Onesilus' siege of Amathus, the townspeople cut off his head after his death and hung it above the town gates as a trophy, and later observed that his desiccated skull had been occupied by a swarm of bees and their honeycomb (a phenomenon similar to bugonia). To ward off the effects of this ill omen they were advised to take down the head and bury it, making sacrifice to Onesilus as a hero.

In popular culture

The story of the bees in the skull is the subject of "histories: onesilos", a poem by German poet Jan Wagner.

References

6th-century BC births 497 BC deaths Ancient Greeks killed in battle Ancient Greek monarchs Kings of Salamis, Cyprus Ionian Revolt {{Cyprus-bio-stub