
Pactyes was the
Lydia
Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis.
At some point before 800 BC, ...
n put in charge of civil administration and gathering
Croesus's gold when Lydia was conquered by
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 ...
of Persia around 546 BC:
He led a revolt against Cyrus and
Tabalus, the Persian military commander or
satrap
A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median kingdom, Median and Achaemenid Empire, Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic empi ...
whom Cyrus had put in charge of Lydia:
{{quote, But no sooner had Cyrus marched away from Sardis than Pactyes made the Lydians to revolt from Tabalus and Cyrus; and he went down to the sea, where, as he had all the gold of Sardis, he hired soldiers and persuaded the men of the coast to join his army. Then marching to Sardis he penned Tabalus in the citadel and besieged him there., Herodotus 1.154
When Pactyes discovered that Cyrus intended to send an army against him, he fled to
Cyme, whose citizens considered handing him over to the Persians but were dissuaded by
Aristodicus of Cyme, who then passed him on to
Mytilene
Mytilene (; ) is the capital city, capital of the Greece, Greek island of Lesbos, and its port. It is also the capital and administrative center of the North Aegean Region, and hosts the headquarters of the University of the Aegean. It was fo ...
, from which he fled to
Chios
Chios (; , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greece, Greek list of islands of Greece, island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, tenth largest island in the Medi ...
, and was finally captured by the Persians.
[Truesdell S. Brown]
"Aristodicus of Cyme and the Branchidae"
''The American Journal of Philology'' Vol. 99, No. 1 (Spring, 1978), pp. 64-78.
See also
*
History of Anatolia
*
Lydia (satrapy)
References
Lydia