Patizeithes () was a Persian

magus Magi (), or magus (), is the term for priests in Zoroastrianism and earlier Iranian religions. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Per ...

(priest) who flourished in the second half of the 6th century BC. According to

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 ...

, he persuaded his brother

Smerdis Bardiya or Smerdis ( ; ; possibly died 522 BCE), also named as Tanyoxarces (; ) by Ctesias, was a son of Cyrus the Great and the younger brother of Cambyses II, both Persian kings. There are sharply divided views on his life. Bardiya eithe ...

(Gaumata) in 521 BC to rebel against

Cambyses II Cambyses II () was the second King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning 530 to 522 BCE. He was the son of and successor to Cyrus the Great (); his mother was Cassandane. His relatively brief reign was marked by his conquests in North Afric ...

(530–522 BC), who at the time ruled as

King of Kings King of Kings, ''Mepet mepe''; , group="n" was a ruling title employed primarily by monarchs based in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Commonly associated with History of Iran, Iran (historically known as name of Iran, Persia ...

of the

Achaemenid 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 larges ...

. Herodotus states that Patizeithes was eventually killed by Cambyses's successor Darius (later "the Great") (522–486 BC). The name "Patizeithes" is the form recorded by Herodotus. Dionysius of Miletus cited his name as Panzouthes, which is identical to Pazates as recorded by Xanthus the Lydian. The later Roman historian

Justin Justin may refer to: People and fictional characters * Justin (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Justin (historian), Latin historian who lived under the Roman Empire * Justin I (c. 450–527) ...

recorded his name as Oropastes. According to the modern Iranologist Josef Wiesehöfer, the name "Patizeithes" should be interpreted as a title, "although it is etymologically unclear". Wiesehöfer notes that the name may be connected to the word ''Pitiáchēs'' as recorded in later Greek sources, which is known in

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

as ''btḥšy'' (

bidaxsh Bidaxsh (''bidakhsh'', also spelled Pitiakhsh; in Roman sources ''Vitaxa'') was a title of Iranian origin attested in various languages from the 1st to the 8th-century. It has no identical word in English, but it is similar to a margrave, toparch a ...

), i.e. "viceroy".

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Patizeithes 6th-century BC deaths Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 6th-century BC Iranian people Zoroastrian priests People from the Achaemenid Empire Magi