Sanskrit
Sanskrit is a language of ancient India with a history going back about 3,500 years. It is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and the predominant language of most works of Hindu philosophy as well as some of the principal texts of Buddhism and Jainism. Sanskrit, in its variants and numerous dialects, was the lingua franca of ancient and medieval India. In the early 1st millennium CE, along with Buddhism and Hinduism, Sanskrit migrated to Southeast Asia, parts of East Asia and Central Asia, emerging as a language of high culture and of local ruling elites in these regions. Sanskrit is an Old Indo-Aryan language; as one of the oldest documented members of the Indo-European family of languages, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. It is related to Greek and Latin, as well as Hittite, Old Avestan and many other extinct languages with historical significance to Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, it traces its linguistic ancestry to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, Proto-Indo-Iranian and the Proto-Indo-European languages.
Sanskrit is traceable to the 2nd millennium BCE in a form known as the Vedic Sanskrit, with the Rigveda as the earliest known composition. A more refined and standardized grammatical form called the Classical Sanskrit emerged in mid-1st millennium BCE with the Aṣṭādhyāyī treatise of Pāṇini. Sanskrit, though not Classical Sanskrit, is the root language of many Prakrit languages. Examples include numerous modern daughter Northern Indian subcontinental languages such as Hindi, Bengali and Nepali; the body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, drama, scientific and other texts. In the ancient era, Sanskrit compositions were orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity and fidelity; the earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st-century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya and Ghosundi-Hathibada. Sanskrit texts dated to the 1st millennium CE were written in the Brahmi script, the Nāgarī script, the historic South Indian scripts and their derivative scripts.
Sanskrit is one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. It continues to be used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hinduism and some Buddhist practices such as hymns and chants; the Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sam and krta-. It connotes a work, "well prepared and perfect, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal qualities, rather than semantic. Sound and oral transmission were valued quality in ancient India, its sages refined the alphabet, the structure of words and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold", states Biderman, as an integral language they called Sanskrit. From late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic and religious literature" in India; the sound was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself, the "mysterious magnum" of the Hindu thought.
The search for perfection in thought and of salvation was one of the dimensions of sacred sound, the common thread to weave all ideas and inspirations became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as a language competed with numerous less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages; the term prakrta means "original, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth. The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in the Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patanjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and leads to the problems of interpretation and misunderstanding; the purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Dandin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit but involve "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar".
Dandin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view is found in the writing of the author of the ancient Natyasastra text; the early Jain scholar Namisadhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisadhu stated that the Prakrit language was the purvam and they came to women and children, that Sanskrit was a refinement of the Prakrit through a "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, it is one of the three ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as the Proto-Indo-European language: Vedic Sanskrit. Mycenaean Greek and Ancient Greek. Mycenaean Greek is the older recorded form of Greek, but the limited material that has survived has a ambiguous writing system. More important to Indo-European studies is Ancient Greek, documented extensively beginning with the two Homeric poems. Hittite.
This is the earliest-recorded of all Indo-European languages, distinguishable into Old Hittite, Middle Hittite and Neo-Hittite. I
Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast a satrapy under Andragoras, in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I of Parthia expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran; the empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians adopted the art, religious beliefs, royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions.
The Arsacid rulers were titled the "King of Kings", as a claim to be the heirs to the Achaemenid Empire. The court did appoint a small number of satraps outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of central government shifted from Nisa to Ctesiphon along the Tigris, although several other sites served as capitals; the earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Scythians in the east. However, as Parthia expanded westward, they came into conflict with the Kingdom of Armenia, the late Roman Republic. Rome and Parthia competed with each other to establish the kings of Armenia as their subordinate clients; the Parthians soundly defeated Marcus Licinius Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, in 40–39 BC, Parthian forces captured the whole of the Levant except Tyre from the Romans. However, Mark Antony led a counterattack against Parthia, although his successes were achieved in his absence, under the leadership of his lieutenant Ventidius.
Various Roman emperors or their appointed generals invaded Mesopotamia in the course of the ensuing Roman–Parthian Wars of the next few centuries. The Romans captured the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon on multiple occasions during these conflicts, but were never able to hold on to them. Frequent civil wars between Parthian contenders to the throne proved more dangerous to the Empire's stability than foreign invasion, Parthian power evaporated when Ardashir I, ruler of Istakhr in Persis, revolted against the Arsacids and killed their last ruler, Artabanus V, in 224 AD. Ardashir established the Sassanid Empire, which ruled Iran and much of the Near East until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD, although the Arsacid dynasty lived on through the Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, the Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania. Native Parthian sources, written in Parthian and other languages, are scarce when compared to Sassanid and earlier Achaemenid sources. Aside from scattered cuneiform tablets, fragmentary ostraca, rock inscriptions, drachma coins, the chance survival of some parchment documents, much of Parthian history is only known through external sources.
These include Greek and Roman histories, but Chinese histories, prompted by the Han Chinese desire to form alliances against the Xiongnu. Parthian artwork is viewed by historians as a valid source for understanding aspects of society and culture that are otherwise absent in textual sources. Before Arsaces I of Parthia founded the Arsacid Dynasty, he was chieftain of the Parni, an ancient Central-Asian tribe of Iranian peoples and one of several nomadic tribes within the confederation of the Dahae; the Parni most spoke an eastern Iranian language, in contrast to the northwestern Iranian language spoken at the time in Parthia. The latter was a northeastern province, first under the Achaemenid, the Seleucid empires. After conquering the region, the Parni adopted Parthian as the official court language, speaking it alongside Middle Persian, Greek, Babylonian and other languages in the multilingual territories they would conquer. Why the Arsacid court retroactively chose 247 BC as the first year of the Arsacid era is uncertain.
A. D. H. Bivar concludes that this was the year the Seleucids lost control of Parthia to Andragoras, the appointed satrap who rebelled against them. Hence, Arsaces I "backdated his regnal years" to the moment when Seleucid control over Parthia ceased. However, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis asserts that this was the year Arsaces was made chief of the Parni tribe. Homa Katouzian and Gene Ralph Garthwaite claim it was the year Arsaces conquered Parthia and expelled the Seleucid authorities, yet Curtis and Maria Brosius state that Andragoras was not overthrown by the Arsacids until 238 BC, it is unclear who succeeded Arsaces I. Bivar and Katouzian affirm that it was his brother Tiridates I of Parthia, who in turn was succeeded by his son Arsaces II of Parthia in 211 BC, yet Curtis and Brosius state that Arsaces II was the immediate successor of Arsaces I, with Curtis claiming the succession took place in 211 BC, Brosius in 217 BC. Bivar insists that 138 BC, the last regnal year of Mithridates I, is "the first established regnal date of Parthian history."
Due to these and other discrepancies
Lycia
Lycia was a geopolitical region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Burdur Province inland. Known to history since the records of ancient Egypt and the Hittite Empire in the Late Bronze Age, it was populated by speakers of the Luwian language group. Written records began to be inscribed in stone in the Lycian language after Lycia's involuntary incorporation into the Achaemenid Empire in the Iron Age. At that time the Luwian speakers were decimated, Lycia received an influx of Persian speakers. Ancient sources seem to indicate. Lycia fought for the Persians in the Persian Wars, but on the defeat of the Achaemenid Empire by the Greeks, it became intermittently a free agent. After a brief membership in the Athenian Empire, it seceded and became independent, was under the Persians again, revolted again, was conquered by Mausolus of Caria, returned to the Persians, fell under Macedonian hegemony upon the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great.
Due to the influx of Greek speakers and the sparsity of the remaining Lycian speakers, Lycia was Hellenized under the Macedonians, the Lycian language disappeared from inscriptions and coinage. On defeating Antiochus III in 188 BC the Romans gave Lycia to Rhodes for 20 years, taking it back in 168 BC. In these latter stages of the Roman republic Lycia came to enjoy freedom as a Roman protectorate; the Romans validated home rule under the Lycian League in 168 BC. This native government was an early federation with republican principles. Despite home rule, Lycia had not been since its defeat by the Carians. In 43 AD the Roman emperor Claudius dissolved the league, Lycia was incorporated into the Roman Empire with provincial status, it became an eparchy of the Eastern, or Byzantine Empire, continuing to speak Greek after being joined by communities of Turkish language speakers in the early 2nd millennium. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century, Lycia was under the Ottoman Empire, was inherited by the Turkish Republic on the fall of that empire.
The Greek and Turkish population was exchanged when the border between Greece and Turkey was negotiated in 1923. The borders of Lycia varied over time, but at its centre was the Teke peninsula of southwestern Turkey, which juts southward into the Mediterranean Sea, bounded on the west by the Gulf of Fethiye, on the east by the Gulf of Antalya. Lycia comprised what is now the westernmost portion of Antalya Province, the easternmost portion of Muğla Province, the southernmost portion of Burdur Province. In ancient times the surrounding districts were, from west to east, Caria and Pamphylia, all as ancient, each speaking its own Anatolian language; the name of the Teke Peninsula comes from the former name of Antalya Province, Teke Province, named from the Turkish tribe that settled in the region. Four ridges extend from northeast to southwest forming the western extremity of the Taurus Mountains. Furthest west of the four are Boncuk Dağlari, or "the Boncuk Mountains," extending from about Altinyayla, southwest to about Oren north of Fethiye.
This is a low range peaking at about 2,340 m. To the west of it the steep gorges of Dalaman Çayi, the ancient Indus, formed the traditional border between Caria and Lycia; the stream, 229 km long, enters the Mediterranean to the west of modern-day Dalaman. Upstream it is dammed in four places, after an origin in the vicinity of Sarikavak in Denizli Province; the next ridge to the east is Akdağlari, "the White Mountains," about 150 km long, with a high point at Uyluktepe, "Uyluk Peak," of 3,024 m. This massif may have been ancient Mount Cragus. Along its western side flows Eşen Çayi, "the Esen River," anciently the Xanthus, Lycian Arñna, originating in the Boncuk Mountains, flowing south, transecting the several-mile-long beach at Patara; the Xanthus Valley was the country called Tŗmmis in dynastic Lycia, from which the people were the Termilae or Tremilae, or Kragos in the coin inscriptions of Greek Lycia: Kr or Ksan Kr. The name of western Lycia was given by points of Lycia west of it; the next ridge to the east, Beydağlari, "the Bey Mountains," peaks at Kizlarsevrisi, 3,086 m, the highest point of the Teke Peninsula.
It is most the ancient Masicytus range. Between Beydağlari and Akdağlari is an upland plateau, where ancient Milyas was located; the elevation of the town of Elmali, which means "Apple Town," from the density of fruit-bearing groves in the region, is 1,100 m, the highest part of the valley below it. Fellows considered the valley to be central Lycia; the Akçay, or "White River," the ancient Aedesa, brought water from the slopes to the plain, where it pooled in two lakes below the town, Karagöl and Avlangöl. The two lakes are dry, the waters being captured on an ongoing basis by irrigation systems for the trees; the Aedesa once drained the plain through a chasm to the east, but now flows through pipelines covering the same route, but emptying into the water supplies of Arycanda and Arif. An effort has been made to restore some of the cedar forests cleared in antiquity; the easternmost ridge extends along the east coast of the Teke Peninsula, is called Tahtali Dağlari, "The Tahtali Mo
Anatolia
Anatolia known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, the Anatolian peninsula or the Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Armenian Highlands to the east and the Aegean Sea to the west; the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. The eastern border of Anatolia is traditionally held to be a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, bounded by the Armenian Highland to the east and Mesopotamia to the southeast. Thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. Nowadays, Anatolia is often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, which comprises the entire country. By some definitions, the area called the Armenian highlands lies beyond the boundary of the Anatolian plateau.
The official name of this inland region is the Eastern Anatolia Region. The ancient inhabitants of Anatolia spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages, which were replaced by the Greek language starting from classical antiquity and during the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. Major Anatolian languages included Hittite and Lydian among other more poorly attested relatives; the Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire between the late 13th and early 20th centuries. However, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Neo-Aramaic, Arabic, Laz and Greek. Other ancient peoples in the region included Galatians, Assyrians, Cimmerians, as well as Ionian and Aeolian Greeks. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea, coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau; this traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia.
To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide, Ottoman Armenia was renamed "Eastern Anatolia" by the newly established Turkish government. Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory referred to as Armenia an "ahistorical imposition", notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". Most archeological sources consider the boundary of Anatolia to be Turkey's eastern border; the highest mountains in "Eastern Anatolia" are Mount Ararat. The Euphrates, Araxes and Murat rivers connect the Armenian plateau to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh, these rivers are the longest in "Eastern Anatolia"; the oldest known reference to Anatolia – as “Land of the Hatti” – appears on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of the Akkadian Empire. The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, Ἀσία echoed the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia.
As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to other areas east of the Mediterranean, Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Μικρὰ Ἀσία or Asia Minor, meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia. The English-language name Anatolia itself derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more “sunrise”; the precise reference of this term has varied over time originally referring to the Aeolian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region; the term "Anatolia" is Medieval Latin. The modern Turkish form of Anatolia, derives from the Greek name Aνατολή; the Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin. The term "Anatolia" referred to a northwestern Byzantine province. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia, it has also been called "Asia Minor". In earlier times, it was called" Rûm" by the Seljuqs.
During the era of the Ottoman Empire mapmakers outside the Empire referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia. Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan. Geographers have variously used the terms east Anatolian plateau and Armenian plateau to refer to the region, although the territory encompassed by each term overlaps with the other. According to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian this difference in terminology "primarily result from the shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century."Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two regions to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line named the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region, the former corresponding to the weste
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia known as Cyrus the Great, called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen. Under his successors, the empire stretched at its maximum extent from parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, his regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Four Corners of the World. The Nabonidus Chronicle notes the change in his title from "King of Anshan", a city, to "King of Persia". Assyriologist François Vallat wrote that "When Astyages marched against Cyrus, Cyrus is called ‘King of Anshan’, but when Cyrus crosses the Tigris on his way to Lydia, he is ‘King of Persia’.
The coup therefore took place between these two events."The reign of Cyrus the Great lasted c. 30 years. Cyrus built his empire by first conquering the Median Empire the Lydian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, he led an expedition into Central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought "into subjection every nation without exception". Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, was alleged to have died in battle, fighting the Massagetae along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC, he was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to conquer Egypt and Cyrenaica during his short rule. Cyrus the Great respected the religions of the lands he conquered; this became a successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage and profit of its subjects. In fact, the administration of the empire through satraps and the vital principle of forming a government at Pasargadae were the works of Cyrus. What is sometimes referred to as the Edict of Restoration described in the Bible as being made by Cyrus the Great left a lasting legacy on the Jewish religion.
According to the Jewish Bible, God anointed Cyrus for this task referring to him as messiah and he is the only non-Jewish figure in the Bible to be called so. Cyrus the Great is well recognized for his achievements in human rights and military strategy, as well as his influence on both Eastern and Western civilizations. Having originated from Persis corresponding to the modern Iranian province of Fars, Cyrus has played a crucial role in defining the national identity of modern Iran; the Achaemenid influence in the ancient world would extend as far as Athens, where upper-class Athenians adopted aspects of the culture of the ruling class of Achaemenid Persian as their own. In the 1970s, the last Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi identified his famous proclamation inscribed onto the Cyrus Cylinder as the oldest known declaration of human rights, the Cylinder has since been popularized as such; this view has been criticized by some historians as a misunderstanding of the Cylinder's generic nature as a traditional statement that new monarchs make at the beginning of their reign.
The name Cyrus is a Latinized form derived from the Greek Κῦρος, Kỹros, itself from the Old Persian Kūruš. The name and its meaning has been recorded in ancient inscriptions in different languages; the ancient Greek historians Ctesias and Plutarch noted that Cyrus was named from Kuros, the Sun, a concept, interpreted as meaning "like the Sun" by noting its relation to the Persian noun for sun, while using -vash as a suffix of likeness. This may point to a relationship to the mythological "first king" of Persia, whose name incorporates the element "sun". Karl Hoffmann has suggested a translation based on the meaning of an Indo-European-root "to humiliate" and accordingly "Cyrus" means "humiliator of the enemy in verbal contest". In the Persian language and in Iran, Cyrus's name is spelled as کوروش. In the Bible, he is known as Koresh; the Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started by an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier domination from the 9th century BC onward.
The eponymous founder of this dynasty was Achaemenes. Achaemenids are "descendants of Achaemenes" as Darius the Great, the ninth king of the dynasty, traces his genealogy to him and declares "for this reason we are called Achaemenids". Achaemenes built the state Parsumash in the southwest of Iran and was succeeded by Teispes, who took the title "King of Anshan" after seizing Anshan city and enlarging his kingdom further to include Pars proper. Ancient documents mention that Teispes had a son called Cyrus I, who succeeded his father as "king of Anshan". Cyrus I had a full brother. In 600 BC, Cyrus I was succeeded by his son, Cambyses I, who reigned until 559 BC. Cyrus II "the Great" was a son of Cambyses I, who had named his son after his father, Cyrus I. There are several inscriptions of Cyrus the Great and kings that refer to Cambyses I as the "great king" and "king of Anshan". Among these are some passages in the Cyrus cylinder where Cyrus calls himself "son of Cambyses, great king, king of Anshan".
Another inscription mentio
Themistocles
Themistocles was an Athenian politician and general. He was one of a new breed of non-aristocratic politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy; as a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower-class Athenians, being at odds with the Athenian nobility. Elected archon in 493 BC, he convinced the polis to increase the naval power of Athens, a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece he fought at the Battle of Marathon and was one of the ten Athenian strategoi in that battle. In the years after Marathon, in the run-up to the second Persian invasion of 480–479 BC, Themistocles became the most prominent politician in Athens, he continued to advocate for a strong Athenian Navy, in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes. During the second invasion, he commanded the Greek allied navy at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis in 480 BC. Due to his subterfuge, the Allies lured the Persian fleet into the Straits of Salamis, the decisive Greek victory there was the turning point of the war.
The invasion was conclusively repulsed the following year after the Persian defeat at the land Battle of Plataea. After the conflict ended, Themistocles continued his pre-eminence among Athenian politicians. However, he aroused the hostility of Sparta by ordering the re-fortification of Athens, his perceived arrogance began to alienate him from the Athenians. In 472 or 471 BC, he was ostracised, went into exile in Argos; the Spartans now saw an opportunity to destroy Themistocles, implicated him in the alleged treasonous plot of 478 BC of their own general Pausanias. Themistocles thus fled from Greece. Alexander I of Macedon temporarily gave him sanctuary at Pydna before he traveled to Asia Minor, where he entered the service of the Persian king Artaxerxes I, he was made governor of Magnesia, lived there for the rest of his life. Themistocles died in 459 BC of natural causes, his reputation was posthumously rehabilitated, he was re-established as a hero of the Athenian cause. Themistocles can still reasonably be thought of as "the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Greece" from the Persian threat, as Plutarch describes him.
His naval policies would have a lasting impact on Athens as well, since maritime power became the cornerstone of the Athenian Empire and golden age. Thucydides assessed Themistocles as "a man. Themistocles was born in the Attic deme of Phrearrhioi around 524 BC, the son of Neocles, who was, in the words of Plutarch "no conspicuous man", his mother is more obscure. Like many contemporaries, little is known of his early years; some authors report that he was unruly as a child and was disowned by his father. Plutarch considers this to be false. Plutarch indicates that, on account of his mother's background, Themistocles was considered something of an outsider. However, in an early example of his cunning, Themistocles persuaded "well-born" children to exercise with him in Cynosarges, thus breaking down the distinction between "alien and legitimate". Plutarch further reports that Themistocles was preoccupied as a child, with preparing for public life, his teacher is said to have told him: "My boy, you will be nothing insignificant, but something great, either for good or evil."
Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of Alopece: Archeptolis and Cleophantus. Plato the philosopher mentions Cleophantus as a most excellent horseman, but otherwise insignificant person, and Themistocles had two sons older than these three and Diocles. Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a horse, Diocles was adopted by his grandfather, Lysander. Themistocles had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother, became priestess of Cybele. After the death of Themistocles, his nephew, went to Magnesia, married, with her brothers' consent, another daughter and took charge of her sister Asia, the youngest of all ten children. Themistocles grew up in a period of upheaval in Athens; the tyrant Peisistratos had died in 527 BC, passing power to his sons and Hippias. Hipparchus was murdered in 514 BC, in response to this, Hippias became paranoid and started to rely on foreign mercenaries to keep a hold on power.
The head of the powerful, but exiled Alcmaeonid family, began to scheme to overthrow Hippias and return to Athens. In 510 BC, he persuaded the Spartan king Cleomenes I to launch a full-scale attack on Athens, which succeeded in overthrowing Hippias. However, in the aftermath, the other noble families of Athens rejected Cleisthenes, electing Isagoras as archon, with the support of Cleomenes. On a personal level, Cleisthenes wanted to return to Athens.
Bagadates I
Bagadates I Bagdates or Baydad, was a frataraka or "Keeper of the Fire", a governor or sub-dynast for the Seleucids during the 3rd century BCE, ruling as a priest-king at Istakhr in the former Achaemenid heartland, the territory of Persis, after Alexander the Great's conquests. He was the first indigenous Persian satrap to be appointed - or at least tolerated - by the Seleucids, who held the higher administrative posts within the Greco-Macedonian circle, headed by the "Companions" and their heirs. On the reverse of his coins, Bagadates is depicted standing in front of a Zoroastrian fire-altar, or seated in majesty holding a staff of authority and a pomegranate in his left hand. Bagadates seems to have asserted some level of independence about 280 BCE, exploiting the turmoil after the death of Seleucus I. "That the first oriental reaction to Macedonian rule should come from Persis, the homeland of the Achaemenids, is hardly surprising," Otto Mørkholm remarks. Traditionally, the Fratarakas used to be considered as independent, anti-Seleucid rulers of Persis in the 3rd century BC.
It seems however. They ruled from the end of the 3rd century BC to the beginning of the 2nd century BC, Vahbarz or Vādfradād obtained independence circa 150 BC, when Seleucid power waned in the areas of southwestern Persia and the Persian Gulf region; the position was continued by Bagadates' son, who emphasized the continuity by repeating the coinage type established by his father. However, some time during the 3rd century BCE the Seleucids terminated the pseudo-independence of Persis. Persis drifted away from Seleucid control after the battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE. In a surviving inscription at Amyzon in Caria, another Bagadates was appointed neokoros of the Temple of Artemis there in 321; the son of this Bagadates, Ariaramnēs, succeeded him as neokoros at Amyzon. In his coinage, Bagadates has his portrait on the obverse, wearing the satrapal headdress and the Hellenistic diadem. On the reverse, he is either shown enthroned, or making his devotions to a fire temple; the weight standard of the coins is the Attic standard, the tetradrachm is the usual coin size, as was the usual case in the Seleucid empire.
The coins are inscribed in Aramaic with the name of the ruler. Frataraka Kings of Persis
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Satrap". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press..
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
