page_title: Tissaphernes
section_title: Later life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Tissaphernes / Later life and death
caption_attribution_description: English: IONIA, Phokaia. Circa 478-387 BC
context_page_description: Tissaphernes was a Persian soldier and statesman, Satrap of Lydia. His life is mostly known from the magistral works of Thucydides and Xenophon. According to Ctesias, he was the son of Hidarnes III and therefore the great grandson of Hydarnes, one of the six conspirators who had supported the rise of Darius the Great.
context_section_description: After returning to Asia Minor, Tissaphernes attacked the Greek cities to punish them for their allegiance to Cyrus. This led to a war with Sparta beginning in 399 BC. In 396 BC, the Spartan king and commander Agesilaus II led a campaign to free the Greek cities of Asia Minor.  Tissaphernes at this point proposed an armistice and solemnly ratified a truce, which he instantly broke when Persian reinforcements arrived.  Agesilaus thanked Tissaphernes for having put the gods on the side of the Greeks by committing perjury, and let it be known that he now planned to lead his troops against Caria. When Tissaphernes gathered his troops to meet this supposed Carian invasion, Agesilaus instead successfully attacked the Persian province of Hellespontine Phrygia. In 395 BC, Agesilaus let it be known that his next target would be the rich land around the Lydian city of Sardis. Tissaphernes, believing that if Agesilaus really intended to attack Sardis he would not have said so, assumed that this time Agesilaus would finally attack Caria, so Tissaphernes concentrated his troops in that area, but Agesilaus successfully attacked Sardis just as he said he would.
  At last the fall of Tissaphernes came about when the Persian king yielded to the representations of Pharnabazus II, strongly supported by the chiliarch (vizier) Tithraustes and by the queen-mother Parysatis, who hated Tissaphernes as the principal cause of the death of her favourite son Cyrus. Tithraustes was sent to assassinate Tissaphernes, who was lured to Ariaeus' residence in Colossae and slain in 395 BC.
caption: Coinage of Phokaia, Ionia, circa 478-387 BC. Possible portrait of Satrap Tissaphernes, with satrapal headress, but since these coins have no markings, attribution remains uncertain.
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