Pisindelis

Coinage ofKaunos,Cariaat the time of Pisindelis. Circa 470-450 BC.

Pisindelis(Ancient Greek:Πισίνδηλις), ruled c.460–450 BCE, was a tyrant ofCaria,from its capitalHalicarnassus,under theAchaemenid Empire.He was the son ofArtemisia I of Caria,and part of theLygdamid dynasty.

He was said to be a young man already at the time his motherArtemisiafought at the head of the Carian fleet at theBattle of Salamis(479 BCE) under KingXerxes I.He is mentioned by Herodotus as he described the involvement of his mother at Salamis:

Artemisia, who moves me to marvel greatly that a woman should have gone with the armament against Hellas; for her husband being dead, she herself had his sovereignty and a young son withal, and followed the host under no stress of necessity, but of mere high-hearted valour. Artemisia was her name; she was daughter to Lygdamis, on her father's side of Halicarnassian lineage, and a Cretan on her mother's. She was the leader of the men of Halicarnassus and Cos and Nisyrus and Calydnos, furnishing five ships. Her ships were reputed the best in the whole fleet after the ships of Sidon; and of all his allies she p403 gave the king the best counsels. The cities, whereof I said she was the leader, are all of Dorian stock, as I can show, the Halicarnassians being of Troezen, and the rest of Epidaurus.

— Herodotus VII.99.

He probably had to abandon his throne around 452-449 BCE.His son wasLygdamis II,last tyrant of theLygdamid dynasty,before Caria joined the Athenian alliance of theDelian Leaguefor about 50 years.