Mitrobates

Location of Hellespontine Phrygia, and the provincial capital of Dascylium, in theAchaemenid Empire,c. 500 BCE

Coinage of Hellespontine Phrygia at the time of Mitrobates,Kyzikos,Mysia.Circa 550-500 BC

Coinage of Hellespontine Phrygia at the time of Mitrobates,Kyzikos,Mysia.Circa 550-500 BCE

Mitrobates(Old Persian:*Miθrapātaʰ,Ancient Greek:ΜιτροβάτηςMitrobátēs); (fl.c. 525 - 520 BC) was anAchaemenidsatrap ofDaskyleion(Hellespontine Phrygia) under the reigns ofCyrus the Great,who nominated him for the role, andCambyses.After Cambyses died, and during the struggles for succession that followed, he is said to have been assassinated, together with his son Cranaspes, by the neighbouring satrap ofLydia,Oroetes,who wanted to expand his Anatolian territories.After the assassination, Oroetes added the territory of Hellespontine Phrygia to his own.

AfterCambyseshad died and the Magians won the kingship,Oroetesstayed in Sardis, where he in no way helped the Persians to regain the power taken from them by the Medes, but contrariwise; for in this confusion he slew two notable Persians, Mitrobates, the governor fromDascyleium,who had taunted him concerningPolycrates,and Mitrobates' son Cranaspes; and besides many other violent deeds, when a messenger fromDariuscame with a message which displeased him, he set an ambush by the way and killed that messenger on his journey homewards, and made away with the man's body and horse. So when Darius became king he was minded to punish Oroetes for all his wrongdoing, and chiefly for the killing of Mitrobates and his son.

— Herodotus III, 126-127.

These events took place in the troubled times of the interregnum between Cambyses andDarius I,with the usurpation ofGaumata,who Herodotus refers to as "the Magians".The story of early satraps ofAsia Minor,including Mitrobates, was related byHerodotus.

Mitrobates is the first known Persian satrap of Daskyleion (c. 525–520BCE). Following the reorganisation of satraps byDarius I,he was succeeded byMegabazus(circa 500 BCE) and then his sonOebares II(c. 493BCE) andArtabazus(479 BCE), who established the PersianPharnacid dynasty,which would ruleHellespontine Phrygiauntil the conquests ofAlexander the Great(338 BCE).