Tiribazus
or TERIBAZUS (
Τιρίβαχος,
Τηρίβαχος), a Persian, high i the favour of Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon), and when he was present, so Xenophon tells us, no one else had the honour of helping the sovereign to mount his horse.
At the time of the retreat of the 10,000, in B. C. 401, Tiribazus was satrap of Western Armenia, and, when the Greeks had reached the river Teleboas on the frontier of his territory, he himself rode up to their camp and proposed a truce, on condition that both parties should abstain from molesting each other, the Greeks taking only what they needed while in his country.
The terms were accepted, but Tiribazus kept watching the 10,000 at the distance of several stadia with the intent of assailing them in a mountain pass, through which their march necessarily lay. On hearing this, the main body of the Greeks hastened to secure the pass, and, having moreover attacked the camp of Tiribazus, put the barbarians to flight, and captured the tent of the satrap himself (
Xen. Anab. 4.4. §§ 4-7, 16-21, 5.1, 7.8.25;
Diod. 14.27.) Tiribazus succeeded Tithraustes as satrap of Western Asia, and in this office we find him in B. C. 393, when Antalcidas was sent to negotiate, through him, a peace for Sparta with the Persian king.
The satrap was convinced by Antalcidas that it was expedient for Artaxerxes to support the Lacedaeonians, and he according gave them all the help which he could venture to furnish without express authority from his master. We do not know the cause which led to Tiribazus being superseded by Struthas, in B. C. 392; but by B. C. 388 he had returned to his satrapy.
He co-operated cordially, as before, with Antalcidas, perhaps accompanied him to the Persian court to support his cause there, and, having summoned, on his return, a congress of deputies from Greek states, he promulgated in the king's name the famous decree which laid down the terms of the peace of Antalcidas (
Xen. Hell. 4.8. §§ 12, &c., v. 50. §§ 6, 25-31;
Diod. 14.85). [ANTALCIDAS ; CONON; STRUTHAS.] In B. C. 386 he was appointed to command the Persian fleet against Evagoras, the land forces being entrusted to Orontes. They defeated Evagoras, and formed the siege of Salamis; but Tiribazus was impeached by Orontes, and was recalled to court to answer for his conduct, B. C. 385.
The accounts of what followed, as given by Diodorus and Plutarch, it is not very easy to reconcile.
The former seems to intimate that Tiribazus was detained in prison until the return of Artaxerxes from his expedition against the Cadusii; while Plutarch tells us that he accompanied the king in his campaign, and did good service by exciting mutual suspicion against one another in the two Cadusian kings, and so inducing them separately to sue for peace.
The language of Plutarch, however, implies that during the expedition in question Tiribazus was in disgrace, and it appears therefore that his trial did not take place until the king's return.
It came on before three judges of the highest reputation, whose sense of impartiality would be also quickened by the recollection that some of their pre-decessors had been recently flayed alive for an unjust sentence, and that the judgment-seat was now covered with their skins. Tiribazus triumphantly disposed of the charges against him, and was honorably acquitted with the full approbation of Artaxerxes, in consideration not only of his innocence in regard to the special charges, but also of the great services he had rendered to his master. (Diod.15.8-11; Wess.
ad loc. ; Plut.
Artax. 24.) [EVAGORAS; ORONTES.] He now stood higher than ever in the royal favour, and received a promise of the hand of Amestris, the king's daughter. Artaxerxes, however, broke faith with him, and married the lady himself; and, the royal word having been again pledged to hin, and again broken in the same way, with respect to Atossa, the youngest of the princesses, Tiribazus was beyond measure exasperated, and incited Dareius, the son of Artaxerxes and his heir-elect, to join him in a plot against the king's life.
The design was betrayed to Artaxerxes by an eunuch, and the conspirators, when they came to execute their purpose, found themselves foiled. Tiribazus offered a desperate resistance to the guards who endeavoured to arrest him, and was slain at length by a javelin hurled at him from a distance. (Plut.
Artax. 27-29.) [ASPASIA, No. 2 ; DAREIUS.]
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