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Amyntas I.

*)Amu/ntas) , king of Macedonia, son of Alcetas, and fifth in descent from Perdiccas, the founder of the dynasty. (Hdt. 8.139 ; comp. Thuc. 2.100; Just. 7.1, 33.2 ; Paus. 9.40.)

It was under him that Macedonia became tributary to the Persians. Megabazus, whom Darius on his return from his Scythian expedition had left at the head of 80,000 men in Europe (Hdt. 4.143), sent after the conquest of Paeonia to require earth and water of Amyntas, who immediately complied with his demand. The Persian envoys on this occasion behaved with much insolence at the banquet to which Amyntas invited them, and were murdered by his son Alexander. (See p. 118b.) After this we find nothing recorded of Amyntas, except his offer to the Pcisistratidae of Anthemus in Chalcidice, when Hippias had just been disappointed in his hope of a restoration to Athens by the power of the Spartan confederacy. (Hdt. 5.94; Müll. Dor. App. 1.16; Wasse, ad Thuc. 2.99.) Amyntas died about 498 B. C. leaving the kingdom to Alexander. Herodotus (8.136) speaks of a soil of Bubares and Gygaea, called Amyntas after his grandfather.

hide References (6 total)
  • Cross-references from this page (6):
    • Herodotus, Histories, 4.143
    • Herodotus, Histories, 5.94
    • Herodotus, Histories, 8.136
    • Herodotus, Histories, 8.139
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.40
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.100
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