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Tomyris (reigned c. 530 BC) was a queen of the Massagetae, an Iranian people of Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. Herodotus is the earliest of the classical writers to give an account of her career, though Strabo, Polyaenus, Cassiodorus, and Jordanes (in De origine actibusque Getarum, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths) also wrote of her.[citation needed]
She was famous for defeating and killing the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great during his invasion and attempted conquest of her country. According to the surviving accounts of the classical historians, Cyrus was defeated in his initial assault on the Massagetae and was forced to retreat. His counsellors advised him to lay a trap for the pursuing Scythians: the Persians left behind them an apparently abandoned camp, with a rich supply of wine. The pastoral Scythians were not used to drinking wine — "their favored intoxicants were hashish and fermented mare's milk"[1] — and drank themselves into a stupor. The Persians attacked while their opponents were incapacitated, slaughtering the Massagetae and killing Tomyris's only son Spargapises, the general of her army. [2]
Tomyris sent a message to Cyrus, denouncing his treachery and challenging him to honorable battle. In the fight that ensued, the Persians were defeated again with high casualties, Cyrus himself was killed, and Tomyris had his corpse beheaded.[3] She allegedly kept his head in a leather bag filled with the blood of her defeated troops, proclaiming, "Take your fill of the blood for which you have thirsted." [4]
The story of Tomyris has been incorporated into the tradition of Western art; Peter Paul Rubens, Francesco Allegrini, Luca Ferrari, Mattia Preti, Gustave Moreau, and the sculptor Severo Calzetta da Ravenna are among the artists who have treated the subject.[citation needed]
The name "Tomyris" has also been adopted into zoological taxonomy, for the tomyris species-group of Central Asian Lepidoptera.[citation needed] It is believed that the word Tomis present day Constanta comes from Tomyris.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Herodotus: Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai
- Cyrus Maketh war Against the Massagetæ, and Dieth from "Stories of the East From Herodotus" by Alfred J. Church
[edit] References
- ^ Mayor, Adrienne. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World. New York, Overlook Duckworth, 2003; p. 158.
- ^ Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Famous Women, pp. 98-100; Harvard University Press 2001; ISBN 0-674-01130-9
- ^ Mayor, pp. 157-9.
- ^ Brown, p. 100
