Idanthyrsus

Idanthyrsus is the name of a Scythian king who lived in the 6th century BCE, when he faced an invasion of his country by the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

Name and etymology

The name is the Hellenized form of a Scythian name whose original form is not attested. The Scythian name has been tentatively suggested by Ferdinand Justi and Josef Markwart to have been composed of the Iranian term "finding, attaining" or. However, the Iranic sound /d/ had evolved into /δ/ in Proto-Scythian, and later evolved into /l/ in Scythian.
The linguist Martin Schwartz has instead reconstructed the original Scythian form of as, meaning "prospering the ally", with the final part modified into -θυρσος, referring to the composite vegetal wand of Bacchus, in Greek because the ancient Greeks associated Scythian peoples with Bacchic rites.

Life

Background

Idanthyrsus was the son of his predecessor, the Scythian king Saulius, who was himself the brother and slayer of Anacharsis.

Persian invasion

In his Histories, Herodotus records an exchange between Idanthyrsus and the Persian king Darius I of Persia, upon the latter's invasion of Scythia. The Scythians having repeatedly retreated before him, Darius sends a message to the Scythian king, calling upon him either to fight or submit; Herodotus recounts the dialogue thus, starting with the message of Darius to Idanthyrsus:
To which the Scythian king replied:

Legacy

authors confused several early Scythian kings such as Išpakaia, Protothyes, and Madyes, into a single figure, also named Madyes, who led Scythians into defeating the Medes and the legendary Egyptian king Sesōstris, before imposing their rule over Asia for many years before returning to Scythia. Later Graeco-Roman authors named this Scythian king as Idanthyrsos or Tanausis, although this Idanthyrsos is a legendary figure separate from the later historical Scythian king Idanthyrsos, from whom the Graeco-Romans derived merely his name.