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Pharnabazus II (Old Iranian: Farnabāzu, ; ruled 413–374 BC) was a Persian soldier and statesman, and Satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. He was the son of Pharnaces II of Phrygia and grandson of Pharnabazus I, and great-grandson of Artabazus I. He and his male ancestors, forming the Pharnacid dynasty, had governed the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia from its headquarters at Dascylium since 478 BC. He married Apama, daughter of Artaxerxes II of Persia, and their son Artabazus also became a satrap of Phrygia. According to some accounts, his granddaughter Barsine may have become Alexander the Great's concubine.
According to research by Theodor Nöldeke, he was descended from Otanes, one of the associates of Darius in the murder of Smerdis.
Pharnabazus II was first recorded as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia in 413 BC, when he received orders from Darius II of Persia to send in the outstanding tribute of the Greek cities on the coast, tribute he had a hard time to obtain due to Athenian interference. Thucydides described this situation, faced by both satraps Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes:
He, like Tissaphernes of Caria, entered into negotiations with Sparta and began a war with Classical Athens. The conduct of the war was much hindered by the rivalry between the two satraps, of whom Pharnabazus was by far the more energetic and upright. Pharnabazus initially fought with the Spartans against the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), even, in one instance, coming to the rescue of the retreating Spartan forces, and riding his horse into the sea to fend off the Athenians while encouraging his regiment.Xenophon Hellenica, 1.1.6
In 404 BC, Pharnabazus may also have been responsible for the assassination of the Athenian general Alcibiades, who had taken refuge in the Achaemenid Empire. The assassination was probably at the instigation of the Spartans, and specifically Lysander.Isocrates, Concerning the Team of Horses, 16.40 Though many of his details cannot be independently corroborated, Plutarch's version is this: Lysander sent an envoy to Pharnabazus who then dispatched his brother to Phrygia where Alcibiades was living with his mistress, Timandra.H.T. Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities and W. Smith, New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, 39. As Alcibiades was about to set out for the Persian court, his residence was surrounded and set on fire. Seeing no chance of escape he rushed out on his assassins, dagger in hand, and was killed by a shower of arrows.Plutarch, Alcibiades, 39.
Pharnabazus was involved in helping the against the plundering raids of the Greek Ten Thousand who were returning from their failed campaign in the centre of the Achaemenid Empire. He was also trying to stop them from entering Hellespontine Phrygia. His cavalry is said to have killed about 500 Greek mercenaries on that occasion, and mounted several raids on the Greek mercenaries. Pharnabazus then arranged with the Spartan admiral Anaxibius for the rest of the Greek mercenaries to be shipped out of the Asian continent to Byzantium.
In 394, while encamped on the plain of Thebe, Agesilaus was still planning a campaign in the interior of Asia Minor, or even an attack on Artaxerxes II himself, when he was recalled to Greece to fight in the Corinthian War between Sparta and the combined forces of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Ancient Argos and several minor states.
The outbreak of the conflict in Greece had been encouraged by Persian payments to Sparta's Greek rivals, and had for effect to remove the Spartan threat in Asia Minor. Pharnabazus sent Timocrates of Rhodes as an envoy to Greece, and tens of thousands of Darics, the main currency in Achaemenid coinage, were used to bribe the Greek states to start a war against Sparta. According to Plutarch, Agesilaus said upon leaving Asia Minor "I have been driven out by 10,000 Persian archers", a reference to "Archers" ( Toxotai) the Greek nickname for the from their obverse design, because that much money had been paid to politicians in Athens and Thebes in order to start a war against Sparta."Persian coins were stamped with the figure of an archer, and Agesilaus said, as he was breaking camp, that the King was driving him out of Asia with ten thousand "archers"; for so much money had been sent to Athens and Thebes and distributed among the popular leaders there, and as a consequence those people made war upon the Spartans" Plutarch 15-1-6 in
The fleet proceeded further west to take revenge on the Spartans by invading Lacedaemonian territory, where the Achaemenids laid waste to Pherae and raided along the coast. Their aim was probably to instigate a revolt of the Messanian against Sparta. Eventually they left due to scarce resources and few harbors for the Achaemenid fleet in the area, as well as the looming possibility of Lacedaemonian relief forces being dispatched.
They then raided the coast of Laconia and seized the island of Cythera, where they left a garrison and an Athenian governor to cripple Sparta's offensive military capabilities. Cythera in effect became Achaemenid territory. Seizing Cythera also had the effect of cutting the strategic route between Peloponnesia and Egypt and thus avoiding Spartan-Egyptian collusion, and directly threatening Taenarum, the harbour of Sparta. This strategy to threaten Sparta had already been recommended, in vain, by the exiled Spartan Demaratus to Xerxes I in 480 BC.
Pharnabazus II, leaving part of his fleet in Cythera, then went to Corinth, where he gave Sparta's rivals funds to further threaten the Lacedaemonians. He also funded the rebuilding of a Corinthian fleet to resist the Spartans.
Xenophon gave a detailed contemporary account of the naval campaign of Pharnabazus in his Hellenica:
According to Xenophon in Hellenica:
With the assistance of the rowers of the fleet, and the workers paid for by the Persian money, the construction was soon completed.Xenophon, Hellenica Athens quickly took advantage of its possession of walls and a fleet to seize the islands of Scyros, Imbros, and Lemnos, on which it established cleruchy (citizen colonies).Fine, The Ancient Greeks, 551
As a reward for his success, Pharnabazus was allowed to marry the king's daughter, Apame.Xenophon Hellenica, 4.8 He was recalled to the Achaemenid Empire in 393 BC, and replaced by satrap Tiribazus.
After 4 years of preparations in the Levant, Pharnabazes gathered an expeditionary force had 200,000 Persian troops, 300 triremes, 200 galleys, and 12,000 Greeks under Iphicrates. The Achaemenid Empire had also been applying pressure on Athens to recall the Greek general Chabrias, who was in the service of the Egyptians, but in vain. The Egyptian ruler Nectanebo I was thus supported by Athenian General Chabrias and his mercenaries.
After several weeks the Persians, and their Greek mercenaries under Iphicrates, had to re-embark. The expedition against Egypt had failed. It was the end of the career of Pharnabazus, who was now over 70 years old. Pharnabazus was replaced by Datames to lead a second expedition to Egypt, but he failed and then started the "Satraps' Revolt" against the Great King.
From 368 BC many western satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire started to rebel against Artaxerxes II, in the Great Satraps' Revolt, so Nectanebo provided financial support to the rebelling satraps and re-established ties with both Sparta and Athens.
The family of Pharnabazus was closely related to the Greek world. His son Artabazos II married a Greek noblewoman from Rhodes, and lived in exile with his family at the Macedonian court of Philip II for more than ten years. His granddaughter Barsine may have been Alexander the Great's concubine and may have had a child by him.
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