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Tiridates (eunuch)

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Tiridates (Parthian: 𐭕𐭉𐭓𐭉𐭃𐭕, Tīridāt; Ancient Greek: Τιριδάτης, Tiridátes) was a eunuch in the court of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, described as "the most handsome and attractive man in Asia", and the king's lover.[1][2][3] He features in Claudius Aelianus's account of Artaxerxes, in his Varia Historia, but is absent in the accounts of a similar time frame of Xenophon and Plutarch.[4][5] Scholars generally believe some of the later writers were referencing different, earlier accounts of events that are now lost.[6]

The historian Claudius Aelianus wrote in his Varia Historia that Tiridates died young, "barely more than a child", and Artaxerxes was inconsolable at the loss.[7][8] A favored concubine, Aspasia of Phocaea, soothed the king by consoling him while cross-dressing in Tiridates's clothing.[9] Artaxerxes asked her to visit him in Tiridates's clothing until his grief had been healed.[10][1][11][4][6]

There was a different, unrelated Tiridates, also a eunuch, who was a royal treasurer at Perseopolis, who was asked to betray that city to Alexander the Great, but refused.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b Briant, Pierre (2002). From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns. p. 269. ISBN 9781575061207.
  2. ^ Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd; Robson, James (2009). Ctesias' 'History of Persia': Tales of the Orient. Taylor & Francis. p. 164. ISBN 9781134220465.
  3. ^ Romm, James (2022). The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers and the Last Days of Greek Freedom. Scribner. pp. 164–167. ISBN 9781501198021.
  4. ^ a b Facella, Margherita (2017). "Beyond ritual: Cross-dressing between Greece and the Orient". In Campanile, Domitilla; Carlà-Uhink, Filippo; Facella, Margherita (eds.). TransAntiquity: Cross-Dressing and Transgender Dynamics in the Ancient World. Taylor & Francis. pp. 114–115. ISBN 9781317377375.
  5. ^ Almagor, Eran (2018). Plutarch and the Persica. Edinburgh University Press. p. 213. ISBN 9780748645565.
  6. ^ a b Pervo, Richard I. (2005). "Die Entfuhrung in das Serail: Aspasia: A Female Aesop?". In Hedrick, Charles W.; Shea, Chris; Brant, Jo-Ann A. (eds.). Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 76. ISBN 9781589831667.
  7. ^ Claudius Aelianus, Varia Historia ii.l.
  8. ^ Briant, Pierre (2015). Darius in the Shadow of Alexander. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674745209.
  9. ^ Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd (2002). "Eunuchs and the royal harem in Achaemenid Persia (559-331 BC)". In Tougher, Shaun (ed.). Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond. Classical Press of Wales. p. 35. ISBN 9781914535062.
  10. ^ Stoneman, Richard (2015). Xerxes: A Persian Life. Yale University Press. p. 183. ISBN 9780300216042.
  11. ^ Smith, Steven D. (2014). Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus. Cambridge University Press. p. 258. ISBN 9781139992466.
  12. ^ Heckel, Waldemar (2021). "Tiridates". Who's Who in the Age of Alexander and His Successors: From Chaironeia to Ipsos (338–301 BC). Greenhill Books. ISBN 9781784386498.


 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William (1870). "Tiridates (1)". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 3. p. 1152.

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