Bagoas (or Βαγώας, Greek transcription of
Old PersianThe Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era...
Bagoi; died 336 BC) was a
eunuchA eunuch is a political rank often found in ancient courts. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures such as: courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and...
who became the confidential minister of Artaxerxes III. He threw in his lot with the
RhodianRhodes is a Greek island approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea...
condottiere
MentorMentor of Rhodes was a Greek mercenary who fought both for and against Artaxerxes III of Persia. He is also known as the first husband of Barsine, who later became mistress to Alexander the Great....
, and with his help succeeded in subjecting Egypt again to the Persian empire (probably 342 BC). Mentor became general of the maritime provinces, suppressed the rebels, and sent Greek mercenaries to the king, while Bagoas administered the upper
satrapSatrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of ancient Median and Persian empires, including the Achaemenid Empire and in several of their heirs, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
ies and gained such power that he was the real master of the kingdom (Diod.
Bagoas (or Βαγώας, Greek transcription of
Old PersianThe Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era...
Bagoi; died 336 BC) was a
eunuchA eunuch is a political rank often found in ancient courts. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures such as: courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, government officials, military commanders, and...
who became the confidential minister of Artaxerxes III. He threw in his lot with the
RhodianRhodes is a Greek island approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea...
condottiere
MentorMentor of Rhodes was a Greek mercenary who fought both for and against Artaxerxes III of Persia. He is also known as the first husband of Barsine, who later became mistress to Alexander the Great....
, and with his help succeeded in subjecting Egypt again to the Persian empire (probably 342 BC). Mentor became general of the maritime provinces, suppressed the rebels, and sent Greek mercenaries to the king, while Bagoas administered the upper
satrapSatrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of ancient Median and Persian empires, including the Achaemenid Empire and in several of their heirs, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
ies and gained such power that he was the real master of the kingdom (Diod. xvi. 50; cf. Didymus,
Comm. in Demosth. Phil. vi. 5).
He became very wealthy by confiscating the sacred writings of the Egyptian temples and giving them back to the priests for large bribes (Diod. XVI. 51). When the high priest of Jerusalem murdered his brother Johannes in the temple, Bagoas (who had supported Johannes) put a new tax on the Jews and entered the temple, saying that he was purer than the murderer who performed the priestly office (Joseph.
Ant. xi. 7.1).
In 338 BC Bagoas killed the king and all his sons but the youngest,
ArsesArtaxerxes IV Arses, King of Persia between 338 BC and 336 BC. He was the youngest son of King Artaxerxes III and Atossa and was not expected to succeed to the throne of Persia...
, whom he raised to the throne; two years later he murdered Arses and made
Darius IIIDarius III was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC...
king. When Darius attempted to become independent of the powerful vizier, Bagoas tried to poison him too; but Darius was warned and forced him to drink the poison himself (Diod. xvii. 5; Johann. Antioch, p. 38, 39 ed. Müller; Arrian ii. 14. 5; Curt. vi. 4. 10).
A later story, that Bagoas was an Egyptian and killed Artaxerxes III because he had killed the sacred
ApisIn Egyptian mythology, Apis or Hapis , was a bull-deity worshipped in the Memphis region.According to Manetho, his worship was instituted by Kaiechos of the Second Dynasty. Hape is named on very early monuments, but little is known of the divine animal before the New Kingdom...
(Aelian,
Var. Hist. vi. 8), is without historical basis.
Bagoas' house in
SusaSusa ; Syriac: ; was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km east of the Tigris River....
, with rich treasures, was presented by
AlexanderAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
to
ParmenionParmenion was a Macedonian general in the service of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great.Parmenion was the father of a Macedonian nobleman Philotas...
(Plut.
Alex. 39); his gardens in
BabylonBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, with the best species of palms, are mentioned by
TheophrastusTheophrastus , a Greek native of Eressos in Lesbos, was the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. His interests were wide-ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an...
(
Hist. Plant, ii. 6; Plin.
Nat. Hist. xiii. 41).
PlutarchPlutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 – 120, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
reports an angry letter from
AlexanderAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
to Darius, naming Bagoas as one of the persons that organized the murder of his father,
Philip IIPhilip II of Macedon, Philip II of Macedon, Philip II of Macedon, ( — φίλος = friend + ίππος = horse — transliterated 382 – 336 BC, was an ancient Greek king (basileus) of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip...
.
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