Thimbron
Encyclopedia
Thimbron or Thibron may refer to:
- a Lacedaemonian, he was sent out as harmostHarmostHarmost in ancient Greece is a Spartan term that means military governor. The Spartan general Lysander instituted several harmosts during the period of Spartan hegemony after the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC...
in 400 BC400 BCYear 400 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Esquilinus, Capitolinus, Vulso, Medullinus, Saccus and Vulscus...
, with an army of about 5000 men, to aid the IoniansIoniansThe Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...
against TissaphernesTissaphernesTissaphernes was a Persian soldier and statesman, grandson of Hydarnes.In 413 BC he was satrap of Lydia and Caria, and commander in chief of the Persian army in Asia Minor...
, who wished to bring them into subjection. Thibron raised a substantial force of Peloponnesian troops and levies from other cities around Greece, but was initially unable to face the Persian army in the field. After he was joined by elements of the Ten ThousandTen Thousand (Greek)The Ten Thousand were a group of mercenary units, mainly Greek, drawn up by Cyrus the Younger to attempt to wrest the throne of the Persian Empire from his brother, Artaxerxes II...
, he challenged and defeated the Persian army on several occasions; seizing several cities before settling in to besiege LarissaLarissa, TurkeyLarissa is an ancient city in western Anatolia, Turkey. It is in the immediate vicinity of Menemen, in the district of İzmir province. The ruins of the city are on a hill top next to today's Buruncuk village. The main road to Çanakkale from İzmir skirts the same hill, making a considerable curve to...
. That siege proved fruitless, and Thibron was ordered to abandon it, and then replaced by another general, DercylidasDercylidasDercylidas was a Spartan commander during the 4th century BC. For his cunning and inventiveness, he was nicknamed Sisyphus. In 411 he was harmost at Abydos. From 399 to 397 BC, Dercylidas superseded Thibron and led the Spartans through Thrace to the west coast of Asia, where he plundered...
, before he could launch his next campaign. Upon his return to Sparta Thibron was tried and exiled for allowing his troops to plunder Sparta's allies in the region. In 391 BC, during the Corinthian WarCorinthian WarThe Corinthian War was an ancient Greek conflict lasting from 395 BC until 387 BC, pitting Sparta against a coalition of four allied states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos; which were initially backed by Persia. The immediate cause of the war was a local conflict in northwest Greece in which...
, Thibron was again dispatched to Ionia with an army, and was ordered to take aggressive action against the Persian satrapSatrapSatrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
StruthasStruthasStruthas was a Persian satrap for a brief period during the Corinthian War. In 392 BC, he was dispatched by Artaxerxes II to take command of the satrapy of Sardis, replacing Tiribazus, and to pursue an anti-Spartan policy...
, who was pursuing a pro-AthenianAthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, anti-Spartan policy. Thibron launched a number of successful raids into Persian territory. His raids tended to be poorly organized, however, and Struthas took advantage of this to ambush one of Thibron's raiding parties. The Spartans were routed, and a large number of them, including Thibron, were killed.
- a Lacedaemonian, he was a confidential officer of HarpalusHarpalusFor other uses, see Harpalus Harpalus son of Machatas was an aristocrat of Macedon and boyhood friend of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. Being lame in a leg, and therefore exempt from military service, Harpalus did not follow Alexander in his advance within the Persian Empire but...
, the Macedonian satrap of Babylon under Alexander the Great. According to one account it was Thimbron who murdered Harpalus in Crete, in 324 BC324 BCYear 324 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Dictatorship of Cursor...
. He then possessed himself of his late master's treasures, fleet, and army, and, ostensibly espousing the cause of some Cyrenaean exiles, sailed to Cyrene with the intention of subjugating it. He defeated the Cyrenaeans in a battle, obtained possession of their harbour, Apollonia, CyrenaicaApollonia, CyrenaicaApollonia in Cyrenaica was founded by Greek colonists and became a significant commercial centre in the southern Mediterranean. It served as the harbour of Cyrene, to the southwest...
together with the treasures he found there, and compelled them to capitulate on condition of paying him 500 talentAttic talentThe Attic talent , also known as the Athenian talent or Greek talent, is an ancient unit of mass equal to 26 kg, as well as a unit of value equal to this amount of pure silver. A talent was originally intended to be the mass of water required to fill an amphora . At the 2009 price of $414/kg, a...
s, and supplying him with half of their war-chariots for his expeditions. This agreement, however, they were soon induced to repudiate by MnasiclesMnasiclesMnasicles is a genus of skippers in the family Hesperiidae.-References:*...
, one of Thimbron's officers, who had deserted his standard, and gone over to the enemy. Under the able direction of Mnasicles, the Cyrenaeans recovered Apollonia, and, though Thimbron was aided by the BarcaBarcaBarce was an ancient Greek colony and later Roman, Byzantine, city in North Africa. It occupied the coastal area of what is modern day Libya...
eans and Hesperians, and succeeded in taking the town of TaucheiraTaucheiraTaucheira, Tukrah or El Agouriya , is a town on the coast of the Marj District in the Cyrenaica region of northeastern Libya, founded by Cyrene. It lay 200 stadia west of Ptolemais. Today it is a coastal town west of Marj.-History:...
, yet, on the whole, his fortunes declined, and he met be sides with a severe disaster in the loss of a great number of his men, who were slain or captured by the enemy, and in the almost total destruction of his fleet by a storm. Not discouraged, however, he collected reinforcements from the Peloponnesus, defeated the Cyrenaeans (who were now aided by the Libyans and Carthaginians), and closely besieged Cyrene. Pressed by scarcity, the citizens quarrelled among themselves, and the chiefs of the oligarchical party, being driven out, betook themselves partly to Ptolemy I SoterPtolemy I SoterPtolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
, king of Egypt, and partly to Thimbron. Ptolemy thereupon sent a large force against Cyrene under OphellasOphellasOphellas or Ophelas of Pella in Macedonia was later a king of Cyrene ; his father's name was Silenus. He was considered as one of the closest friends of Alexander the Great. He appears to have accompanied his expedition in Asia, but his name is first mentioned as a trierarch of the fleet on the...
, to whom the exiles, who had taken refuge with Thimbron, endeavoured to escape, but were detected, and put to death. The Cyrenaean people then made common cause with Thimbron against the new invader; but Ophelias defeated him, and he was obliged to seek safety in flight. He fell, however, into the hands of some Libyans, and was by them delivered up to EpicydesEpicydesEpicydes or Epikudês was a Carthaginian general in the Second Punic War.A Syracusan by origin, he was born and educated at Carthage as the son of a Carthaginian mother...
, an Olynthian, whom Ophelias, having taken Teucheira, had made governor of the town. The citizens of Teucheira, with the sanction of Ophelias, sent Thimbron to Apollonia, the scene of much of his violence and extortion, to be crucified in 322 BC322 BCYear 322 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rullianus and Curvus...
.