Orontes II.

Orontes II (Armenian: Երուանդ, Greek: Ὀρόντης; † after 317 BC) was a Persian provincial governor ( satrap ) of Armenia. He belonged to the dynasty of the Orontids and was probably a grandson of the deposed governor Orontes I.

After the Achaemenid Darius Codomannus as Darius III. was raised in the year 336 BC to the Great King of the Persian empire, he appointed Orontes II to succeed him as satrap of Armenia. At the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC led Orontes II the Armenian contingent on the side of the Great King in the fight against Alexander the Great. His fate after the battle remains uncertain. The victorious Alexander initially appointed the Persian Mithrenes his viceroy in Armenia, it is unclear to what extent this there could actually build a rule. It is the same to that in the imperial order of Babylon in 323 BC satrap appointed Neoptolemus.

Only in the year 317 BC a Orontes is mentioned as satrap of Armenia again. It is likely that this was identical with that which had fought at Gaugamela, as he is referred to as a "friend of the Peucestas ". It is possible that Orontes II after Gaugamela joined the entourage of Alexander and so was able to make friends in the further course of the campaign with Peucestas, who had risen to the satrap of Persis. He could after Alexander's death in 323 BC, the weak, if not non-existent Macedonian rule have used in Armenia to return to the possession of this land. It is also possible that he was then BC confirmed at the conference of Triparadeisos 320 in his reign.

To what extent he with Orontes III. could have been is not identical festzustellten. Perhaps this was his son or grandson.

Swell

• Arrian, Anabasis 3, 8, 5
• OGIS 393