Spitamenes

Spitamenes ( altpers.: Spitameneh; † December 328 BC) was an adversary of Alexander the Great in his conquest of Bactria and Sogdiana.

The Persian Empire of the Achaemenids had ceased to exist de facto, after the Persian Great King Darius III. had been trounced by Alexander at the Battle of Gaugamela and later murdered by his rival Bessus on the run from Alexander. While Alexander was able to continue in the years after 330 BC, his march to the east to the Hindu Kush almost unhindered, to Bessus, who took the name Artaxerxes had to withdraw up to Bactria. When Alexander BC crossed the Hindu Kush in the year 329 and Bessus had to continue to sell to the north, decided two of Bessus ' followers, Spitamenes and Datames arrest Bessus and Ptolemy to deliver one of the generals of Alexander, so a deduction to reach. However, this was not about to stop his advance, and moved up to the Jaxartes, where he Eschate let create (today's Khujand ) the city of Alexandria.

In this situation, he received the news that in his back the Sogdians had risen under the leadership of Spitamenes against him and the city Marakanda (now Samarkand ) besieged. It is possible that the conquerors had allowed abuses against the Zoroastrian religion; Spitamenes looked at any rate as a defender of that faith; His name is a reference to Spitama, an epithet of Zarathustra. Spitamenes could quickly gather a troop of archers around. Alexander could not immediately approach hasten to the relief of Marakanda because at the same time attacked the Sakas, a nomadic people from the north, the Macedonians. He sent instead a department of Greek mercenaries after Marakanda that could be beaten by Spitamenes however devastating. Alexander, meanwhile, scored a victory over the Sakas, and he led his army by forced marches through the desert against Spitamenes. When he reached Marakanda, Spitamenes was already deducted, the one with the Dahern, a beheimatetem on the southeast coast of the Caspian Sea nation, allies and together with these raids took no action against Balkh, where the satrap Artabazus had to drive him. Alexander sent his generals westward Craterus, the (now Merv ) Margiane founded the city of Alexandria, which covered the province of Aria against incursions of Spitamenes. In December, the troops of Alexander achieved the decisive victory over Spitamenes in the Battle of Gabai, who was killed after this defeat of his own soldiers; his head Alexander was passed.

Spitamenes left a daughter, Apame, who married in 324 BC Seleucus. She was named after a series of Hellenistic cities founded in Asia ( see Apamea ).