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Ariabignes

Persian prince and admiral of Xerxes' fleet, killed at Salamis in 480 BCE

Ariabignes was a son of Darius the Great by the daughter of Gobryas, which made him an elder half-brother of Xerxes. In 480 he commanded the Ionian and Carian squadrons of the King's fleet, and he died in the sea battle at Salamis, a royal prince and one of the highest-ranking men to fall there. Almost everything known of him comes from a few lines in Herodotus.

In the game: The game's chronicle describes him as Xerxes' half-brother who led the Ionian and Carian ships and died at Salamis, which agrees with Herodotus. Salamis itself is not one of the game's levels.

A son born before the throne

Ancient account

Herodotus says that Darius, before he became king in 522, married a daughter of his fellow noble Gobryas and had three sons by her, the eldest being Artobazanes. Herodotus names Ariabignes as a son of Darius and Gobryas's daughter, so he was older than Xerxes, whose mother was Atossa, daughter of Cyrus. Because they were born before the accession, these sons were passed over when Xerxes was chosen as heir.

Herodotus 7.2; Herodotus 7.97

Admiral of the Ionian and Carian ships

Ancient account

In his survey of Xerxes' forces Herodotus lists four admirals: Ariabignes, Prexaspes son of Aspathines, Megabazus son of Megabates, and Achaemenes, another son of Darius, who led the Egyptian ships. Ariabignes had charge of the Ionian and Carian contingents, subjects of the King from the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Herodotus counts 1,207 triremes in the whole fleet, a figure most historians think too high.

Herodotus 7.89; Herodotus 7.97

Death at Salamis

Ancient account

Herodotus reports that Ariabignes, son of Darius and brother of Xerxes, was killed in the fighting at Salamis in 480, together with many other well-known Persians, Medes and allies. He adds that few Greeks died because most could swim, while many on the King's side drowned when their ships were lost. He gives no detail of how Ariabignes himself fell.

Herodotus 8.89

Ariabignes or Ariamenes

Disputed

Plutarch, writing about six centuries later, names the Persian admiral killed at Salamis as Ariamenes, a brother of Xerxes. Most scholars take him to be the same man as Herodotus's Ariabignes, but the name differs and the identification cannot be proved. No Persian document yet published has been securely matched with him, and the fallen commanders named in Aeschylus's Persians cannot be firmly linked to him either.

Plutarch, Themistocles 14; P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

The admiral on the great ship

Later legend

Plutarch tells that Ariamenes fought from a great ship, shooting arrows and javelins as if from a city wall. When his ship met that of two Athenians, Ameinias of Decelea and Socles of Pallene, he tried to board them, and they struck him with their spears and threw him into the sea. Plutarch says Artemisia of Halicarnassus recognised his body among the wreckage and had it carried to Xerxes. The scene is not in Herodotus.

Plutarch, Themistocles 14