Encyclopedia › People

Vahyazdata

Persian pretender who claimed to be Bardiya, son of Cyrus, Persis, 522-521 BCE

In the game: Level 4: The Terrace

Vahyazdata was a Persian who claimed to be Bardiya, the son of Cyrus, soon after Darius seized the throne. He was the second man to make that claim, and he won over troops in Persis, the Persians' own homeland. Darius's generals crushed him, and his rising shows that Darius faced resistance even among his own people.

In the game: The game's chronicle note matches the Behistun inscription: second false Bardiya, a rising in Persis, defeats at Rakha and Mount Parga, and impalement. His followers appear in the game as the rebels of Vahyazdata.

A second Bardiya in Persia

In the record

Darius's inscription at Behistun says Vahyazdata lived in a town called Tarava, in the district of Yautiya in Persia. He told the people that he was Bardiya, son of Cyrus. Persian troops of the palace went over to him, and he became king in Persia. Darius counted this as the second rebellion in Persia, after that of the magus Gaumata.

DB §40

Defeat at Rakha and Mount Parga

In the record

Darius sent Persian and Median troops under the Persian Artavardiya, while he went on to Media himself. Artavardiya beat Vahyazdata at Rakha in Persia. Vahyazdata fled to Paishiyauvada, raised a new army and was beaten again at Mount Parga in the summer of 521. He was captured with his chief followers, and Darius says he impaled them at Uvadaicaya in Persia.

DB §41-43

The war in Arachosia

In the record

Vahyazdata also sent an army east against Vivana, Darius's satrap in Arachosia. Vivana defeated it at the fortress of Kapishakanish and again in the district of Gandutava. The rebel commander fled to the fortress of Arshada, where he and his leading men were taken and killed. On the Behistun relief Vahyazdata stands among the bound rebels, labelled as the liar who claimed to be Bardiya.

DB §45-48; DBh

Missing from the Greek story

Ancient account

Herodotus tells at length how a magus impersonated Smerdis, his name for Bardiya, and was killed by seven Persian nobles. He knows only that one pretender and says nothing of Vahyazdata or the fighting in Persis. For this rising the Persian record is the only real source.

Herodotus 3.61-79

What the rising reveals

Disputed

Darius says the real Bardiya had been secretly killed by Cambyses, but some historians suspect the man Darius overthrew was the true Bardiya. Either way, a second Bardiya who rallied troops in Persis suggests that many Persians doubted Darius's account or rejected his claim to rule. Historians differ over how deep this opposition went.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002