Artaxerxes II (“Mnemon”)

Arsaces, the elder son of Darius II and Parysatis, was born before his father’s accession, c. 453 or 445. In 405/404 he became king by his father’s wish and took the name Artaxerxes. His brother Cyrus the Younger plotted at the coronation, rebelled in 401 with ten thousand Greek mercenaries and was killed at Cunaxa.

Then came the war with Sparta (400–394), the naval victory of Cnidus (394), the King’s Peace (387/386), victory over Evagoras of Cyprus (381), two failed campaigns to Egypt and one against the Cadusii, and the Satraps’ Revolt (c. 368–358). After 46 years, the longest Achaemenid reign, he died in 359/358.

Iranica calls him weak and easily influenced, though at times cruel, and credits his successes mostly to able men around him: Tissaphernes, Pharnabazus, Autophradates and his son Ochus. This verdict, too, rests largely on Greek sources.

A state that lasts more than half a century through money and diplomacy rather than great victories shows that power is not measured only on the battlefield.

Ctesias gives his personal name as Arsaces or Arsicas, Dinon as Oarses. Greek authors from Plutarch on call him Mnemon, “Remembering, having a good memory”; the Old Persian form may survive in Hesychius’ gloss abiataka, “mnemona among the Persians” (Iranica).

What the epithet meant is unclear: remembering favours, perhaps, or grudges. Plutarch praises him as just and mild.

Epithets that come from outside are the narrators’ verdict more than the ruler’s own name.

Cyrus, “born in the purple” and favoured by Parysatis as the fitter heir, was restored to his western satrapy after his pardon. In 401, on the pretext of a war against the Pisidians, he raised an army including ten thousand Greek mercenaries, plentiful since the end of the Peloponnesian War, and marched from Sardis almost to Babylon. At Cunaxa the Greeks routed the wing facing them, but Cyrus was killed charging straight at the King.

Xenophon was an eyewitness but a partisan of Cyrus; Ctesias was in the King’s camp. Accounts of who killed Cyrus disagree: Iranica names a Carian soldier, and the official record gave the deed to the King.

A succession without rules turns a mercenary army into the tool of a family war; whoever pays the soldiers buys their obedience.

After Cunaxa Tissaphernes invited the Greek generals to a parley and seized them. The Greeks chose new generals, Xenophon among them, and reached the Black Sea through the Carduchian mountains and snowbound Armenia. On Mount Theches they shouted “The sea! the sea!” and went on from Trapezus to Byzantium.

The Greeks, and Iranica following Plutarch, read the army’s escape as a sign of the empire’s weakness. Yet the King had achieved his main aim: his rival was dead and the leaderless army left his lands.

A body of free men who chose their own commanders and decided together crossed a foreign land; Xenophon makes this the lesson of his book.

Sparta, which had backed Cyrus, fought in Asia Minor from 400. Persia answered with money and a fleet under Conon of Athens; in 394 the Spartan fleet was destroyed at Cnidus. In 387/386 Tiribazus read the King’s rescript to the Greek envoys at Sardis: the King’s Peace, or Peace of Antalcidas.

The text is not a peace between equals but a decree: the King “deems it just”, and will fight whoever refuses “with ships and with money”. The cities of Asia became the King’s and the autonomy of the rest was guaranteed by him. It was the Achaemenids’ greatest political victory in Greece and needed no battle.

When an outside power “guarantees” other people’s freedom, that freedom depends on its will.

Egypt had broken away from the start of his reign. The campaign of 389–387 failed; the great expedition of 374–373, with Iphicrates’ Athenian mercenaries, failed through the commanders’ quarrel. The King himself campaigned against the Cadusii and came back empty-handed. On the other hand the war with Evagoras of Cyprus ended in victory in 381.

The empire could still raise money and mercenaries, but without unified command money did not turn into victory.

Ample resources are wasted without effective institutions.

Satrapies had become partly hereditary. About 368–358 several western satraps, from Egypt to Bithynia, formed a coalition and struck their own coins; Datames in Cappadocia and Ariobarzanes in Phrygia were the most prominent. Autophradates, once among the King’s most loyal men, and Pharaoh Tachos joined them; Tachos, faced with a rising at home, surrendered to the King. The revolt was put down and some rebels were pardoned and restored.

Pardoning and restoring rebels shows that the King could not rule without these local houses; the empire was more a web of bargains than a centralised state.

Striking coins is a sign of sovereignty; wherever local power has its own money, it will want its own independence.

According to Ctesias and Plutarch, Parysatis and Queen Stateira were enemies and Parysatis poisoned Stateira c. 400. The King then married his daughter Atossa. His eldest son Darius, made heir, was executed for conspiracy; Ochus removed two other brothers and succeeded as Artaxerxes III.

These stories come from Greek court literature and their details cannot be tested. But the general pattern, brothers killed over the crown, recurs in every Achaemenid succession.

Where there is no clear rule for transferring power, the family becomes the battlefield.

Artaxerxes II’s inscriptions concern building. At Susa he rebuilt Darius’ audience hall, burnt in the time of Artaxerxes I (A2Sa); at Ecbatana he left further inscriptions (A2Ha, A2Hb, A2Hc). He is the first king to name Anahita and Mithra alongside Ahuramazda; Berossus says that under him statues of Anaitis were set up throughout the empire.

Naming Anahita and Mithra may mark the official acceptance of cults already popular. The Arsacids later claimed descent from this Arsaces/Artaxerxes.

A government that accepts its people’s beliefs, rather than imposing one creed, gains a broader base.