Ariaeus
Ariaios
Persian noble, commander of the non-Greek (Persian, Lydian, Phrygian and other Asiatic) wing of Cyrus's army at Cunaxa. When Cyrus was killed, Ariaeus's line broke and fled back to the previous day's camp; that night he was approached by Clearchus and the Greek generals with the offer of the Achaemenid throne if he would lead the army east with them still fighting, and declined — his claim, he said, had no Achaemenid foundation (Xen. *Anab.* 2.1.2–2.2.2, the set-piece dialogue). Accepted Tissaphernes's safe-conduct, then — per Xen. 2.5.35–42 — was the Persian who publicly justified the betrayal to the remaining Greek army after the seizure at Tissaphernes's tent. Xenophon's *Anabasis* treats him as the archetype of the untrustworthy barbarian ally; Plutarch's *Artaxerxes* 11 gives a marginally more sympathetic reading of his position.