The earliest description is from Ctesias who described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half in length and colored white, red and black.

An inscription on one of the tombs declares it to be that of Darius Hystaspis, concerning whom Ctesias relates that his grave was in the face of a rock, and could only be reached by the use of ropes.

According to Ctesias, who is not especially reliable but is often our only source, Amytis, wife of Megabyzus and daughter of Xerxes, was accused of adultery shortly afterwards.

Ctesias related that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas which is understood as a similar shortening with the Persian suffix-ke that is applied to shortened names.

2 ) names Damascus ; Ctesias, Babylon, which is absolutely impossible.

In excerpts from Ctesias some harem intrigues are recorded, in which he played a disreputable part.

Ctesias was the author of treatises on rivers, and on the Persian revenues, of an account of India entitled Indica ( which is of value as recording the beliefs of the Persians about India ), and of a history of Assyria and Persia in 23 books, called Persica, written in opposition to Herodotus in the Ionic dialect, and professedly founded on the Persian royal archives.

Pliny the Elder cited Ctesias and quoted Photius identifying the Chimera with an area of permanent gas vents which still can be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey.

Cyrus the Great was buried in Pasargadae, which is mentioned by Ctesias as his own city.

It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BC, in his notes on India (" Indika "), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but have not survived.

Minor sources for the period include the works of Pompeius Trogus ( epitomized by Justinus ), Cornelius Nepos and Ctesias of Cnidus ( epitomized by Photius ), which are not in their original textual form.

The ancient Greek historians Ctesias and Plutarch noted that Cyrus was named from Kuros, the Sun, a concept which has been interpreted as meaning " like the Sun " by noting its relation to the Persian noun for sun, khor, while using-vash as a suffix of likeness.

Ctesias, in his Persica, has the longest account, which says Cyrus met his death while putting down resistance from the Derbices infantry, aided by other Scythian archers and cavalry, plus Indians and their elephants.

The character which Ctesias depicted or invented, an effeminate debauchee, sunk in luxury and sloth, who at the last was driven to take up arms, and, after a prolonged but ineffectual resistance, avoided capture by suicide, cannot be identified.

The first accounts of the Seres, of disputed authenticity, seem to be those by the Greek historian Ctesias in the 5th century BC, in which he refers to them as " people of portentous stature and longevity.

Against these the Medes armed no less than eight hundred thousand men ( these are the numbers given by Ctesias, which shouldn't be given much trust ).

These traditions are found in different passages of Herodotus, and in a later form, but with some trustworthy detail about his household, in the fragments of Ctesias.

Ctesias writes that Cambyses, despondent from the loss of family members, stabbed himself in the thigh while working with a piece of wood.

The Greek historians Ctesias and Deinon noted that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas or Oarses respectively similarly understood to be derived from Khshayarsha, the former as the shortened form together with the Persian suffix-ke applied to such shortened names.

Herodotus presents the Lydian accounts of the conversation with Solon ( Histories 1. 29 -. 33 ), the tragedy of Croesus ' son Atys ( Histories 1. 34 -. 45 ) and the fall of Croesus ( Histories 1. 85 -. 89 ); Xenophon instances Croesus in his panegyric fictionalized biography of Cyrus: Cyropaedia, 7. 1 ; and Ctesias, whose account is also an encomium of Cyrus.

Ctesias mentions further, with regard to a number of Persian kings, either that their remains were brought " to the Persians ," or that they died there.

In the Recognitions ( R 4. 29 ), one version of the Clementines, Nimrod is equated with the legendary Assyrian king Ninus, who first appears in the Greek historian Ctesias as the founder of Nineveh.

Ctesias of Cnidus relates that Datis was slain at Marathon and that the Athenians refused to hand over his body, however this conflicts with Herodotus ' earlier analysis that Datis survived the battle

( In contrast, the Greek historian Ctesias refers to a similar father-in-law / general figure named Onaphas.

The Greco-Persian wars are also described in less detail by a number of other ancient historians including Plutarch, Ctesias of Cnidus, and are alluded by other authors, such as the playwright Aeschylus.

In the days of the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus, 400 BC, Nineveh had become a thing of the past ; and when Xenophon the historian passed the place in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand the very memory of its name had been lost.

Subsequent Greek historians — such as Ctesias, Diodorus, Strabo, Polybius and Plutarch — held up Thucydides ' writings as a model of truthful history.

" In On the Nature of Animals ( Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος, De natura animalium ), Aelian, quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse ( iii.

The early Greek historian Ctesias c. 400 BC ( followed by Diodorus Siculus ) alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in ca.

According to Ctesias ( in Persica 20 ), Artabanus then accused the Crown Prince Darius, Xerxes's eldest son, of the murder and persuaded another of Xerxes's sons, Artaxerxes, to avenge the patricide by killing Darius.

He is an obscure historical figure known primarily from the writings of Ctesias.

3. 1 and Ctesias a / i. Athen.

Herodotus and Ctesias ascribe his death to an accident.

The Greco-Persian wars are also described in less detail by a number of other ancient historians including Plutarch, Ctesias of Cnidus, and are alluded by other authors, such as the playwright Aeschylus.

To Photios, we are indebted for almost all we possess of Ctesias, Memnon of Heraclea, Conon, the lost books of Diodorus Siculus, and the lost writings of Arrian.

In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC.

The Athenian scholar Laonicus Chalcondyles ( d. c. 1490 ) claims to draw on Greek traditions when he refers to Murad's killer as Miloes, " a man of noble birth who voluntarily decided to accomplish the heroic act of assassination.

A folk belief recorded in the Athenian Oracle claims that a house built on a fairy circle will bring prosperity to its inhabitants.

Davus replies that he was attending Pamphilus and that there is news that claims Glycerium is an Athenian citizen.

Lemprière's Classical Dictionary claims that when Hegetorides saw that his city was besieged by Athenian forces and that there was a law declaring death to anyone who spoke of peace, he went into the agora with a rope tied around his neck.

Socrates here delivers to Menexenus a speech that he claims to have learned from Aspasia, a consort of Pericles and prominent female Athenian intellectual.

We learn from the Suda that three different cities are mentioned as his native place, Athens, Naucratis in Egypt, or Sicyon ; but as Athenaeus calls him an Athenian or Naucratian, we may leave the claims of Sicyon out of the question.