Darius II

Darius II was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 423 until his death in 405 or 404 BC, and the father of Artaxerxes II and Cyrus the Younger. He was born Ochus, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes I by a Babylonian concubine, and took the throne after a violent scramble among his father's sons in which he killed two rivals within months. Greek writers called him Darius Nothos, the Bastard. His reign was troubled by revolt: his own brother Arsites, the satrap Pissuthnes in Lydia, and a long rebellion in Egypt near the end. He appears to have depended heavily on his wife and half-sister Parysatis, whose influence at court Ctesias records in detail and without admiration. His most consequential decision was to intervene in the Peloponnesian War. After Athens was destroyed at Syracuse in 413, Persia funded Sparta's fleet through the satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, in exchange for a free hand in the Greek cities of Asia Minor. Persian money paid the rowers who eventually beat Athens at Aegospotami. He sent his younger son Cyrus west with sweeping authority to manage the arrangement, which gave Cyrus the resources and the Greek mercenaries he would later turn against his own brother. Egypt broke away permanently during his final illness. He is named in the Elephantine papyri and appears in the book of Ezra. His throne name was a deliberate claim on the legitimacy of Darius the Great, whose descendant he was. Building work at Susa and Persepolis continued under him, and inscriptions there record his name alongside his father's. The empire he passed on was intact but its western satraps had learned that Persian authority could be defied at a distance.

• Lived: 475 BCE – 404 BCE
• Nationality: Persian
• Roles: ruler