Hyspaosines

Who is Hyspaosines?

Hyspaosines or Aspasine was a satrap installed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and later the first King of Characene or Mesene. Hyspaosines is mainly known from coins, but also appears in texts of cuneiform script. Pliny the Elder mentions that he was the son of a certain "Sagdodonacos the king of Arabs".

According to Pliny, Hyspaosines was of Arab ancestry; however, his name was Persian.

Hyspaosines was appointed Satrap of the Characene area by Antiochus IV and he rebuilt the city after a flood.

During the Parthian Invasion of 141 BC, Hyspaosines declared independence as the eastern empire fell to the invaders. Two years after the invasion a Babylonian tablet records him with the title king.

Hyspaosines conquered parts of south Mesopotamia and of Persia. On 24 June 127 BC he is for the first time called 'king'. An inscription found in Bahrain, then known as Tylos, indicates that he also ruled this island. The inscription mentions his wife, queen Thalassia. She appears in the Babylonian 'astronomical diaries'.

In 124 BC, Hyspaosines became ill and died on the 11th June. After the death of her husband she tried to install her son as king.