2. A Persian, son of Sisamnines. His father,
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one of the royal judges, was put to death by Cambyses for an unjust sentence, and his skin was stripped off and stretched on the judicial seat which he had occupied. To this same seat, thus covered, Otanes was advanced as his successor, and was compelled to exercise his functions with a constant memento beneath him of his father's fate. About B. C. 506, being appointed to succeed Megabyzus in the command of the forces on the sea-coast, he took Byzantium, Chalcedon, Antandrus, and Lamponium, as well as the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. (Hdt. 5.25-27 ; Larch. and Schweigh. ad loc.) He was probably the same Otanes who is mentioned as a sonin-law of Dareius Hystaspis, and as one of the generals employed against the revolted lonians in B. C. 499. He joined in defeating the rebels near Ephesus, and, in conjunction with Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, he took Clazomenae, belonging to the lonians, and the Aeolian town of Cume. He is not again mentioned by name in Herodotus, but he appears to have taken part in the subsequent operations of the war till the final reduction of lonia. (Hdt. 5.102, 116, 123, 6.6, &c.) It seems doubtful whether we should identify either of the two above persons with the father of Patiramphes, the charioteer of Xerxes (Hdt. 7.40), or again with the father of Amastris [No. 1]. (Hdt. 7.61.) [E.E]