A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Φιλίσκος), a citizen of Abydus, who in B. C. 368 was sent into Greece by Ariobarzanes, the Persian satrap of the Hellespont, to effect a reconciliation between the Thebans and Lacedaemonians. He came well supplied with money, and in the name of Artaxerxes II.; but in a congress which he caused to be held at Delphi, he failed to accomplish his object, as the Thebans refused to abandon their claim to the sovereignty of Boeotia, and Lacedaemon would not acknowledge the independence of Messenia. Upon this Philiscus, leaving behind him a body of 2000 mercenaries for the service of Sparta, and having been honoured, as well as Ariobarzanes, with the Athenian franchise, returned to Asia. Here, under cover of the satrap's protection, he made himself master of a number of Greek states, over which he exercised a tyrannical and insolent sway, till he was at last assassinated at Lampsacus by Thersagoras and Execestus (Xen. Hell. 7.1.27 ; Diod. 15.70; Dem. c. Aristocr. pp. 666, 667). Diodorus places the mission of Philiscus to Greece in B. C. 369, a year too soon.

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