Tomyris was, according to Herodotus, a queen of the Massagetae. Ğ Ăǘē ĒØĂŷ ĞŐąËò Bust of Herodotus Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ, Herodotos) was an ancient historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... Massagetae were an Iranian people of antiquity. ...

According to Jordanes (after Cassiodorus) in De origine actibusque Getarum (The origin and deeds of the Goths), Tomyris was the queen of the Getae : Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (ca 484/490 - ca585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ... The Origin and Deeds of the Goths (Latin: De origine actibusque Getarum), commonly referred to as Getica, was written by Jordanes, probably in Constantinople, and was published in AD 551. ... The Getae was the name by which the pre-Roman ancient writers reffered to the tribes that will become the later Dacians. ...

" Then Cyrus(Cyrus the Great), king of the Persians, after a long interval of almost exactly six hundred and thirty years {i.e., in 559 B.C.} (as Pompeius Trogus relates) , waged a war, fatal to himself against Tomyris, Queen of the Getae. Tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae Cyrus II the Great (Persian: کوروش کبیر) (about 576 - July, 529 BC) was a king of Persia, famous for his military prowess and mercy. ...

Elated by his victories in Asia, he strove to conquer the Getae, whose queen, as I have said, was Tomyris.

Though she could have stopped the approach of Cyrus at the river Araxes, yet she permitted him to cross, preferring to overcome him in battle rather than to thwart him by advantage of position. And so she did.

As Cyrus approached, fortune at first so favored the Parthians that they slew both the son of Tomyris and most of the army.

But when the battle was renewed, the Getae and their queen defeated, conquered and overwhelmed the Parthians and took rich plunder from them. There for the first time the race of the Goths saw silken tents.

After achieving this victory and winning so much booty from her enemies, Queen Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which is now called Lesser Scythia {= Dobrudja, region on the Black Sea} - a name borrowed from Great Scythia -, and built on the Moesian shore of the Black Sea the city of Tomi {= Köstendjé in Bulgaria}, named after herself." Tomi was named Tomis by the romans and is today city of Constanta in Romania Tomi (also called Tomi) was a Greek colony in the province of Scythia on the Black Seas shore, founded around 500 BC for commercial exchanges with local Dacian populations. ... Constanţa (old names: Kustendji, Kustendja, Köstence, Constantza) is a seaport on the Black Sea and the capital of Constanţa county, Romania. ...

External links

• Herodotus: Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai