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Concept
Atossa
Summary
Atossa (Old Persian: Utauθa, or Old Iranian: Hutauθa; 550–475 BC) was an Achaemenid empress. She was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, and the wife of Darius the Great.
The name "Atossa" (or "Atusa") means "bestowing very richly" or "well trickling" or "well granting". Atossa is the Greek (Ἄτοσσα) transliteration of the Old Persian name Utauθa. Her name in Avestan is Hutaosā.
Atossa was born in 550 BC. She was eldest daughter of Cyrus the Great; her mother may have been Cassandane. According to Greek sources she married her brother Cambyses II after her father's death, yet it remains problematic to determine the reliability of these accounts. According to Herodotus, Cambyses supposedly married two of his sisters, Atossa and Roxane. This would have been regarded as illegal. However, Herodotus also states that Cambyses married Otanes' daughter Phaidyme, whilst his contemporary Ctesias names Roxane as Cambyses' wife, but she is not referred to as his sister.
Accusations against Cambyses for committing incest are used as a way to vilify him: painting him as mad and vain. This is a common historiographical issue faced in many older historical texts on Persia. For example, one of the primary records of his incestuous acts is from an Egyptian text which antagonizes many of his actions, far beyond incest. However, many of the allegations within the text, such as the killing of the Apis bull, have been confirmed as false, which means that the report of Cambyses' supposed incestuous acts are also contestable.
When Darius I defeated the followers of a man claiming to be Bardiya (Smerdis), the younger brother of Cambyses II in 522 BC, he married Atossa. Atossa played an important role in the Achaemenid royal family, as she bore Darius the Great the next Achaemenid king, Xerxes I.
Atossa had a "great authority" in the Achaemenid royal house and her marriage with Darius I is likely due to her power, influence and the fact that she was a direct descendant of Cyrus.
Herodotus records in The Histories that Atossa was troubled by a bleeding lump in her breast.
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