Pharnabazus [key], d. after 374 b.c., Persian governor. He had an important satrapy in Asia Minor under Darius II and Artaxerxes II. He was responsible for the assassination (404 b.c.) of Alcibiades, and in the same year he supported Artaxerxes in the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger. Pharnabazus and his fellow satrap Tissaphernes encouraged the revival of Persian power in the Greek world by alternately supporting Sparta and Athens in the Peloponnesian War and later. Pharnabazus collaborated (394) with Conon in the restoration of the Athenian fleet. He was in command of two unsuccessful Persian invasions of Egypt (385, 374).
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