Derbices

Derbices or Derbikes (Persian: دربیک‌ها‎) were a small pocket of tribal people located at or around Hyrcania,[1] which is an area located in the northern borders of the Iranian Plateau in the Tabaristan region.[2][3]

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Cyrus the Great

Most of what history can recount of this tribe is from the writings of Ctesias. Led by their leader, Amoraeus, Derbices led a rebellion against Cyrus the Great causing the mortal wounding of the king.[4] They are, however, eventually defeated by Cyrus and incorporated into the Persian Empire. The account of Derbices is basically the work of Ctesias and offers one of the plausible versions by which Cyrus the Great is killed.

Other plausible accounts include that of Herodotus which revolves around the Massagatae, and various other versions, including one by Xenophon, which states Cyrus the Great actually died peacefully at his palace. Regardless, this article (and Derbices by association) makes sense in the context of historical reportings of Ctesias, which, according to at least a few historians, is the most credible version (along with that of Herodotus), since "...he [Cteias] had been a long while in Persia as a doctor."[5]

They are also mentioned in passing by Strabo [6] and Dionysis.[7]

Sources
  1. Philippus CLUVERIUS, Introductionis in universam geographiam (Leonard Lichfield, 1657) page 26.
  2. An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time, Volume 5 (T. Osborne, 1747) page 58-59.
  3. Amélie Kuhrt,The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period (Routledge, 15 Apr 2013) page 100.
  4. Matt Waters, Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330 BCE (Cambridge University Press, 2014 ) page 53.
  5. Eneas Sweetland Dallas (1864). Once a week, Volume 10 (Historical Evaluations). Bradbury and Evans. p. 348.
  6. Strabo xi
  7. Dionysis v.734.
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