Pharnabazus II in the context of "Barsine"

There is evidence of mercenaries (misthophoroi (plural), misthios (singular male), misthia (singular female) in Greek) being hired in Ancient Greece from the 6th century BC. The tyrants of that time hired bodyguards from other city-states. It is not known if earlier Aegean armies and navies, such as the Minoans and Mycenaeans, used mercenaries.

Mercenary troops from Caria and Ionia are known to have fought with Psamtik I against the Assyrians. These were the "bronze men from the sea" whose arrival in Egypt, according to Herodotus, was foretold to Psamtik by an oracle. They entered the country as raiders but Psamtik made a truce with them and hired them to his cause. Afterwards, he granted land to them alongside the Nile and they are traditionally held to have been the first Greeks to settle in Egypt.

Ariobarzanes (Old Persian: *Aryābr̥zaⁿs; Ancient Greek: Ἀριοβαρζάνης Ariobarzánēs; death: crucified in c. 362 BCE), sometimes known as Ariobarzanes I of Cius, was a Persian Satrap of Phrygia and military commander, leader of an independence revolt, and the first known of the line of rulers of the Greek town of Cius who eventually were to stem the kings of Pontus in the 3rd century BCE.Ariobarzanes was apparently a cadet member of the Achaemenid dynasty, possibly son of Pharnabazus II, and part of the Pharnacid dynasty which had settled to hold Dascylium of Hellespont in the 470s BCE. Cius is located near Dascylium, and Cius seemingly was a share of family holdings for the branch of Ariobarzanes.

Ariobarzanes' one predecessor was a (kinsman) named Mithradates (possibly Mithradates, Satrap of Cappadocia). The archaeologist Walther Judeich claims that Ariobarzanes was that Mithradates' son, but Brian C. McGing refutes that specific filiation. Seemingly, no classical source itself calls them son and father, the filiation being a later reconstruction on basis of successorship.

The Battle of Cnidus (Greek: Ναυμαχία της Κνίδου) was a military operation conducted in 394 BC by the Achaemenid Empire against the Spartan fleet during the Corinthian War. A fleet under the joint command of Pharnabazus and former Athenian admiral, Conon, destroyed the Spartan fleet led by the inexperienced Peisander, ending Sparta's brief bid for naval supremacy.

The battle outcome was a significant boost for the anti-Spartan coalition that resisted Spartan hegemony in the course of the Corinthian War.

Leucophrys or Leukophrys (Ancient Greek: Λευκόφρυς) was a town of the ancient Ionia, and earlier of Caria in the plain of the Maeander river. It was on the borders of a lake, whose water was hot and in constant commotion. The town possessed a very revered sanctuary of Artemis; hence surnamed Artemis Leucophryene or Leucophryne. The poet Nicander spoke of Leucophrys as a place distinguished for its fine roses. Xenophon records that, in 398 BCE, Leucophrys was the site to which the Greek troops, under the command of the Spartan Dercylidas withdrew after the meeting between them and the troops of Achaemenid Empire led by the satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus II. The next day in the place they had agreed to, they negotiated peace. The Persians would allow the Greek cities to be autonomous and the Greek army and the Laconian harmosts would return across the Aegean Sea.

Its site was later occupied by Magnesia ad Maeandrum.

Pharnaces II (Old Iranian: Farnaka; fl. 430 BCE - 422 BCE) ruled the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia under the Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia. Hellespontine Phrygia (Greek: Ἑλλησποντιακὴ Φρυγία) comprised the lands of Troad, Mysia and Bithynia and had its seat at Daskyleion, south of Cyzicus, Mysia (near modern-day Erdek, Balıkesir Province, Turkey).

His grandfather, Artabazos I of Phrygia, was the founder of the Pharnacid dynasty. Pharnaces II followed as satrap either upon the death of his father, Pharnabazus I, or directly upon the death of his grandfather. He was succeeded by his son Pharnabazus II.

Artabazos II (in Greek Ἀρτάβαζος) (fl. 389 – 328 BC) was a Persian general and satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. He was the son of the Persian satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia Pharnabazus II, and younger kinsman (most probably nephew) of Ariobarzanes of Phrygia who revolted against Artaxerxes III around 356 BC. His first wife was an unnamed Greek woman from Rhodes, sister of the two mercenaries Mentor of Rhodes and Memnon of Rhodes. Towards the end of his life, he became satrap of Bactria for Alexander the Great.