Person

Tomyris

6th century BCE · 6th century BCE

Tomyris was a queen of the Massagetae, a nomadic Iranian people east of the Caspian Sea, in the 6th century BCE. According to Herodotus, after Cyrus the Great of Persia captured her son by a trick, she defeated the Persian army in 530 BCE, killed Cyrus and had his head put in a wineskin filled with blood.

Tomyris
Image: Andrea del Castagno · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

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SakaMilitary, Governance

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Tomyris. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/tomyris
MLA
“Tomyris.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/tomyris. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Tomyris.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/tomyris.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Tomyris’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/tomyris (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻