Sataspes
Σατάσπης
(Σατάσπης), a Persian and an Achaemenid, son of Teaspes. Having offered violence to a daughter of Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, he was condemned by Xerxes to be impaled; but at the request of his mother, the king's aunt, this punishment was remitted on condition of his effecting the circumnavigation of Africa. He set sail accordingly from Egypt, passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and continued his voyage towards the south for a considerable distance, but at length turned back again, being discouraged apparently by adverse winds and currents. Xerxes, however, did not accept his excuses, and inflicted on him the penalty to which he had been originally sentenced. (Hdt. 4.43.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.