Archeptolis
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Archeptolis

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Archeptolis

Archeptolis (Ancient Greek: Ἀρχέπτολις), also Archepolis, was a Governor of Magnesia on the Maeander in Ionia for the Achaemenid Empire circa 459 BCE to possibly around 412 BCE, and a son and successor of the former Athenian general Themistocles.

Archeptolis minted silver coinage as he ruled Magnesia, just as his father had done, and it is probable that part of his revenues were handed over to the Achaemenids in exchange for the maintenance of their territorial grant.

Archeptolis is said to have married his half-sister Mnesiptolema (daughter of Themistocles from his second wife), homopatric (but not homometric) marriages being permitted in Athens.

Themistocles and his son formed what some authors have called "a Greek dynasty in the Persian Empire".

Archeptolis had several sisters, named Nicomache, Asia, Italia, Sybaris, and probably Hellas, who married the Greek exile in Persia Gongylos and still had a fief in Persian Anatolia in 399/400 BC as his widow. He also had three brothers, Diocles, Polyeucteus and Cleophantus, the latter possibly a ruler of Lampsacus. One of the descendants of Cleophantus still issued a decree in Lampsacus around 200 BC mentioning a feast for his father, also named Themistocles, who had greatly benefited the city.

Later, Pausanias wrote that the sons of Themistocles "appear to have returned to Athens", and that they dedicated a painting of Themistocles in the Parthenon and erected a bronze statue to Artemis Leucophryene, the goddess of Magnesia, on the Acropolis:

The children of Themistocles certainly returned and set up in the Parthenon a painting, on which is a portrait of Themistocles.

— Pausanias 1.1.2

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