Orontobates was a Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

, who married the daughter of Pixodarus

Pixodarus of Caria

Pixodarus was a prince or king of Caria.-Biography:He was the youngest of the three sons of Hecatomnus, all of whom successively held the sovereignty of their native country...

, the usurping satrap

Satrap

Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....

 of Caria

Caria

Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there...

, and was sent by the king of Persia

Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...

 to succeed him. On the approach of Alexander III of Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

 (334 BC

334 BC

Year 334 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caudinus and Calvinus...

) Orontobates and Memnon

Memnon of Rhodes

Memnon of Rhodes was the commander of the Greek mercenaries working for the Persian king Darius III when Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded Persia in 334 BC. He commanded the mercenaries at the Battle of the Granicus River, where his troops were massacred by the victorious Macedonians...

 of Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

 entrenched themselves in Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...

. But at last, despairing of defending it, they set fire to the town, and under cover of the conflagration crossed over to Cos

Kos

Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...

, whither they had previously removed their treasures. In addition to the island of Cos, Orontobates, retained control of the citadel at Salmacis, and the towns Myndus

Myndus

Myndus or Myndos was an ancient Dorian colony of Troezen, on the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, , sited on the Bodrum Peninsula, a few miles northwest of Halicarnassus. The site is now occupied by the modern village of Gümüslük....

, Caunus, Thera

Santorini

Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...

 and Callipolis together with Triopium.

Next year, while at Soli, Cilicia

Soli, Cilicia

Soli was an ancient city and port in Cilicia, in present day Turkey, a part of Mezitli municipality which in turn is a part of Greater Mersin. It was a colony of Rhodes, founded c. 700 BC. Soli was destroyed in the 1st century BC, and rebuilt by Pompey the Great. Thereafter, it was called...

, Alexander learnt that Orontobates had been defeated in a great battle by Ptolemy

Ptolemy I Soter

Ptolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...

 and Asander

Asander

Asander was the son of Philotas and brother of Parmenion. Alexander the Great appointed him in 334 BC governor of Lydia and the other parts of the satrapy of Spithridates, and also placed under his command an army strong enough to maintain the Macedonian authority...

. It is natural to infer that the places which Orontobates held did not long hold out after his defeat.

An officer of the name of Orontobates was present in the army of Darius III

Darius III of Persia

Darius III , also known by his given name of Codomannus, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC....

 at the battle of Gaugamela

Battle of Gaugamela

The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...

 (331 BC

331 BC

Year 331 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Potitus and Marcellus...

), being one of the commanders of the troops drawn from the shores of the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

. Whether he was the same or a different person from the preceding, we have no means of knowing. We are not told that the latter was killed as well as defeated.

It is likely that Alexander the Great knew Orontobates intimately as there was a princess between the two. In his youth Alexander wanted to marry Ada II, the daughter of Pixodarus but this was negated by his father. Incidentally Orontobates married a daughter of Pixodarus, who was probably the same as Ada II. Thus the relation between the two may have been far more complex than what Justin or even Plutarch knew.