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Description
Very little is recorded about Amyntas I, sixth king of Macedon. Herodotus places him in power in 513 BCE, when the Iranian king Darius the Great was launching a campaign against the Scythians. To reach the Scythian lands, the Achaemenid would have to cross through Macedonia, and so he sent a party of envoys ahead to meet with Amyntas. Amyntas welcomed the Iranians amicably, desiring to form an alliance with such a powerful empire. He presented them with "earth and water", which is basically just a poetic way of saying he agreed to be a vassal king under the Achaemenids. The envoys felt so appeased by Amyntas's hospitality that they asked him if he would grant them a custom they were used to at home: allowing the women of the court to sit beside them. Amyntas told them that in his culture, women sat separate from men, but since they were his overlords now, he would grant them this request. Initially he tried to cheat the game by having the women sit on the opposite side of the table, but the envoys pointed out that the women may as well not be there at all if they weren't to sit beside them. Amyntas relented, which caused his son, Alexander (no not that Alexander), to make a big stink. Amyntas reasoned with the boy that hey look this is a diplomatic mission, don't screw it up. Basically, I'm gonna leave the room, son, and I swear if you kill the envoys you're grounded for a month. I mean it! Okay here I go!

Amyntas left their company. Alexander then asked the envoys to just hold tight for a minute while he and all the women go have a chat in the other room real quick. The envoys were piss drunk at this point so they didn't really think much of it. Alexander sent the women away, and replaced them all with beardless men disguised as women and armed with daggers. Alexander and the "women" returned, and he told the envoys they were free to… take a room with any lady of their choice. The envoys selected their partners for the night, retreated to private chambers, immediately got stabbed by the disguised dudes, and Alexander was presumably grounded for a month. Though, apparently when Darius sent an envoy to check up on where the hell the first envoy went off to, Alexander was able to bribe them off and everyone just acted like this never happened. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda gotta give the guy some respect for that play. That's a nat 20 charisma check if I've ever seen one. After this incident, Amyntas kinda drops out of the historical record. We know he offered refuge to the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias in 510 BCE, but the offer was declined for unclear reasons. Amyntas died around 497 BCE, leaving his son Alexander to continue his efforts of extending his kingdom's diplomatic ties to the wider Greco-Persian world.

Design notes, I couldn't find any contemporary images of Amyntas. I found plenty of coins assigned to "Amyntas" in my search for references, but whenever I looked a little deeper, they turned out to actually be coins from the reign of Amyntas III or Amyntas Nicator, an Indo-Greek ruler from much later in time. Eventually I just kinda gave up and designed a generic Macedonian warrior with heavy Thracian elements, to allude to the cultural ties that Macedon had more in common with their neighbors at the time. I have no idea what's going on with his face. That kinda got away from me. I wasn't too worried about it, because Amyntas was a minor antagonist in my D&D game set in 526 BCE. He was one of the Greeks recruited by the bad guys to blockade the party's progress, but really he was using it as an excuse to see what alliances would benefit Macedon the most. He and his men were meant to be a big scary force at first glance, until the party realized he was actually quite amicable and could be convinced to leave without starting a fight. I wanted to explore that neutrality that pre-Philip Macedon was so famous for. Not the best, but I guess hey buddy you finally got some artwork of yourself after 2500 years. That's more than most of us will probably ever get.

Description
Very little is recorded about Amyntas I, sixth king of Macedon. Herodotus places him in power in 513 BCE, when the Iranian king Darius the Great was launching a campaign against the Scythians. To reach the Scythian lands, the Achaemenid would have to cross through Macedonia, and so he sent a party of envoys ahead to meet with Amyntas. Amyntas welcomed the Iranians amicably, desiring to form an alliance with such a powerful empire. He presented them with "earth and water", which is basically just a poetic way of saying he agreed to be a vassal king under the Achaemenids. The envoys felt so appeased by Amyntas's hospitality that they asked him if he would grant them a custom they were used to at home: allowing the women of the court to sit beside them. Amyntas told them that in his culture, women sat separate from men, but since they were his overlords now, he would grant them this request. Initially he tried to cheat the game by having the women sit on the opposite side of the table, but the envoys pointed out that the women may as well not be there at all if they weren't to sit beside them. Amyntas relented, which caused his son, Alexander (no not that Alexander), to make a big stink. Amyntas reasoned with the boy that hey look this is a diplomatic mission, don't screw it up. Basically, I'm gonna leave the room, son, and I swear if you kill the envoys you're grounded for a month. I mean it! Okay here I go!

Amyntas left their company. Alexander then asked the envoys to just hold tight for a minute while he and all the women go have a chat in the other room real quick. The envoys were piss drunk at this point so they didn't really think much of it. Alexander sent the women away, and replaced them all with beardless men disguised as women and armed with daggers. Alexander and the "women" returned, and he told the envoys they were free to… take a room with any lady of their choice. The envoys selected their partners for the night, retreated to private chambers, immediately got stabbed by the disguised dudes, and Alexander was presumably grounded for a month. Though, apparently when Darius sent an envoy to check up on where the hell the first envoy went off to, Alexander was able to bribe them off and everyone just acted like this never happened. I'm not gonna lie, I kinda gotta give the guy some respect for that play. That's a nat 20 charisma check if I've ever seen one. After this incident, Amyntas kinda drops out of the historical record. We know he offered refuge to the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias in 510 BCE, but the offer was declined for unclear reasons. Amyntas died around 497 BCE, leaving his son Alexander to continue his efforts of extending his kingdom's diplomatic ties to the wider Greco-Persian world.

Design notes, I couldn't find any contemporary images of Amyntas. I found plenty of coins assigned to "Amyntas" in my search for references, but whenever I looked a little deeper, they turned out to actually be coins from the reign of Amyntas III or Amyntas Nicator, an Indo-Greek ruler from much later in time. Eventually I just kinda gave up and designed a generic Macedonian warrior with heavy Thracian elements, to allude to the cultural ties that Macedon had more in common with their neighbors at the time. I have no idea what's going on with his face. That kinda got away from me. I wasn't too worried about it, because Amyntas was a minor antagonist in my D&D game set in 526 BCE. He was one of the Greeks recruited by the bad guys to blockade the party's progress, but really he was using it as an excuse to see what alliances would benefit Macedon the most. He and his men were meant to be a big scary force at first glance, until the party realized he was actually quite amicable and could be convinced to leave without starting a fight. I wanted to explore that neutrality that pre-Philip Macedon was so famous for. Not the best, but I guess hey buddy you finally got some artwork of yourself after 2500 years. That's more than most of us will probably ever get.