Otanes

Otanes (Old Persian: Utāna, ) is a name given to several figures that appear in the Histories of Herodotus. One or more of these figures may be the same person.

== In the Histories == ===Otanes, son of Pharnaspes=== thumb|Phaedyme is sent by her father Otanes, to check if King Smerdis has ears under his turban, as the suspected imposter was known to have had them cut off in punishment for a crime. She found that indeed the king did not have ears anymore, which proved that King Bardiya was an imposter, and justify the coup led by [[Darius I.]] He was regarded as a Persian nobleman, being among the few with highest ranks in the kingdom, who was also a political philosopher. Histories 3.68.1, 3.68.3, 3.69.6 has an Otanes as the son of the Achaemenid Pharnaspes, as the father of Phaidyme (or Phaedyma), who in turn is a wife of Cambyses II, and later a wife of the Gaumata alias Smerdis. Herodotus gives this Otanes a role in the overthrow of the false Smerdis, and this Otanes is therefore generally assumed to be identical to a known co-conspirator of Darius I, mentioned in Darius's own list of his helpers at overthrowing Gaumata (DB IV 83). The Behistun inscription has this Otanes as the son of Θuxra, in which case he could not have been the son of Pharnaspes, and so cannot have been a brother of Cassandane (who is said to have been the daughter of Pharnaspes in Histories 2.1.1, 3.2.2), and thus also could not have been brother-in-law of Cyrus II.