NN Unknown first wife

• Preferred Name: NN Unknown first wife
  
• Gender: F
  
• FSID: GJY6-C4N
  
• Death: Y
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  Aryenis was not Astyages' first wife. His daughter Mandane was married to the Persian king Cambyses before 576 BCE - when the future king Cyrus the Great was born - and Mandane must have been born before, say, 590. It seems inevitable to assume that Astyages had another wife.note (There is some doubt about the truth of the marriage between Mandane and Cambyses. According to Ctesias of Cnidus, their son Cyrus married to a daughter of Astyages. That would be his aunt, which is most unusual.)
  
  There is another argument why Aryenis cannot have been Astyages' first wife. His father Cyaxares had started to reign before 614. If we assume that he had become king at the age of thirty - which is not improbable - and his son was born when he was twenty-five - which is possible -, we must assume that Astyages married Mandane at the age of at least thirty-four. In ancient society, this would have been very improbable.
  
  The Babylonian historian Berossus (third century BCE) tells us that after the fall of Aššur in 614, an alliance between the Medes and the Babylonians was cemented by another royal wedding: the Babylonian crown prince Nebuchadnezzar married Amytis, the daughter of Astyages. This is impossible, because it would suggest that Astyages was almost hundred years old when he was dethroned.

1. Mandana bint Astyages of Media, b. 615 BC in Ecbatana, Median Kingdom     d. ABT 559 BC in Persis, Fars, Persian Empire