Spargapises

Spargapis was the son of the king of the Massagetai and of his queen, Tomyris. After the death of the king, the widowed Tomyris succeeded him as the ruler of the tribe, and, once he had become old enough, Spargapis became the leader of the army of the Massagetai.[7]

When the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Kūruš II, asked for the hand of Tomyris with the intent of acquiring her kingdom through the marriage, she understood Kūruš's aims and rejected his proposal. On the advice of the Lydian Krowiśaś, Kūruš responded to Tomyris's rejection by deciding to invade the Massagetai.[6][8][7]

Kūruš's initial assault against the Massagetai was routed by them, after which he set up a fancy banquet with large amounts of wine in the tents of his camp as an ambush and withdrew. The Massagetai, led by Spargapis, who primarily used fermented mare's milk and cannabis as intoxicants like all Iron Age steppe nomads, and therefore were not used to drinking wine, became drunk and were easily defeated and slaughtered by Kūruš, thus destroying a third of the Massagetai army. Spargapis had been captured by Kūruš, and, once he had become sober and understood his situation, he asked Kūruš to free him, and after Kūruš acquiesced to his pleas, he killed himself.[9][10][7]

After Tomyris found out about the death of Spargapis, she sent Kūruš an angry message in which she called the wine, which had caused the destruction of her army and her son, a drug which made those who consumed it so mad that they spoke evil words, and demanded him to leave his land or else she would, swearing upon the Sun, "give him more blood than he could drink."[9][7]

Tomyris herself led the Massagetai army into war, and, during the next battle opposing the Massagetai to the forces of Kūruš, Tomyris defeated the Persians and destroyed most of their army. Kūruš himself was killed in the battle, and Tomyris found his corpse, severed his head and shoved it in a bag filled with blood while telling Kūruš, "Drink your fill of blood!"[6][9][8][11]