Tirgatao

Tirgatao was a princess of the Maeotes mentioned by Polyaenus:

Tirgatao of Maeotis married Hecataeus, king of the Sindi, a people who live a little above the Bosphorus.

Hecataeus was expelled from his kingdom, but was reinstated on his throne by Satyrus, tyrant of Bosphorus. Satyrus gave him his daughter in marriage, and urged him to kill his former wife. As Hecataeus passionately loved the Maeotian, he could not think of killing her, but confined her to a strong castle; however, she found a way of making her escape from there.

Fearing lest she should excite the Maeotians to war, Hecataeus and Satyrus made a strict search for her, which she skilfully eluded, travelling through lonely and deserted ways, hiding herself in the woods in the day, and continuing her journey in the night. At last she reached the country of the Ixomatae, where her own family possessed the throne. Her father was dead, and she afterwards married his successor in the kingdom.

Then she roused the Ixomatae to war, and engaged many warlike nations around the Maeotis to join the alliance. The confederates first invaded the country of Hecataeus, and afterwards ravaged the dominions of Satyrus. Harassed by a war, in which they found themselves inferior to the enemy, they sent an embassy to sue for peace, accompanied by Metrodorus the son of Satyrus, who was offered as a hostage. She granted them peace, on stipulated terms, which they bound themselves by oath to observe.

Tirgatao is also the title of a tragedy by Kabardian writer Boris Utizhev, a playwright of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. It was translated into Arabic and published in Damascus.