ARSES, Persian king, youngest son of Artaxerxes III., was raised to the throne in 338 B.C. by Bagoas (q.v.), who had murdered his father and all his brothers. But when the young king tried to make himself independent, Bagoas killed him too, with all his children, in the third year of his reign (336) (Diod. 17.5; Strabo 15. 736; Trogus, Prol. x., Alexander’s despatch to Darius III.; Arrian ii. 14. 5, and the chronographers). In Plutarch, De fort. Alex. ii. 3. 5, he is called Oarses; in Johannes Antioch. p. 38, Arsamos; in the canon of Ptolemy, Aroges (by Elias of Nisibis, Pīrūz); in a chronological tablet from Babylon (Brit. Mus. Sp. ii. 71, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, viii. 176, x. 64) he is abbreviated into Ar. See Persia: Ancient History. (Ed. M.)