What is "arbaces"

Arbaces, according to Ctesias, one of the generals of Sardanapalus, king of Assyria and founder of the Median empire about 830 BC.

Ctesias’s whole history of the Assyrian and Median empires is absolutely fabulous; his Arbaces and his successors are not historical personages. But Ctesias’s whole history of the Assyrian and Median empire. Mahmoud Omidsalar suggests that "the very fact that all but one of the kings in Ctesiass list are not historical implies that these kings were legendary rulers who belonged to the ancient Iranian lore, and records of their exploits existed in some written form in the fifth century B.c."

From the inscriptions of Sargon II of Assyria it is known that one Arbaku of Arnashia was one of forty-five chiefs of Median districts who paid tribute to Sargon in 713 BC. He was a satrap, who conspired against Sardanapalus, and founded the empire of Media on the ruins of the Assyrian kingdom.

Arbaces or Arbaku is also the Akkadian spelling for the name of the 6th Century BCE Median general, Harpagus.