What is "syennesis"

Syennesis was the name of a number of men in classical antiquity. In particular it seems to have been a common name of the native kings of Cilicia.

• Syennesis, a king of Cilicia, who joined with Labynetus (Nebuchadnezzar) in mediating between Cyaxares and Alyattes of Lydia, the kings respectively of Media and Lydia, probably in 610 BCE.
• Syennesis, a contemporary with Achaemenid king Darius the Great, to whom he was tributary. His daughter was married to Pixodarus, son of Mausolus. He was perhaps the same man whom Herodotus mentions as one of the most distinguished of the subordinate commanders in the fleet of Xerxes I.
• Syennesis (5th century), a figure in the conflict of Artaxerxes II of Persia and Cyrus the Younger as described by Xenophon in his Anabasis
• Syennesis of Cyprus, was an ancient Greek physician in the 4th century BCE

Syennesis was a ruler of ancient Cilicia in the 5th century BCE.

Synnesis was a contemporary of Artaxerxes II of Persia, and when Cyrus the Younger, marching against Artaxerxes in 401 BCE, arrived at the borders of Cilicia, he found the passes guarded by Syennesis, who, however, withdrew his troops on receiving intelligence that the force advanced by Cyrus under Meno had already entered Cilicia, and that the combined fleet of the Lacedaemonians and the prince, under Samius and Tamos, was sailing round from Ionia.

When Cyrus reached Tarsus, the Cilician capital, he found that Meno's soldiers had sacked the city, and commanded Synnesis to appear before him. Syennesis had fled for refuge to a stronghold among the mountains, but he was induced by his wife, Epyaxa, to obey the summons of Cyrus. Here he received gifts of honor from the Cyrus, whom he supplied in his turn with a large sum of money and a considerable body of troops under the command of one of his sons.

At the same time, however, Syennesis took care to send his other son to Artaxerxes, to represent his meeting with Cyrus as having been something he'd been forced to do, while his heart all the time was with the king, Artaxerxes. From Xenophon's telling it appears that Syennesis at this time, though really a vassal of Persia, affected the tone of an independent sovereign.