Spargapises

After the death of the king, the widowed Tomyris succeeded him as the ruler of the tribe, and, once he had become old enough, Spargapises became the leader of the army of the Massagetai.

On the advice of the former Lydian king Croesus, Cyrus responded to Tomyris's rejection by deciding to invade the Massagetai.

[6][8][7] Cyrus'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 Spargapises, 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 Cyrus, thus destroying a third of the Massagetai army.

[9][10][7] After Tomyris found out about the death of Spargapises, she sent Cyrus 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.