XERXES (ruled 486-465 B.C.) | Facts and Details

XERXES

Xerxes Xerxes (ruled 486-465 B.C.) was the son of Darius. He was regarded as weak and tyrannical. He spent the early years of his reign putting down rebellions in Egypt and Babylon and preparing to launch another attack on Greece with a huge army that he assumed would easily overwhelm the Greeks.

Herodotus characterizes Xerxes as man a layers of complexity. Yes he could be cruel and arrogant. But he could also be childishly petulant and become tear-eyed with sentimentality. In one episode, recounted by Herodotus, Xerxes looked over the mighty force he created to attack Greece and then broke down, telling his uncle Artabanus, who warned him not to attack Greece, “by pity as I considered the brevity of human life.”

In October, a mummy was found with a golden crown and a cuneiform plaque identifying it as the daughter of King Xerxes was found in a house in the western Pakistani city of Quetta. The international press described it as a major archeological find. Later it was revealed the mummy was a fake. The woman inside was a middle-age woman who died of a broken neck in 1996.

Xerxes Takes the Throne After a Succession Dispute

Herodotus wrote in Book VII of “Histories”: “Now, as he was about to lead forth his levies against Egypt and Athens, a fierce contention for the sovereign power arose among his sons; since the law of the Persians was that a king must not go out with his army, until he has appointed one to succeed him upon the throne. Darius, before he obtained the kingdom, had had three sons born to him from his former wife, who was a daughter of Gobryas; while, since he began to reign, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, had borne him four. Artabazanes was the eldest of the first family, and Xerxes of the second. These two, therefore, being the sons of different mothers, were now at variance. Artabazanes claimed the crown as the eldest of all the children, because it was an established custom all over the world for the eldest to have the pre-eminence; while Xerxes, on the other hand, urged that he was sprung from Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and that it was Cyrus who had won the Persians their freedom. [Source: Herodotus “The History of Herodotus” Book VII and VIII on the Persian War, 440 B.C., translated by George Rawlinson, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

“Before Darius had pronounced on the matter, it happened that Demaratus, the son of Ariston, who had been deprived of his crown at Sparta, and had afterwards, of his own accord, gone into banishment, came up to Susa, and there heard of the quarrel of the princes. Hereupon, as report says, he went to Xerxes, and advised him, in addition to all that he had urged before, to plead- that at the time when he was born Darius was already king, and bore rule over the Persians; but when Artabazanes came into the world, he was a mere private person. It would therefore be neither right nor seemly that the crown should go to another in preference to himself. "For at Sparta," said Demaratus, byway of suggestion, "the law is that if a king has sons before he comes to the throne, and another son is born to him afterwards, the child so born is heir to his father's kingdom." Xerxes followed this counsel, and Darius, persuaded that he had justice on his side, appointed him his successor. For my own part I believe that, even without this, the crown would have gone to Xerxes; for Atossa was all-powerful.

“Darius, when he had thus appointed Xerxes his heir, was minded to lead forth his armies; but he was prevented by death while his preparations were still proceeding. He died in the year following the revolt of Egypt and the matters here related, after having reigned in all six-and-thirty years, leaving the revolted Egyptians and the Athenians alike unpunished. At his death the kingdom passed to his son Xerxes.”

Xerxes After He Becomes the Ruler of Persia

Xerxes Inscription

Herodotus wrote in Book VII of “Histories”: ““Now Xerxes, on first mounting the throne, was coldly disposed towards the Grecian war, and made it his business to collect an army against Egypt. But Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, who was at the court, and had more influence with him than any of the other Persians, being his own cousin, the child of a sister of Darius, plied him with discourses like the following: “"Master, it is not fitting that they of Athens escape scot-free, after doing the Persians such great injury. Complete the work which thou hast now in hand, and then, when the pride of Egypt is brought low, lead an army against Athens. So shalt thou thyself have good report among men, and others shall fear hereafter to attack thy country." Thus far it was of vengeance that he spoke; but sometimes he would vary the theme, and observe by the way, "that Europe was a wondrous beautiful region, rich in all kinds of cultivated trees, and the soil excellent: no one, save the king, was worthy to own such a land." [Source: Herodotus “The History of Herodotus” Book VII and VIII on the Persian War, 440 B.C., translated by George Rawlinson, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

“All this he said, because he longed for adventures, and hoped to become satrap of Greece under the king; and after a while he had his way, and persuaded Xerxes to do according to his desires. Other things, however, occurring about the same time, helped his persuasions. For, in the first place, it chanced that messengers arrived from Thessaly, sent by the Aleuadae, Thessalian kings, to invite Xerxes into Greece, and to promise him all the assistance which it was in their power to give. And further, the Pisistratidae, who had come up to Susa, held the same language as the Aleuadae, and worked upon him even more than they, by means of Onomacritus of Athens, an oracle-monger, and the same who set forth the prophecies of Musaeus in their order. The Pisistratidae had previously been at enmity with this man, but made up the quarrel before they removed to Susa. He was banished from Athens by Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, because he foisted into the writings of Musaeus a prophecy that the islands which lie off Lemnos would one day disappear in the sea. Lasus of Hermione caught him in the act of so doing. For this cause Hipparchus banished him, though till then they had been the closest of friends. Now, however, he went up to Susa with the sons of Pisistratus, and they talked very grandly of him to the king; while he, for his part, whenever he was in the king's company, repeated to him certain of the oracles; and while he took care to pass over all that spoke of disaster to the barbarians, brought forward the passages which promised them the greatest success. "'Twas fated," he told Xerxes, "that a Persian should bridge the Hellespont, and march an army from Asia into Greece." While Onomacritus thus plied Xerxes with his oracles, the Pisistratidae and Aleuadae did not cease to press on him their advice, till at last the king yielded, and agreed to lead forth an expedition.

“First, however, in the year following the death of Darius, he marched against those who had revolted from him; and having reduced them, and laid all Egypt under a far harder yoke than ever his father had put upon it, he gave the government to Achaeamenes, who was his own brother, and son to Darius. This Achaeamenes was afterwards slain in his government by Inaros, the son of Psammetichus, a Libyan. After Egypt was subdued, Xerxes, being about to take in hand the expedition against Athens, called together an assembly of the noblest Persians to learn their opinions, and to lay before them his own designs.

So, when the men were met, the king spake thus to them: "Persians, I shall not be the first to bring in among you a new custom- I shall but follow one which has come down to us from our forefathers. Never yet, as our old men assure me, has our race reposed itself, since the time when Cyrus overcame Astyages, and so we Persians wrested the sceptre from the Medes. Now in all this God guides us; and we, obeying his guidance, prosper greatly. What need have I to tell you of the deeds of Cyrus and Cambyses, and my own father Darius, how many nations they conquered, and added to our dominions? Ye know right well what great things they achieved. But for myself, I will say that, from the day on which I mounted the throne, I have not ceased to consider by what means I may rival those who have preceded me in this post of honour, and increase the power of Persia as much as any of them. And truly I have pondered upon this, until at last I have found out a way whereby we may at once win glory, and likewise get possession of a land which is as large and as rich as our own nay, which is even more varied in the fruits it bears- while at the same time we obtain satisfaction and revenge. For this cause I have now called you together, that I may make known to you what I design to do.” [Source: See Separate Article on “Ancient Greeks and the Persian Wars”

Persia Under Xerxes

20120209-Xerxes_at_Doorway_of_his_Palace Persepolis.jpg
Xerxes at Doorway of
his Palacein PersepolisXerxes (ruled 486-465 B.C.) was the son of Darius. He was said to be a tall and handsome but is regarded by history as cruel, weak and tyrannical. He spent the early years of his reign putting down rebellions in Egypt and Babylon and preparing to launch another attack on Greece with a huge army that he assumed would easily overwhelm the Greeks. Herodotus characterizes Xerxes as man a layers of complexity, Yes could cruel and arrogant, Put he could also childishly petulance and tear-eyed sentimentality. In one episode Xerxes look over the might force fore he has created to attack Greece and then breaks down, telling his uncle Artabanus, who warned him not to attack Greece, “by pity as I considered the brevity of human life."

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Darius' son Xerxes (r. 486–465 B.C.) attempted to force the mainland Greeks to acknowledge Persian power, but Sparta and Athens refused to give way. Xerxes led his sea and land forces against Greece in 480 B.C., defeating the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae and sacking Athens. However, the Greeks won a victory against the Persian navy in the straits of Salamis in 479 B.C. It is possible that at this point a serious revolt broke out in the strategically crucial province of Babylonia. Xerxes quickly left Greece and successfully crushed the Babylonian rebellion. However, the Persian army he left behind was defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. [Source: Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004, metmuseum.org \^/]

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: “Xerxes, or Khshayarsha (485-465), who is probably the King Ahasuertis mentioned in Esther 4:6, had a troubled reign. A revolt in Egypt was followed by another in Babylon, and on this great city Xerxes released his anger, pulling down portions of the city wall and demolishing Esagila, the shrine of Marduk. The war with Greece went badly and Xerxes was forced to withdraw from Europe. In 465 he was assassinated. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

Xerxes ruled for twenty years and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes. He was murdered by Artabanus and Spamitres about B.C. 465. There aren't many monuments attributed to Xerxes.

Persians, Purim and the Biblical Story of Esther

The Chaldeans gave up Babylon without a fight in 539 B.C. to the Persian king Cyrus, who acquired Palestine and allowed the Jews to return their homeland and rebuild their temple. For 200 years the Jews lived under Persian rule. A religious revival occurred under prophet Ezar and the Persian Jewish leader Nehemiah.

Purim

The Biblical cannon was established by 4th century B.C. Some scholars think most of it was written during the reign of the Judean King Josiah (ruled 639 to 609 B.C.). This period also saw the emergence of rabbis, arbiters of law and custom.

The story of Esther — the basis of the holiday Purim — takes place in Shishan, the winter capital of Persia. Esther was a beautiful Jewish woman who lived there with her uncle Mordechai, who had adopted her. The leader of Persia was Emperor Akshashversus (also known by the Greek name Xerxes). After dismissing his wife Vashto because she refused to follow his orders, the emperor selected Esther as a new wife. She had been a member of his harem. Akshashversus didn’t know she was Jewish. Shortly after she became queen, she warned the emperor of a plot to kill him after being told of the plot by Morechai. Akshashversus was grateful.

Haman, one of the king’s favorite ministers and a fanatical anti-Semite, became enraged when Mordecai refused to bow to him and decided to vent his anger on all the Jewish people in Persia. He asked for and received permission from Akshashversus to exterminate the Jews on the false charge of treason.

Mordechai pleaded with Esther to plead with Akshashversus for help but she could only communicate with the emperor if he called her. If she called him she risked being put to death. After fasting for three days she appeared in the inner court. There Akshashversus asked her what she wanted. She said she wanted to invite the emperor to a banquet. He agreed. That night he couldn’t sleep and asked that book of records be read to him. From the records he learned that it was Mordechai who uncovered the assassination plot and saved his life. At the banquet, Esther pleaded with the emperor to spare the Jews.

Akshashversus decided that the Jews must be saved. But changing a ruling was impossible because it would mean the emperor wasn’t infallible. Instead, Akshashversus supplied weapons to the Jews who defeated troops loyal the Haman. Haman, his top aides and 10 of his sons were hung on gallows that had been prepared for the Jews.

Purim

Esther's Accusation

“Purim” (“Feast of Lots”) is held on the 14th day of the last Jewish month (in March). It commemorates the rescue of the Jews in Persia from extermination, as ordered by the Persian leader Haman, by Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai in 480 B.C. Purim means “Lottery,” and was thus named because Haman chose the date by pulling a name from a hat.

Purim celebrates the unwillingness of the Jews to compromise their religious principals by bowing to secular authority. It has traditionally been observed with the reading of the Book of the Esther in a synagogue, accompanied by noisemakers, the eating of Haman’s ear (fried, triangular cookies filled with poppy seeds, apricots or prunes) and bringing plates of goodies to neighbors and family members. In Israel, school is closed but most businesses remain open.

In Israel, Purim has evolved into a Jewish version of Carnival or Halloween in which children dress up in costumes, men dress up like women, and adults get so drunk they can’t distinguish between the words “curse of Haman” and “bless Mordechai.” It is he only time of the year that Jews are encouraged to get roaring drunk. It is not uncommon for Jews to dress up like Muslims.

Xerxes Advances on Greece

Between 499 to 479, Greece and Persia fought a series of wars that determined the balance of power in the Mediterranean. In 492 B.C., Persia was of one of the world's largest empires. It controlled a huge expanse of territory, including Greek cities in Asia Minor. Its expansion westward seemed inexorable. Greece, which consisted of bunch of disparate states that fought against one another more than they were united, seemed like an easy target.

Herodotus wrote in Book VII of “Histories”: “After Egypt was subdued, Xerxes, being about to take in hand the expedition against Athens, called together an assembly of the noblest Persians to learn their opinions, and to lay before them his own designs. So, when the men were met, the king spake thus to them: "Persians, I shall not be the first to bring in among you a new custom- I shall but follow one which has come down to us from our forefathers. Never yet, as our old men assure me, has our race reposed itself, since the time when Cyrus overcame Astyages, and so we Persians wrested the sceptre from the Medes.

According to tradition Xerxes huge army that advanced on Greece numbered 1.7 million men. Herodotus put the figure at 2,317,610, which included infantry, marines and camel riders. Paul Cartledge, a professor at Cambridge University and author a book on the Spartans said the true figure is somewhere between 80,000 and 250,000.

The endeavor of getting an army that big from Persia to Greece required digging channels across isthmuses and building bridges over large expanses of water. The huge army arrived on land this time, crossing the Dardanelles (in present-day Turkey) on a bridge of boats tied together with flax and papyrus. The first effort was swept away in a storm. Xerxes was reportedly so enraged that he ordered the engineers who built it beheaded. "I even heard," Herodotus wrote, "that Xerxes commanded his royal tattooers to tattoo the water!" He ordered the water to be given 300 lashes and threw in some shackles and denounced the waterway as “a turbid and briny river.” The bridge was rebuilt and the Persian army spent seven days crossing it.

Battle of Thermopylae

Battle of Thermopylae

Ten years after the Battle of Marathon, in 480 B.C., the Greeks got their revenge in the Battle of Thermopylae. Darius's successor, King Xerxes, showed up on the shores of Greece, this time with a huge army and Carthage as an ally. Most city states made peace with Xerxes but Athens and Sparta didn't. In 480 B.C. a force of only 7,000 Greeks met the huge Persian force at Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass who name means “the hot gates,” which guarded the way to central Greece. Lead by a group of 300 Spartan warriors the Greeks held off the Persian for four days. The Persian threw their crack units at the Greeks but each time Greek "hoplite" tactics and Spartan spears inflicted a large number a casualties.

The Persians eventually found a lightly guarded trail, with the help of a traitorous Greek. The Spartans fought the Persians again. Only two of the 300 Spartans survived. According to Cambridge University professor Paul Cartledge in his book “The Spartans” one was so humiliated he committed suicide out of shame on their return to Sparta. The other redeemed himself by getting killed in another battle.

By holding on for so long against such incredible odds the Spartans allowed the Greeks to regroup and make a stand in the south and inspired the rest of Greece to pull together and mount an effective defense against the Persians. The Persians then moved on to southern Greece. The Athenians left their city en masse and let the Persians burn it the ground with flaming arrows so they could return and fight another day. The Russians employed a similar strategy against Napoleon.

Battle of Salamis

While the Spartans were holding off the Persians, the citizens of Athens were transported by ship to a nearby island of Salamis, where Athens tricked Persia into fight a sea battle, the Battle of Salamis.

The idea of a sea battle was still a novel idea at that time. The Persian fleet outnumbered the Athenian fleet three to one. The Greeks, using light oared ships with battering rams on their bows, held the position and waited patiently as the heavy Persian ships approached one at a time and got trapped in constricted waters at a narrow passage, where the lighter Greek ships rowed out in circular formation and rammed their prows into Persian ships, which sunk. About a third of the 700 Persian ships were lost but only 40 of the 500 Athenian ships were lost.

"Ship dashed her brazen beak against ship...the sea was no longer to behold, filled as it was, with wrecks and the slaughter of men," the playwright Aeschylus wrote." Xerxes watched from a mountaintop and "shrieked aloud" as his soldiers were defeated in hand to hand combat at sea. In the Aeschylus play “The Persians”, written eight years after the Battle of Salamis, Xerxes becomes the quintessence of a despot in defeat, even evoking pity and sympathy, “Here am I, alas, O woe: / To may my native an ancestral and ./ Woe is the evil I’ve become.”

After Salamis and Greek victories at Plataea (479 B.C.) and another sea battle at Mycale (479 B.C.), the Greeks were able to defy impossible odds and drive the Persians back into Asia. At the Battle of Cunaxa, in 401 B.C., the Greeks slaughtered the Persians without suffering a single fatality. The Greek victories was improbable, even miraculous. Persia was the greatest military power in the world. The Greeks were a bunch of upstarts. Carol Alexander wrote in National Geographic that it was like "if the United States had been routed by a Caribbean coalition."

After Xerxes

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Xerxes was assassinated and was succeeded by one of his sons, who took the name Artaxerxes I (r. 465–424 B.C). During his reign, revolts in Egypt were crushed and garrisons established in the Levant. The empire remained largely intact under Darius II (r. 423–405 B.C), but Egypt claimed independence during the reign of Artaxerxes II (r. 405–359 B.C). Although Artaxerxes II had the longest reign of all the Persian kings, we know very little about him. Writing in the early second century A.D., Plutarch describes him as a sympathetic ruler and courageous warrior. With his successor, Artaxerxes III (r. 358–338 B.C), Egypt was reconquered, but the king was assassinated and his son was crowned as Artaxerxes IV (r. 338–336 B.C.). He too was murdered and replaced by Darius III (r. 336–330 B.C.), a second cousin, who faced the armies of Alexander III of Macedon ("the Great"). Ultimately Darius III was murdered by one of his own generals and Alexander claimed the Persian empire. However, the fact that Alexander had to fight every inch of the way, taking every province by force, demonstrates the extraordinary solidarity of the Persian empire and that, despite the repeated court intrigues, it was certainly not in a state of decay. [Source: Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004, metmuseum.org \^/]

Xerxes' Tomb

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: ““In 460, Egypt, supported by Greece, revolted against Artaxerxes I Longimanus (465-424), son of and successor to Xerxes, and it was not until 455 that Egypt again came under Persian rule. Darius II, son of Artaxerxes I by a Babylonian concubine, came to power following a civil war marked by numerous assassinations, and he reigned during a tumultuous time in Persian history. Satraps rebelled and weakened the empire. Fortunately for the Persians, the Greeks were embroiled in their own Peloponnesian war and were far too busy to take advantage of Persia's weakness. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

“Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-359), the next monarch, struggled through civil war, intrigues, assassinations, and a revolt by which Egypt gained her long-sought independence. When Artaxerxes III (358-338) assumed the throne, his able but ruthless approach brought the loss of provinces by rebellion to a halt and made possible the repossession of some areas previously lost. When provinces along the Mediterranean revolted, the Persian army, greatly strengthened by Greek mercenaries, attacked and destroyed a number of coastal towns, including Sidon, and opened the way for an attack on Egypt. About this same time, Philip of Macedon was uniting Greece, and now Greek armies, strengthened by Macedonian forces, were poised for world conquest.

“Artaxerxes III was murdered by a certain Bagoas, a eunuch, who exterminated most of the Achaemenid line before passing the kingship to Darius III Codommanus (335-331) because, as an imperfect man, Bagoas could not rule.

After the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great, Judea became a province of the Greek-ruled Seleucid (Syrian) kingdom.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, BBC and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2024