Xerxes

Description

Xerxes I of Persia often referred to as Xerxes the Great used to be the fourth king of the kings of Achaemenid Empire. Xerxes used to be crowned and succeeded his father in October-December 486 BC when he used to be about 36 years old. The transition of power to Xerxes used to be smooth due again in part to the great authority of Atossa and his accession of royal power used to be not challenged by any person at court or in the Achaemenian family, or any subject nation.

Almost immediately, Xerxes crushed revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap (Old Persian: khshathrapavan) over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down the golden statue of Marduk the hands of which the rightful king of Babylon had to clasp each New Year’s Day. This sacrilege led the Babylonians to rebel in 484 BC and 482 BC, so that in up to date Babylonian documents, Xerxes refused his father’s title of King of Babylon, being named reasonably as King of Persia and Media, Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah) and King of Nations (i.e. of the world).

At the Battle of Thermopylae, a small force of Greek warriors led by King Leonidas of Sparta resisted the much larger Persian forces, but were in the end defeated. According to Herodotus, the Persians broke the Spartan phalanx after a Greek man referred to as Ephialtes betrayed his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. After Thermopylae, Athens used to be captured and the Athenians were driven back to their last line of defense at the Isthmus of Corinth and in the Saronic Gulf. What happened next is an issue of a few controversy. According to Herodotus, upon encountering the deserted city, in a fit of rage uncharacteristic even for Persian kings, Xerxes had Athens burned. He immediately regretted this action and ordered it rebuilt tomorrow. Alternatively, Persian scholars dispute this view as pan-Hellenic propaganda, arguing that Sparta, not Athens, used to be Xerxes’s main foe in his Greek campaigns, and that Xerxes would have had nothing to gain by destroying a major center of trade and commerce like Athens once he had already captured it.
Xerxes I of Persia often referred to as Xerxes the Great used to be the fourth king of the kings of Achaemenid Empire. Xerxes used to be crowned and succeeded his father in October-December 486 BC when he used to be about 36 years old. The transition of power to Xerxes used to be smooth due again in part to the great authority of Atossa and his accession of royal power used to be not challenged by any person at court or in the Achaemenian family, or any subject nation.

Almost immediately, Xerxes crushed revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap (Old Persian: khshathrapavan) over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down the golden statue of Marduk the hands of which the rightful king of Babylon had to clasp each New Year’s Day. This sacrilege led the Babylonians to rebel in 484 BC and 482 BC, so that in up to date Babylonian documents, Xerxes refused his father’s title of King of Babylon, being named reasonably as King of Persia and Media, Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah) and King of Nations (i.e. of the world).

At the Battle of Thermopylae, a small force of Greek warriors led by King Leonidas of Sparta resisted the much larger Persian forces, but were in the end defeated. According to Herodotus, the Persians broke the Spartan phalanx after a Greek man referred to as Ephialtes betrayed his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. After Thermopylae, Athens used to be captured and the Athenians were driven back to their last line of defense at the Isthmus of Corinth and in the Saronic Gulf. What happened next is an issue of a few controversy. According to Herodotus, upon encountering the deserted city, in a fit of rage uncharacteristic even for Persian kings, Xerxes had Athens burned. He immediately regretted this action and ordered it rebuilt tomorrow. Alternatively, Persian scholars dispute this view as pan-Hellenic propaganda, arguing that Sparta, not Athens, used to be Xerxes’s main foe in his Greek campaigns, and that Xerxes would have had nothing to gain by destroying a major center of trade and commerce like Athens once he had already captured it.