Xerxes I
Achaemenid king (c. 519–465 BCE), son of Darius, who led the great invasion of Greece and fought the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis.
Read in context →Biography
Xerxes I (c. 519–465 BCE), the fourth Achaemenid King of Kings, was the son of Darius I and Atossa (daughter of Cyrus), giving him descent from both founders of Persian power. He succeeded his father in 486 BCE, suppressed revolts in Egypt and Babylon, and is best known for his vast invasion of Greece in 480 BCE — the campaigns of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea — which ultimately failed and checked Persian westward expansion. He devoted later years to monumental construction at Persepolis, completing the Gate of All Nations, before being assassinated in a palace conspiracy in 465 BCE and succeeded by Artaxerxes I. A notable nuance is that the lurid portrait of Xerxes in Greek sources (Herodotus, Aeschylus' Persae) is hostile and shaped by the Greek victory narrative, whereas Persian and Babylonian evidence presents a more conventional, capable monarch.
Quotes & narrations
«I am Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king in this great earth far and wide, son of Darius the king, an Achaemenid.»
«Thou who shalt be hereafter, if thou shalt think 'Happy may I be when living, and blessed when dead,' have respect for that law which Ahuramazda has established.»
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Xerxes"
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Xerxes I"
- Herodotus, Histories, Books 7–8 (read critically)