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Posted by Webmaster on September 20 2004, 03:39 PM
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Xerxes (Old Persian – Khshayarsha) was the oldest son of Darius the Great (522 BC – 485 BC) and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great (559 BC – 530 BC), born in 519 BC. He was made heir to his father as Darius’ first son after his ascending to the throne. Various friezes of the time around 490 show Darius and Xerxes giving audiences together.
Little is known of Xerxes’ childhood. He is said to have been the most handsome man of his time and most gentle towards his friends and relatives, to whom he often used to give large presents. Peaceful by nature, he was also a good administrator and preferred the comfort of his palaces. It was very ironical, thus, that he had to fight from the first days of his reign. Darius the Great had died in the midst of his great preparations for war on Greece and the rebellion in Egypt (beginning of 485 BC). Xerxes quickly recovered Egypt (484 BC), but in order to keep the Persian presence there had to cancel the tolerant treatment of his father. The same thing happened to Babylon, which rose in revolt soon after. According to one account, Xerxes destroyed its walls and took the huge gold statue of Marduk to Persepolis, where it was melted. These events marked the beginning of a new treatment of the Persian kings towards these two countries. Cyrus had been crowned king of Babylon and Cambyzes pharaoh of Egypt, so they came to be understood as kingdoms adjacent to Persia and not satrapies like the others. But Xerxes turned them into such and had himself crowned only Great King of Persia. This example was followed by his heirs. Early in his reign he is also reputed to have subdued the Pointed-Hat Scythians (Saka tigrakhauda in Old Persian) to the north of Parthia and also to have conquered Chorasmia, south of the Aral Sea, thus completing Persian conquest in this area.
After everything was calmed down, Xerxes would have been happy to devote himself to peaceful activities, but ambitious advisors were all the time reminding him of the injuries the Greeks had done his father and how they should be punished. The most diligent of these, and in the same time the most trusted by the king, was Mardonius. He had been sent before by Darius to attack Greece and had made the rest of Macedonia subject, but his fleet had met a sudden and violent wreckage off Mt. Atos (492 BC). Now he was hoping to become governor of Greece once it was conquered. So Xerxes finally submitted to all this pressure and started huge preparations for the war, which took him no less than three years (484 BC – 481 BC). From 46 satrapies and vassal kingdoms of the Persian Empire the greatest army yet was being assembled -
300,000 troops, according to modern scholars, Persians, Medes, Indians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Lydians, Bactrians, Sacae, Armenians and even Ionian Greeks. The fleet consisted of 1000 ships from Egypt, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Cilicia, of which, according to Herodotus, the Sidonian ones were by far the best.
When the army was ready, Xerxes moved on from Susa to Sardis and then to the Hellespont, which was bridged between Sestos and Abydos. The bridge was destroyed by violent storms, however, and Xerxes grew extremely angry. He ordered to kill the engineers and to “punish” the Hellespont. After that another bridge was built and the army successfully crossed into Europe, the fleet moving along with it close by the shores. The army then marched through Thrace and Macedonia (those two were under Persian rule) and then south through Thessally, which had willingly submitted to the invaders, reaching the gateway to Greece-proper – the Thermopilae. The Boeotians had made terms with the Persians as well.
The Gates were guarded by the Spartan king Leonidas along with 7000 Spartan and allied troops. Xerxes, when seeing that they would not withdraw, sent Medes to kill them, but the attack failed, same thing with those that followed. Right then, however, fortune smiled upon the Persians, as a greedy Greek villager offered to show them a secret path, not guarded by the Spartans. Xerxes gave him the money he wanted, and the next morning the Greeks woke up with the enemy close behind them. At this new situation, Leonidas ordered the allied troops quickly to withdraw, while he along with 300 of his countrymen chose to stay behind and win time for the others to escape safely. In the battle that followed all of these men were killed, except one, according to Herodotus, who later fought bravely at Platea.
Xerxes now invaded Attica, eradicating everything on his way. The Athenians, following the advise of the Oracle at Delphi had fled to the nearby island of Salamis, so the king entered an empty city, which he set to fire, as a revenge for the burnt temples of Sardis during the Ionian revolt (500 BC – 494 BC). Meanwhile the Persian fleet had made it to Salamis as well, despite the violent storms and a few hard-fought but indecisive battles with the Greeks. Just before the battle, however, a great wing arose and threw the Persian vessels to the cliffs, causing more damage than the battle itself. Xerxes, however, was so sure of the coming victory, that he placed his throne on the sand, so that he could watch and see for himself which of his soldiers would fight the best, so that he could reward them afterwards.
Thus began the battle that would determine the course of history for some time to come. The huge Persian fleet crumbled up in the narrow strait and could not fully expand their lines and lost their organisation, which led to wild confusion. The fewer and smaller Greek ships now orderly attacked and rammed the Persian ones, who being more, did not have enough space for manoeuvring. The outcome was disastrous for them. The sand in Xerxes’ feet got dirty with blood, broken bones and skulls. The Great King chose to withdraw, not in the fleeing manner the Greeks liked to picture him, but because he feared that the Greek navy might destroy the bridge on the Hellespont and cut him off in Europe, thus threatening him with shortage of supplies. Therefore he sent the remnants of his fleet with orders to guard the bridge at any cost, while he himself chose the land way by which he had come. In Thessally was left Mardonius with a considerable force of 100,000 picked troops. He retook Athens, but was defeated and murdered in the Battle of Platea (479 BC). That same day what was left of the Persian navy was crushed by the Greeks in an engagement at Mycale in Asia Minor.
All this time Xerxes had stayed in Sardis, keeping a close watch on what was happening. Now he returned to his capitals and paid no attention to the continuing war with the Greeks. By the next year (478 BC), they managed to deprive Persia of its European possessions. A Persian army never went to Europe again. Meanwhile Xerxes launched a vast building programme, constructing magnificent palaces like the Apadana mostly in Persepolis, but in other places as well. Very little is known of Xerxes’ reign after his Greek wars. The hostile Greek forces state he became an embittered man, who devoted himself to drinking and carnal pleasures, as well as court intrigues in which he himself was the pawn. The Greeks probably invented most of these things, though.
Xerxes, called by many modern scholars “the Great”, was assassinated by one of his ministers, Artabanus, in 465 BC, and was succeeded by his oldest son, Artaxerxes. He avenged his father by slaying the murderer in a long hand-to-hand combat soon after. Artaxerxes was, according to Plutarch, the most noble and gentle of all Persian kings. He governed his subjects mostly in peace for the next forty years. |
User Comments:
| liltainted1
:: October 27 2008 |
| Xerxes is the man. He owns Cyrus the great. |
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| Themistokles
:: May 18 2009 |
Xerxes is cool, but evil.
I creamed him at Salamis!!!! |
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| Mythos_Ruler
:: May 18 2009 |
Xerxes is cool, but evil.
I creamed him at Salamis!!!!
Did you use Cool Whip or Barbasol? |
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