Xerxes the Great

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And in this episode we're going to explore what we know about his life and reign from beginning to end. Just who was the real Xerxes? This is the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and this is the story of Xerxes the Great. Our guest today is fan favorite, the reverend Lloyd Luellen Jones, professor of ancient history at Cardiff University and the author of Persians, the Age of Great Kings. Lloyd, great to have you back on. It's so nice to be back with you, it really is. It really is the case isn't it? We think when the name Xerxes gets thrown about you might think of Zack Snyder's 300, the Persian invasion of Greece, but there is so much more to his story. Absolutely. It's one of the most fascinating kings of antiquity I think. Yeah, his legacy is there. I mean, he still lives with us in a way. He's one of those kings that was written about in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the 19th century. I mean, you know, he still has a cache about him, I think. Can we talk about his name first of all? Because it seems such a peculiar name today. Xerxes, really recognizable. Was it weird at the time? Not necessarily. I doubt very much if it was his birth name, his given name. It's a throw name. I think all of the Okiminid kings, actually, when they came to the throne, they adopted a symbolic name. Of course, we know him by his Latinised name, his real name in ancient Persian, an old Persian, was Xerxes. Xerxes. We're not calling that the name of this podcast. It's good meaning to it. It means something like ruling over the heroes, something like that. So it's quite a grand, strong name. Yes, it's said something about him and he chose that for himself. So it says something about his self-perception, doesn't it, as well, you know? So has he left many sources behind, not just the Greek historians like Rodotus, do we have a lot of different sources for learning about his life? We do, yes. Now, I can say that with a caveat. Most of them are royal inscriptions. So written in Cuneiform, they tend to be trilingual, so they tend to be in old Persian, Babylonian or a Cádion, and also in Elamite. They are on the whole A historical, and what I mean by that is they tend to be very repetitive and they tend to say the same thing like I am Xerxes, King of kings, King of all lands, King of all countries, son of Darius, who was the son of high stapsies, and are committed, you know? Doesn't give us a lot to play with, but as we'll go on to talk about, there are one or two inscriptions absolutely unique to Xerxes. So I think we'd be really hard pushed to write a biography of Xerxes, given just the Persian material, so we have to look at the Greek material, but we have to look at the Greek material with a kind of new set of eyes. You know, I'm always after the Persian version of something, so what I'll try to like to do is to strip away the kind of Greek writings and see if there isn't sitting underneath that, you know, something which is more indigenous Persian. So let me give you a story, a very famous story that's told by several Greek historians, Elyana, I suppose, is the one that we know the best. It's this account that when Xerxes goes on his expedition to Greece, he comes across this beautiful plain tree, okay? And this gives him shade and everything, and according to the Greeks, he falls in love with this tree, okay? You know, just sort of passionately in love with it and it gives it necklaces and yearings, and as he would have mistrust, okay? And of course, you know, this has been picked up and handled in his opera Xerxes of the 1750s, you know? That very famous lago, omra, maifu, under your shade is, you know, all to do with this. Well, I think what the Greeks are doing there is obviously kind of making a mockery on something they don't quite understand. Because remarkably, we have found a little seal, a little cylinder seal with the name of Xerxes on it, and it shows Xerxes in front of a tree, and what he's doing is, he's giving gold offerings to this tree because trees are kind of semi-sacred to the Persians. So it's part of a tree cult. So the Greeks are misremembering or deliberately twisting part of a Persian theological way of life, you know, that Xerxes would have been very familiar with. So that's what I mean when we can look for a Persian version that sits beneath the kind of Greek gloss that goes on top of it. It's searching for the historical basis of one of these more far-fetched stories. Yeah. So I think we should always be alert to the possibility that there's something sitting beneath it, you know, not all, it doesn't work all the time, but, you know, every now and then something emerges. So let's get the background sorted straight away. What does the Persian world look like in the early fifth century BC, just before Xerxes takes the throne? Okay. So his father has been on the throne and derives the great for some 30 years at this point. We've covered in a previous episode. We have indeed. Absolutely. And so he is ruling the biggest empire of the world had ever seen. And here we're talking about the center of the empire, of course, his southwestern Iran around the ancient sites of Persepolis and Susur and Pasagadai. It's reaching out to Babylon as well, one of the main centers of a key-minded life. But it stretches then to the west. It goes all the way to the deserts of Libya, right the way down the Nile to Ethiopia, north to the Crimea, and then in the east, right the way across the east to Afghanistan, Pakistan, to Northern India. I mean, this is vast, vast territories. And Derias the great to kind of secured this. Derias was one of those kind of born brieurocrats, you know, he just had like red tape, you know, running in his veins. But he was the one who kind of, you know, set up the satrapy systems, the system of governors, usually members of the royal family. So by the time Zerks, he's come to the throne, what we have there is a mature and safe empire essentially, you know, Derias has really set the rules. The king's law, the data of the king is flourishing in every part of the realm, all of which are linked together with incredible communications. If they can travel to come. Amazing, amazing roads, crisscross the whole empire. And we know that people are traveling enormous distances because we've got these little sort of travel rations, you know, in these Persepolis fortification tablets, which we spoke about a long time ago, some of my favorite things, they, you, you, you'd think they're going to be as dry as the dust they're written on, but you know, they're absolutely packed full of detail. And we get, you know, accounts of people traveling from Memphis in Egypt, all the way to Kandahar in Afghanistan and being supplied with food and drink and translators and all of that as they go. I mean, that, it's a really remarkable system. So that's the world that Derias leaves behind him. It is an amazing set, the scene moment, isn't it? Derias, he doesn't just leave one son, does he? No. There's always seems to be a bit of a succession crisis as Persians, as the Persian empire goes on. So at the time of his death, we know that Derias had had at least six wives. I mean, concurrently, Persian kings were polygionists, plus any number of concubines as well. So the harryms of his palaces were packed with women and with children. Now one of the, I think the real failures of the Persian royal system was that they never adopted primogeniture as a go to means of the succession. So that meant essentially that when a king died, unless he appointed an heir, it was open game. Anybody could do it. Now I think there's a rationale for that. We shouldn't dismiss it. And I think we have to remember in antiquity, the mortality rate was very high for children and even to live into your adulthood, into your teens. Was a perilous thing. You just didn't know if you were ever going to get that. So I think kings were prepared to hedge their bets and almost play this kind of game of Russian roulette with their perspective, airs holding off on appointing one until, they were secure that they'd reach their maturity, the things looked okay. Also I think there's something in the non-primogeniture system which allows a king to choose the son that most appeals to him who has the right qualities to be a king as well. So this idea of not having a favorite today is very much out the window. Oh, completely. Completely, completely. No, no, they needed their favorites. Now the other thing that we get, and I think I would not want to dismiss this, although some scholars are a bit more apprehensive about saying this, but I think it's right. That's the power that the mothers of these boys had as well. Within the imperial system, nobody could get closer to the king than one of his women in bed with him. What happens between the sheets takes away the mystique of monarchy in a way. Herodidus says interestingly that Darius had many sons, but in his opinion, Zerksy's was a dead ringer for the crown because his mother, Atossa, was all powerful. Which is really, really fascinating why then? Why is this woman? Why does she have this kind of cache? Well of course, Darius had had several wives before he became king, and he had sons from these wives. But once he became king and you'll remember that he grabs the crown in a kind of coup d'état, he marries all the available Persian royal women and brings them into his harim and begets children straight away. And Atossa, Zerksy's mother, is the eldest daughter of Cyrus the Great. Ah, very prestigious. Very prestigious. Zerksy's is the first son born to Darius after he comes into his own as king and has the blood of Cyrus the Great flowing in his veins. So I think what we have there is a case of what we can call porphygeniture. That means born into the purple blood. The royal blood is in his veins. And so this is why he's chosen as king. And I don't want to dismiss this idea that Atossa herself pushed this idea constantly, of course as well. It's to her advantage, you know, because if Zerksy's became king, she would become queen mother. And there was nobody to touch the queen mother. Whereas wives and concubines of kings can drop from status, you know, depending on the favor that the king shows them, the queen mother, who is the link between the two generations of kings, she can reign supreme in the harim. She has the rank of the highest woman in the empire. So I think Atossa has a very important role to play in this. It's good to mention that as well. I mean, so Darius dies in the mid for 18. That's great. And he's not assassinated. No, no. He dies, yeah, absolutely of natural causes as far as we know, absolutely. And almost straight away, we have a series of inscriptions set up by Zerksy's stamping his authority on the empire. The first one is an inscription that we know as the harim inscription because of where it was found at Persepolis. And there, Zerksy's mixer, a very bold statement. He says, my father had many sons, but of his sons, I was the greatest. And the word there is Mathishtor. So he's absolutely. So he acknowledges that there could have been a succession crisis. And maybe there really was, you know, which he overrides, of course, you know, but then this statement, I was the greatest greatest Mathishtor. You know, that really puts his seal on what's going on. And what we find throughout the early part of Zerksy's reign, in all of his inscriptions, he makes a real play at being the son of Darius all the time. So as though we can't emphasize that enough, you know, he needs people to recognize his legitimacy as as King through his, through his ancestry in particular. So this is a real motif of, of Zerksy's earliest inscriptions, constantly son of Darius and a key minute son of Darius and a key minute keeps on saying this all the time. And he builds on his father's reputation quite literally. So around about 519 BC, we know that Darius started the big, big building project at Persepolis. Right. So, you know, this becomes one of the sort of state palaces, a kind of ceremonial center for the empire. This is Darius's baby. It comes from his mind. And he builds. Like a famous Appadana today. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. So the Appadana is one of Darius' buildings. And this is all on a platform, a tact, which is sort of 30 meters off the ground. I mean, it's one of the most spectacular ruins of antiquity. It's an incredible sight to walk. Originally, during Zerksy's lifetime, the entranceway to that platform was in the south of the tact. Zerksy's decided that he was going to enlarge that. And he changes the access. He blocks off the old access of his father. And he builds a new gateway with a double staircase on the eastern side, which goes up to this most enormous gateway, which he calls the gate of all lands or the gate of all peoples. And it's flanked with two bulls on one side and two human-headed wing bulls on the other side, very assyrian in its look. And this becomes the portal through which all of these dignitaries and diplomats come every year in the springtime to give their offerings to the great king, to give him their gifts, their diplomatic exchanges, to hear the king's speeches, to show their loyalty to him. So you get, with the creation of that, a kind of real sense of confidence in the empire and what he's inherited from his father. And in fact, we have several empire lists from Zerksy's reign, where he enumerates, we have meads and elamites and Ahasians and Khosamians and Yauhna and all of this. We get actually to the number of 33 peoples under Zerksy's, which is actually bigger than Darius' province town. And Yauhna are the Greeks, are they? Yauhna are the Greeks, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Same word in modern Persian today, actually, from Greece, Yauhna, it remains the same. So yeah, I think a sense of real confidence about him in that respect. And maybe that is a reaction to some of the political problems that he faced in reality, art his succession. Now, I dare say there must have been skirmishes with some of his brothers. I was going to ask, I mean, do we know anything about his relationship with all of these half brothers? Well, yes, we do, mainly from Herodotus, Cotiseus and some other Greek sources as well. We, he had a load of full brothers, sons of Atossa, and of course, many, many more half brothers. And by and large, you know, his relationships with his brothers were pretty good, not bad at all. Many of them fought in the Persian wars alongside him, for instance. Some of them even lost their lives, you know, for him. And he appointed many of them as satirats in different parts of the empire, as well as these kind of regions acting on his behalf. But I think there must have been some kind of antagonism at the beginning, you know, maybe like Darius is very first born son, who was a son of a woman who came from a very, very high ranking Persian noble family, the family of Gobias. I can't see that he would have, you know, given up his potential so easily. So while the source is a silent, I think it's quite feasible to think there must have been a bit of a clash with a few of the brothers or half brothers. But of bigger concern to Xerxes was the fact that Egypt erupted into rebellion, immediately at the death of Darius. And so we see that Xerxes, heads and army, goes off to Egypt, quells the revolt. And that's a really great thing. This is in the first year of his accession. So that's, you know, immediately saying, look, I'm serious here, you know, it also shows us that he's a good military man as well. You know, we shouldn't dismiss him at all. On his way back from Egypt, in fact, he puts down another rebellion in Babylon. These are the always the kind of, you know, litmus tests for kings, you know, Babylon and Egypt. Babylon and Egypt, can you hold them, you know? And again, he does a good job of putting down the Babylonian rebellion too. So we can see in the very first year of his reign, he's a very active individual, you know, and he stamps his mark on the empire. Always in the shadow is of his father, but nevertheless, you know, he's there. And he says, you know, I am King now. Okay, I'm, you know, I'm in the same line as Darius. You remember how he ruled you? I will rule you the same. And I think that's, that's kind of an interesting thing. And he's that how Xerxes portrays himself during this period, you know, this idea that he's a young, active, energetic ruler. Yes, the great old Darius is dead, but rejoice. We've got a young, yeah, absolutely. You rule on a throne now and he's going to continue it. And I think, I think he can say that with genuine honesty, because he's been trained for governance by his father. So about 14 years ago, we discovered amidst the archive from Persepolis, a tablet that hadn't been translated before. And it's a document which talks about a reserves of food and drink, being sent to the satriple palace in Parthia, in Northeastern Iran, from, from Central Iran. And that's where Xerxes is serving his time as a governor. So I think that what the King's great Kings tended to do was to test their sons by giving them important satirapies to look after. So we see Xerxes going through this period of, I suppose, an apprenticeship, really, governing a large and important province. So we know that he has that kind of background. The other thing I think he does after his father's death is to provide his father with a fitting funeral as well. And that's a very important thing to do is to bury your ancestor, your father, in particular. And we know that Darius's Courtaige traveled from Susa to Persepolis, where he's buried, in this great kind of catafluck. And there was sort of a period of mourning declared across the empire. And we know that Xerxes establishes a cult for the worship of his father as well. Persian kings weren't gods. They didn't see themselves as gods. But certainly now we have more understanding that they took on a kind of divine essence after their deaths. And despite of what Herodidus tells us, they didn't have these kind of cults or temples or statues. We know now that they really did have these. And we have found recently in Babylon from the archives their reference to a cult of Darius and to offerings being given to Darius and to his statue as well. So I think Xerxes did all the right things in the first year of his accession. He buries his father with great dignity and great honor. And he shows himself to be a warrior king. And this is what his father himself puts on his tomb facade. We are, I am a Persian man. The spear of the Persian man has gone far. As a horseman, I'm a good horseman. As a spearman, I'm a good spearman. As a bowman, I'm a good bowman. And Xerxes lives up to all of those ideas that his father has. So that image that we have of straight away, this boy king who can't quite live up to his father, I don't think stands at all. No, it seems like he really does succeed in that potentially troublesome, absolutely. Immediate years taking the throne in that succession time. During that time, do we know who was closest to him? I mean, is his mother still around and influencing him? Yes. And in fact, Tossa comes into her own in the indigenous Iranian sources of this period. So whereas during the lifetime of her husband Darius, we only get like six mentions of her in the port, Persepolis fortification text. Suddenly, with her accession to the role of Queen Mother, she's everywhere. You know, I mean, she's the principal lady in the land, you know? So, yes, absolutely. She really sort of swells in appearance. And also, of course, the other woman important in his life is his one known, one named consort. He must have had many more. And that is a woman called Amestris, which is based on the Persian word meaning strength, which says something about her as well. So here we have this ideal couple, both ruling over heroes and woman of strength. That's the way they want to project their image. And she is the daughter of a very, very high-ranking Khan, sort of tribal leader indeed. And so it's a great match between these two kind of tribal houses. And she gives him a whole brood of sons and daughters as well. So, and they're already born by the time Xerxes becomes king. So, you know, he comes with a ready-made family. The throne is set to continue. And he must have had many other consorts and concubines as well, of course. So again, another packed harry. And of course, we should remember that Xerxes appears in the Hebrew Bible. And just in a guy is that soul. So in the book of Esther, which was probably written in the fourth century, so about a hundred years after Xerxes death, it's set during the reign of Xerxes. So according to the Hebrew scribes, Esther is a wife of Xerxes as well. It's just that in the Bible, he's called Ahasairas, which is the the hebrized version of Xerxes essentially. In a world where swords were sharp. And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians. Me? Matt Lewis. Me? Dr. Alan Aryanaga. Dive headfirst into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Do we know much about the harem of Persian rulers, including Xerxes? Do we know much about its composition? Yes, I think that the best way to see it as in any kind of high level court society, it must have had a real strict hierarchy to it, where clearly you have the mother of the king holding the prime position. Since a king could have many wives, but he could only ever have one mother, of course, so she holds that principal position. Then he can have a numerous consorts. Now we know that in Persia, the queens, the wives of kings, only come from Persian families. So they never marry outside of the Persian blood. Is that the blue blood idea, is it? Yeah, I suppose. Well, it's to keep these family lines, these great noble alliances with the great households of the Persian tribes to keep them going. But then he could take foreign concubines, mainly many foreign concubines. And these came in so many different forms, so they could be given as gifts, diplomatic gifts. They can be taken as war captives and war booty. Basically, what we're dealing there, of course, is with sex trafficking. But these women, these women who become concubines, they are not insignificant because we have several occasions when the sons of concubines become king. And so a concubine from the lowest rank of the harem suddenly finds herself in the next generation as the queen mother. So there's a political game going on in the harem all the time. Some colleagues feel this is all a Greek fantasy. I don't think so at all. The harem is a feature of many ancient courts and in courts ever since. Think of the Qing in China, think of the moguls in India. These are important aspects of the politic king of the royal family. So we find exactly the same thing in Persia. And how important were Unix to Xerxes' rule and indeed to Persian rule? That's interesting. Xerxes did use Unix in his court and these are castrated men, of course. And the importance of them, I suppose, is that, well, there are several things going on here. First of all, as castrates, they were thought of as being more loyal. They didn't have families of their own. So they weren't going to try to work for the betterment of their own family at all. They tied to the king. Precisely. There's all this Greek philosophizing on Persian Unix. The Greeks really find it very problematic. So they say, Cyrus the Great probably started this trend. He didn't. They were much, much older than that. Unix had been in the Near East since the fourth millennium. But the Greeks say, oh, he castrated men to make them more like docile dogs if you cast a dog, or if you castrate a horse, it becomes more docile. So it makes these men docile. I don't think there's any necessarily truth in that, but the Greeks tried to justify it in that kind of way. What it really meant is that these castrated individuals become really kind of like a third sex. So it means that they can easily go between the inner world of the central court or the inner court, which includes the harem, of course, into the outer court of men, of governance as well. So this is why they're very often used as messengers. Messengers. As go between. And we find that in the Hebrew Bible, in Herodotus, they understand that that's the kind of idea about them. But they could also be very important counselors, counselors of state, officers of state, and important individuals in the army as well. We have unit generals as well. So they're omnipresent in a way. Why would you put yourself through castration? Well, I think there's two forms that go on. We have unix who are castrated before puberty. And therefore they stay essentially like boys. They don't really develop and they voice this day high and so forth. And then we have individuals who will have themselves castrated post, I know, post youth. And therefore, the testosterone has developed and they, to all intents and purposes, they look like real men. It gave these individuals access into the very heart of Persian royalty. And that's the way it's always been. If you think about the forbidden city in China in the 18th, 19th centuries, these men had extraordinarily access to power. And we hear them with Xerxes, do we? Yes, we do, absolutely. And in fact, Cotiseus, who is one of our chief sources for this period, he's a Greek from Knydos who lived in the Persian court for 17 years, he automatically kind of lists the influential unix every time he talks about a new succession of a king. Interesting. So he'll say Xerxes became king. The unix who were influential under him were blah, blah, blah, blah. And he will name him in that way. So yes, there was definitely a reliance on these men who were advisors, civil servants, military men, all of these things wrapped into one. You mentioned Knydos there in passing. So that's part of the Greek world, but it's in, it's on the western coast of Turkey. That's right. Not too far from, from Bodrum, modern day Bodrum. So it's within the sphere of motion, from Empire. And of course, the biggest thing many people remember with Xerxes is his massive, ultimately failed invasion of Greece. We're not going to cover that in detail on today's chat, because we've done an episode of the Deterlettes. We've Dr. Rulkhanan and I as well. Two episodes. One, both the invasion of Greece by his dad to rise and by Xerxes too. So we'll kind of cover it quickly, but I think an overarching question, two cover it, will be how much of Xerxes is reigned? I mean, how much attention does he really give to the Greeks? How much would you argue? Not as much as the Greek sources suggest, but the Greeks are not irrelevant to him either. And I think that's chiefly because during Xerxes early reign, he's still looking at the idea of expanding the Empire, both East and West. That's still something that his father had done and he'd like to do. And that's the kind of thing that's reflected in these Empire lists as well. For the satiraps on the Western borders of the Empire, so that is in modern day Turkey, in these kind of Greeks speaking city states like Miletus, Ephesus, Asadus, this kind of thing. And obviously what went on in the Ejern and across the Ejern in the Greek mainland was of importance to them, of course, you know. And I think it's because of that that really Xerxes was kind of encouraged to think about bringing the Greek mainland under his control. Don't forget many of the Greek city states of Northern Greece, Macedon, Beosha, Thebes. We're already kind of Persian friendly, Persian allies, some of them had even been satirapies. So there wasn't this sharp divide between Greece and Persia that the kind of, you know, the traditional histories have portrayed. It wasn't really like that. But I think that Xerxes really wanted control of the Ejern more than anything else because the Ejern obviously bleeds into the Mediterranean, Mediterranean gives you access to the Nile, this father Darius, a dug canale which went from the River Nile across the desert to the Red Sea. Can you believe it? It's amazing. And that meant that, you know, a trade ship could go right the way down through the Nile, the Red Sea, around Arabia into the Persian Gulf. I mean, you know, so I think the access there to the Ejern is something that really appealed to Xerxes and not made much of in the sources because, you know, Herodotus and the others want to make this an ideological war more than anything else. I don't think it was for Xerxes. And I think if we could put ourselves in Xerxes shoes for a moment, I think that for him, you see, the Persian Wars were a success. You know, what did he accomplish? Well, he accomplished two things that he set out to do. The first was the sack of Athens. Great. Perfect. That's what I wanted. Burn down the wood in the crockless. Complete. Complete thing. I mean, it's devastated. The second thing is he takes the head of Leonidas, the king of Sparta. And for Xerxes, Leonidas would have represented chaos. This is their victory, the best of them up. I'm not supposed to. It's about exactly, you know. So that's hailed as, you know, a great tragedy for the Greeks, but also a moment of sort of ideological triumph where Greece comes into its own and Xerxes loses out on something. I don't see that at all. I think Xerxes would have seen this. I've taken the head of a liar king. He's believed in Arta, this concept of Arta, which means truth. And this concept comes from his chief god, Ahura Mazda, the wise lord. And Ahura Mazda is a creator god. He is a god of everything light and good. And the Persians believe that when the world was created, when Ahura Mazda formed the universe, he formed the king at the same time as well. So the king is set in his place to rule, naturally, the world. So anybody who rebels against the Persian king doesn't follow Arta, is not following the truth at all. And therefore they call these rebels liar kings. So Xerxes would have identified Leonidas and all of the Greeks as adherence of Drauga the lie. So the mystic leaders as well, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The man who wins the battle of Sanitans. That's right. Absolutely. So all of these are labeled in that way. And I think that's a really interesting concept for us, you know. So I think as far as Xerxes is concerned, he came back from Greece, not with his tail between his legs, but actually quite triumphantist. And he returns from Greece personally, not because he's ashamed of what's gone on, but he goes back to put down another rebellion in Babylon. But it is coincidental, isn't it, that his decision to return to Asia does happen right after the Athenian victory, the best of Sanitans. Absolutely. I mean, so I was going to ask, is this idea of Xerxes back in Asia and he's a defeated monarch, but what you were saying there sounds like it's not. No, it's not. It's a pragmatic return. Babylon is far too important to lose. You know, if Xerxes has a choice of a Babylon or Athens, it will be Babylon every time. Okay. So that's what takes him back. It's so easy then to put the spin on it, isn't it, you know, that he goes back and defeated man. It's not true at all. I think there's a great what if, you know, what if the Persians hadn't had to deal with Babylon at this time? What if Xerxes had stayed around in Athens, you know, what would have happened? In my opinion, I think he would have marched into the Peloponnes. I think he would have crushed Sparta. I think Sparta would have disappeared. So there would have been no Peloponnesian war. And I think that probably Xerxes would have chosen Athens to be the new satriple capital for Greece for you, you know, and he would have installed, I think, a Persian satriple plus, I think, a Greek and a Athenian maybe, a governor, maybe even thermistically, since I've been there. You know, because one thing that the Persians didn't do was to kind of completely overturn local systems. And so if thermistically has had already been seen as a good thing for the government, for in Athens, then I wouldn't be surprised if Xerxes would have left him there. Well, shall we elaborate on this thermistically, Xerxes think, because we do think of thermistically fighting the Persians, which he did. You know, he's the great admiral who wins the best of the Salamis in the film 300, of course. He actually kills derives, doesn't he? Oh, yeah, yeah, please. We won't go down that route anymore. We won't delve more into the Greek-Operian wars for now. We very much know your allegiance, Lloyd. But with, can we explore this relationship between Xerxes and thermistically, because it doesn't end with them fighting. I mean, how does this actually become a bit of a friendship as time goes on? Well, it's bizarre, isn't it? You know, people say never burn your bridges, right? So, like, what happens to thermistically? Is it kind of typical of any Athenian politician who's been there for too long? He gets ostracized, right? You know, he's literally voted out of office and has to go into exile, which I think is a really good idea, and that any politician should always be under threat of ostracism. So, you know, this happens numerous times in Athenian democracy. And so, he becomes, thermistically, he's become this kind of vagabond, really. And he goes sort of bounces around different city states, and he can go to the island of Fassos to see if he can't, like, you know, stay there. He finally ends up in the Persian Empire, in Asia Minor, close to the city of Daskileon, which is a satrapple capital there. And he actually goes and sees the satrapp and says, look, do you think I could, you know, do you think I could appeal to the king and he could give me a home or something? Could I live here? And so, the satrapp says, okay, well, I'll write in on your behalf, you know, he writes to Zerxes, and Zerxes invites him to Susa, and not only invites him to Susa, but gives him a house there, gives him a pension, and thermistically, he's becomes completely Persianized. He learns Persian to fluency, and he lives at the rest of his life as a guest of state, beyond Zerxes reign into the reign of his son as well. So, isn't it strange, you know? Just prudent mention that as well. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, yes, absolutely. It makes a big thing of that, absolutely. Isn't it incredible? Yes, you don't even hear about that part. No, no, these sworn enemies, you know? They find a way, it's really quite nice. I like it. In a world where swords were sharp, and hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians. The Matt Lewis And me, Dr. Alan Oriannaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. So, what do we know about Zerxes' rule after he returns to Persia to Asia? So he puts down the Babylonian revolt, and then how does he promote himself? Well, it's kind of interesting. This is when we get a change in the tone of these royal inscriptions. So what we get now is an area that's really uncharted by Persian kings before. So in the 1930s, when Hertzfeld and his team were excavating Persepolis, they discovered these really elegantly carved, quenayiform blocks, okay? Trilingual. And in it, Zerxes says something really strange. So he says, you know, the usual I am, Zerxes great king, son of Darius, and all of that. And then he says, it's kind of come to my notice that in my empire, there are people who worship the divers, the divers, and they do not worship a whoremaster in the right way and at the right time. And a whoremaster is the great guardian. It's the great guardian. God of, you know, this is wise Lord, this creator God. And he said, you know, some of the, there are some peoples who reject him altogether, right? So you've got to read between the lines and all of this. Who are these some peoples who are rejecting? Is his experience of Greece on his mind, you know, or is it Babylon that he's still thinking about? But somehow he's aligning, of course, theology to politics here, okay? But what about this word divers, then? Divers. Well, diver comes from an Indo-European word, which is linked to things like the Latin deus, the Welsh du, the French du, so it's a word for God. But within its Persian context, diver can also be linked to a modern Persian and modern Arabic word, div, div, which means like a wicked spirit. So we could call it something which is like something satanic or something evil or something dark. So, you know, it's like a worshipping evil gods. Mesopotamian demons, possibly, possibly, okay? So he's not, so yeah, I don't think you need to do that. I think, I think he's, he's applying this word to mean gods who are not Persian. Ah, okay, okay. So, you know, this is really odd in a world of polytheism. Nobody ever gets really bothered by other gods, you know, people just recognize different countries have different gods. The Jews in antiquity, you know, they get worked up about this, okay? Because you know, by the second temple period, they've got their monotheistic god. Xerxes is kind of preempt in that idea, I think, in this thing which we call the diver inscription. You should be worshipping a hurramaster in the proper ways and at the proper times, he says, which suggests that there is a kind of codified system of worshipping this god with certain rituals and certain festivals or certain times of the week or the day or whatever it might be. So this is the only time we get this idea that the Persians are imposing a religious ideology on their empire. It is completely out of touch with Cyrus the Great who was happily worshiped, you know, whatever gods were available. And likewise, derias as well in derias, you know, when he conquers or goes into Egypt as a Pharaoh, you know, he worships Egyptian gods, it's no problem. Xerxes certainly seems to have almost this kind of zealot like attachment to a hurramaster. Given the amounts of different cultures within the Persian empire at that time, the superpower, such an inscription, if they try and enforce it and dare they try and do persecutions almost, that is going to cause his reputation to absolutely absolutely. Absolutely. It is so unlike the Persians, you know, so something strange is going on here and that strangeness is emphasized by the fact that Hertzfeldt and his team discovered these and they are beautifully made inscriptions. They really are, but they found them in the most unlikely context. They found them taken off the walls, packed off the walls and they were actually in the latrines and the drainage channels underneath Persephalus. So somebody has chosen to, you know, to decry these things by literally putting them in their place and doing their business over them. The question is, who was it? Who was it? Now, we know that towards the end, there are tensions among Xerxes many sons. So just, you know, this is history repeating itself. Okay, so Xerxes has a long reign and long reigns tend to be dangerous for kings towards the end. So how long are we talking? What are we saying here? We are talking about 30 odd years on the throne. Okay. 20 years or so after the invasion of Greece. Yes. Maybe 15, something like that. We start, you know, but Tiri has got a family of sons who are already, you know, in their 20s, you know, some of them are actually early 30s as well. And so they're all sort of chomping at the bit. So you have a go at being king. And there's one in particular, a boy who is known as Orcas. He seems to be particularly sort of ambitious for the crown. And if we pull together all of the different classical versions that we have of what happens next, it seems that Orcas starts working with a group of courteous in particular a group of influential uniques in order to plot perhaps the overthrow of his father, Xerxes. Now this might sound again, you know, like a kind of Orientalist fantasy, but we have a Babylonian text which becomes so important for us because the Babylonians, of course, were great astronomers, Skywatchers. Okay. So they were always looking out for omens. And in the Babylonian star chart, which is essentially like a diary of what goes on in the sky every day, the astronomical diary. Yeah, exactly. Some Babylonian astrologer simply writes down, you know, there was an eclipse of the moon a normal happily, nothing, nothing incredible on this particular date. And then the entry ends Xerxes as it were, his son killed him. It's really amazing. So this is the only extra classical source to talk about Xerxes assassination. But of course, frustratingly, we don't know which of his sons did it. Okay. But my money has to be on Orcas, I think, who wasn't the eldest of the sons. And in fact, what Orcas manages to do in the last months of Xerxes life before he is killed, he manages to instigate a plot against his eldest brother, Derias, and has the boy executed, the man executed. So he's gotten rid of his chief rifle already. This man is, this Orcas is really a mover and shaker. And what we get from the Greek historiography is that Xerxes personal life is in chaos, right? And, you know, I don't know how much emphasis we really should put on it. But, you know, well, the Greeks are certainly interested in it. So for instance, there's this or another example. Yeah. So there's this great story that Xerxes, with all of these women in the harry, you know, could choose any woman in the empire as a lover, he decides to have an affair with his daughter in law, who is this Prince Derias, his wife. And there's a very interesting tale that's told about this. So the King's wife, a mistress, she makes the King with her own hands. His beautiful robe, a sort of riding coat. And she gives it to him. And it's, you know, a great gift, obviously, you know, a great pride to a mistress that she's done this. But this mistress of Xerxes, a girl called Arte Yinti, his daughter in law and his niece at the same time, his brother's daughter, she says to the King, oh, I'd really like that. Please, can I have it? You know, and the King says, well, no, my wife made it for me. But, you know, far than my daughter. But anyway, she keeps on and on and on. And so she gives it to the girl. But the girl doesn't keep it for herself. She sends this robe to her father, whose name is my sister's. And Xerxes full brother. Now, this is one of those moments where you have to look at for the Persian version, okay? Because if you, if you just think, oh, well, you know, that's a bit of an insult, doesn't it? You know, you know, to a mistress and all of this. No, it's more than that. Because a robe worn by the King in ancient Persian thought kind of took on his father, took on his power, okay? So a King sometimes would gift a robe of his to a favored courtier and the courtier would wear it just on his shoulders. And this would be a huge mark of honor. Xerxes has not gifted this to his brother. It's gone via his mistress to his brother. And basically what Artyinti and her father are doing is they are claiming the kingship through him wearing this robe. Right. So it's, this is, this is treason, really, okay? Now Xerxes who's always portrayed in the Rodiders, you know, as, you know, hebristic and stupid. Let's put it that way, okay? Doesn't see any of this, but a mistress does. So what does a mistress do? Well, interestingly, she doesn't punish the girl because she's the mistress of Xerxes and kind of untouchable. But instead she brings the girl's mother, my sister's wife to court. And she has her guards mutilate her, chops off her nose, her lips, her ears, cuts off her breasts and throws those to the dogs. And then sends this poor woman in this mutilated state back to my sister's house. And of course the woman dies thereafter. But my sister's is seen. What is, what has happened? And then there's an open rebellion between these two brothers in which my sister's is then killed. So this is the background to Xerxes final years. Chaos within the royal family equals chaos within the empire. You know, things will only decline sharply. And maybe it's because of this that ocus and this group of unoks do what they do. Xerxes is murdered in his, in his bed. That's where he is. And actually Xenophon writes, you know, about the, the, the, the, the, the, the, frequency of assassination in Persia, he says, you know, and nowhere is a king more susceptible to the knife than when he's in his bed, in his bath or drunk. You know, and this is the way that Xerxes, great Xerxes is killed in his bed. And I find it interesting. However, the cause of Xerxes is rain. You see his extended family get cut down. Yes. Oh, personally, either by Greek troops. Yes. His moderny is his entire brothers. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. They're the shadow of what are their former selves. And what's interesting, you know, when he is succeeded by ocus, who takes the throne name, art exerxes, comes out of Xerxes the first, okay? Ocus actually goes to a whole program of Xerxes courteous. So all the old guard who used to, you know, look after Xerxes advise him. So they're all there. They're out. All executed. So this is a fresh start. And I think that those incredible diver inscriptions were probably hacked off the walls under Xerxes the first instructions. And there's also a very interesting thing as well, because at the center of the two staircases in the Great Appadana epicepilus, there were once this big relief of a king and his crown prince standing together. And that was probably meant to be Xerxes and Prince Darius, that they were hacked off the wall too. They weren't destroyed, but they were put away in the treasury out of sight, out of mind. And I think that's again is on the order of at exerxes trying to get rid of his father. So we have a complete change around. Don't we? Of this idea that Xerxes was so reliant on his, his link with his father, but at exerxes wants to kind of distance himself from his father. And his official inscriptions at exerxes will say, I am the son of Xerxes, the son of Darius, the son of Hystapses. So he gives the line there, but he'd rather get back to being an achaemenid and just using that title really than lingering with his father. So he just doesn't stop at I am the son of Xerxes. And that could potentially be, of course, the infamous end, but maybe Xerxes' policies later on, which maybe were looked upon very unfairly. I think there's something in that, because what we find in these next lot of achaemenid kings at exerxes I, Darius II, at exerxes II is far more evidence of them worshiping other Persian gods, such as Anahita, Mithra. So was Xerxes trying to get rid of all deities apart from a Hura Mazda? Was there really a kind of religious revolution? Was an act of underweight. Absolutely. Was something like that going on? Yes. So there's a lot more to Xerxes than Mithriai and a lot more than we just see in the Greek historians. Lloyd, this has been such a fantastic chat. I mean, how would you say, how should we view Xerxes today? I think we should see him as a very able king who, during the heights of his power, was an active politician, a good military commander, a good leader, somebody who was very aware of the empire that he created. However, as he got older, there seems to have been this religious nagging pull that he's trying to deal with as well. That's not unusual, again, in long rains, you know, for people to take different approaches that have become obsessed with other things. I think there is a slight change in the personality of Xerxes towards the end. But I think by and large, we should judge him far more favorably than historians have usually given him justice. We've covered a lot of history, but is there anything you feel we should briefly mention before we wrap up any other achievements that we should highlight? I think more than anything, it's the kind of legacy that he's left behind for us because he is one of the best known Persian kings. He has been written about constantly, he's been portrayed on stage, on screen, in opera, and I think it's lovely that he's there. There's only been one attempt, however, to write a biography of him by the late Richard Stoneman, a really fine classical historian who went to Iran about ten years ago, fell in love with the place, like we all do when we go there, you know, and attempted to write this story of Xerxes. I would love to see more people attempt in that with more Persian great kings anyway, because we can do it if only we look for the Persian version. Well, this has been such a fantastic chat. You have, of course, written about the Persian Empire, which focuses also on Xerxes' line. That's right, absolutely called Persians, the Age of the Great Kings. Well, as always, it's such pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for coming back on. Thanks so much, Tristan. Well, there you go. There was the fantastic Reverend Professor Lloyd Luelland Jones returning to the show to talk through the story of Xerxes, the great, showing how there is so much more to that Persian king's story than just his ill-fated invasion, of course. If you want to learn more about that invasion, well, you can listen to Lloyd and Dr. Ruhl Kanai Nadiq talking through that campaign in an episode that we did about this time last year. I hope you enjoyed it. Please follow the ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Now don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. This is all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.