Xerxes I or
Xerxes the Great
(c.519-465 BC) succeeded his father
Darius I to the throne of
Persia in 486 BC, in spite
of the fact that he had an older brother
Artabazanes.
He continued his father's
war campaign against
Greece.
Their grievance was the
Greek's aid to the
Ionians revolt from Persia. He
amassed
a huge
army of around 200,000 men and in 480 BC
invaded Greece. A
famous battle occured
at
Thermopylae where a few thousand Greeks held
off Xerxes' forces for ten days before losing.
Xerxes next
conquered Attica and
Athens.
Later that year, his naval fleet was defeated by
the Athenian Themistocles, and his army suffered
huge losses to disease. Xerxes returned to Persia,
Susa to be precise, while his brother-in-law
Mardonius was left in command.
Before this campaign, however, the first thing he
had to do as king was to subdue Egypt. There
a usurper had been in power for a couple years, so
he travelled to Egypt and "chastized" them. (ahem)
He then had to deal with revolt in Babylon. Finally,
Xerxes allowed Egypt and Babylon some more autonomy
than his father had, abandoning the title of king
of Babylonia and Egypt for the title
king of the Persians and the Medes.
Xerxes was murdered in 465 BC by the captain of
the palace guard (glorified butler!)
and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes I.
According to Encarta, Xerxes is identified as the
Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther. I also suspect
that Xerces is an alternate or corrupted spelling
of Xerxes. A bas-relief of Xerxes exists on the
southern portico of a courtyard in the treasury
of Persepolis.