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Sometimes you just want a good story. On TikTok, you'll find short dramas, emotional, fast, and impossible to stop watching. Download TikTok now. Today, we're talking about a guy who burned Athens to the ground. But he's also found in the Old Testament for saving the Jews from annihilation. The same ruler that the Greeks called a mad tyrant was loved by his own people for being a devout, thoughtful man carrying out the will of God. He ruled an empire that was one of the largest the world had ever known. His power stretched from the Indus Valley in the east to the Aegean and Egypt in the west, from the deserts of Central Asia to the coasts of North Africa. He builds palaces so magnificent that their ruins could take your breath away. 2500 years later, he launched an invasion of Greece with somewhere between 100,000 and over a million men. And he lost. His name was Xerxes, also known as Ahasuerus. And his political and religious influence across the ancient world is one of the most outstanding and misunderstood understood in all of history. And today we're getting into all of it. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, dude? Welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, and controversial stories from all history forever. Yes, this is the place. This is the tent where I sit down every single week and try to understand everything that's ever happened. That's what I do here. And there's been a lot of stuff that's been going on. I don't know if you know this, for thousands of years, things have been going on, things have been happening, and I'm just trying to catch up. You know, I only got here in the 90s, so here I am diving into one of the most interesting and misunderstood leaders in all of history. But before we jump in, I just want to say thanks so much for tuning in. Every time you click on the content and you comment, you like, you really make my dreams come true. You keep the lights on in this campsite and of course you keep the fire burning. I also want to give a big shout out to all the people over at patreon. Patreon.com Camp Gagnon. That's the inner sanctum. That is the fire. And it is ultimately where people gather, you know? So if you're interested in getting closer, talking to like minded people and connecting with your fellow camp mates, that's the place to do it. All right? And I hope you join us and become more like yourself. That is Camp Gagnon@patreon.com. now, it's also not possible without my good friend Christos. He's over there at Patreon. How are you, Christos? Doing great. All right, all right, all right. Now let me ask you one more question. Okay? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't even ask, dude. I didn't even ask. Have you been enjoying talking to people over at Patreon? They're great. All right. Okay. That's all we needed. Now let's jump in to this guy, King Xerxes. All right, I've gotten a lot of comments. We did an episode. I forget which one it was, but it was on, like, Iran. And a lot of people were like, dude, you got to cover Xerxes, right? Like, it was just a bunch of comments over and over and over like, dude, you got to share this guy Xerxes. I was like, all right, let's, let's. I've heard the name before. It's a sick name. If you meet a kid named Xerxes, you're like, oh, that's. You are a Persian badass. Going to be. The name of my first son is really? I think so. Dude, as a Greek, that is crazy work. Can I say you can't do that? I'm not going to let you do that. All right, because we're going to explain why that's funny later. But basically, this guy Xerxes is, I mean, one of the more interesting and important leaders in all of ancient history. And today we're going through all the details of why. Now, again, I'm not a historian. This is just my research. So if there's anything I missed, please drop a comment, let me know. Now let's jump in. So to understand Xerxes, you actually have to understand where he came from and who his parents and his grandparents were. So Xerxes actually inherits an empire known as the Achid Empire. And it was by almost every measure, the actual first true superpower in all of human history. But where does this empire come from? Well, it all starts with Cyrus the Great. This is Xerxes grandfather. And in the mid 6th century, Cyrus United the Persians and the Medes and conquered Babylon and built an empire that stretched across the entirety of the Near East. Now, let me also say this is 6th century BC this is how long ago this was. And Cyrus was unique in the sense that he was actually loved by the people, which is pretty rare for ancient conquerors. You know, typically conquerors just destroy and you know, vanquish all the people of the towns that they're conquering. But Cyrus was a little bit different. He was known for his tolerance. For example, he conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and he actually freed the Jewish people from their captivity and allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. And the Hebrew Bible actually calls Cyrus God's anointed one, which basically likens him to like this messianic figure in a way. And in Jewish and Christian history and theology, that's a massive deal. And then after Cyrus came Darius, Darius the First. And this is the king who would basically take the empire to its peak. Now, Darius was a Persian noble who married Cyrus's daughter, Atossa. Atossa is one of the most prominent women in all of Persian Iranian history. And it's interesting because Darius did not inherit the empire by blood, though he did belong to a different branch of the Achaemenid family. Now, Darius the First was less of a conqueror and more of an administrator. He divided the empire into different provinces called satrapes, and each was governed by a satrap. And they basically answered directly to the king. And this was very unique for the time because typically the king just had absolute control over everything. But this person, the these sage traps basically had regional control of different parts of the empire, almost like states in a way. And so it was a very modern, progressive governmental system. He also standardized weights and measures and coinage across the empire. He built the famous Royal Road, a highway stretching roughly 1600 miles from Sardis in western Turkey all the way to Susa in modern day Iran. And a royal messenger could travel the entire length in about a week using this relay system of fresh horses and riders. So as a result, a message could go from the Aegean coast to Susa in roughly seven days. And this is something that no other empire on earth could match at the time. Even Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, was blown away by this. He even wrote, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Now think about that. If you're able to move information and, you know, money and other really important things for running an empire across these massive distances faster than other people, you're just going to be able to grow faster. And now, if this system sounds familiar to you, it's because the United States Postal Service literally adopted a version of those words and their unofficial motto, inspired by a description of the Persian mail system from 2,500 years ago. Literally, the U.S. postal Service, like the Pony Express Type vibe. They were borrowing that message that Herodotus wrote about the Persians in their own messaging. It's crazy. And now, in addition to all that, Darius built Persepolis. Now Persepolis wasn't a capital in the traditional sense. The empire had several administrative centers including Susa, Babylon and, you know, a bunch of other places. But Persepolis was the ceremonial heart of the empire. It was where the king received tribute from all the nations under his rule, where the grand festivals were and where the sheer power of Persia was put on display for the world to see. Darius began construction around 550,18 BC and the complex was still being expanded when Xerxes actually took the throne. Now Xerxes was born around 518 BC, roughly the same year that Persepolis was founded. His mother was Atossa, the woman that we mentioned before, daughter of Cyrus the Great, which meant that Xerxes carried the blood of both the empire's founder and its greatest administrator ever. Darius. He wasn't the eldest son, that was his half brother, Artabazines, but Atossa was Darius's most important wife. And the fact that Xerxes was the grandson of Cyrus gave him a lot of legitimacy that the other princes simply couldn't match. Now, of course, with every ancient kingdom, even until today, secession is a massive problem. So when a monarch or a king or a pharaoh, whatever, has a kid, they're probably going to have multiple wives and ultimately all of those kids will be princes. But it is the kid with the most pure bloodline or the kid that is the favorite of the monarch that is ultimately going to take the throne. Or there might be a battle, a civil war, some type of assassination, who knows? But, but in this case it was Xerxes that takes the throne. So when Darius dies in 486, Xerxes ascends and basically takes control of the most powerful empire on Earth. He's roughly 32 at the time. But Xerxes didn't have, you know, an easy day stepping into this new role. He didn't exactly inherit a completely peaceful kingdom. He inherited kind of a crisis. You see, there were two major problems that Xerxes was facing. The second, he takes power. The first problem was Egypt. You see, Egypt at this time had revolted against Persian rule in 486. And this was right around the time that Darius had passed away and the rebellion needed to be crushed before it could inspire all these other provinces to follow. Now Xerxes moved quickly. By 484 he had suppressed the Egyptian Revolt with crazy efficiency basically stripped Egypt of many of the privileges that it actually enjoyed under Darius and immediately installed his brother Akinyes as the satrap. This was a Xerxes that really understood that empires are held together by determin termination as much as they are by administration. The second problem was Babylon. Babylon had been a jewel of the empire, an ancient, wealthy, culturally significant city that both Cyrus and Darius had treated with great respect. But once again, Babylon revolted as well, possibly twice during the early years that Xerxes had the throne. And Xerxes response to this rebellion was extremely harsh. Greek and other later sources claim that he damaged Babylon's main temple and carried off or potentially even destroyed the golden statue of Marduk. This was Babylon's chief deity. And this was an act that would have been seen as extremely sacrilegious to the Babylonians. And modern scholars are divided on this to this day. Some see the accounts as exaggerations or maybe misinterpretations. And so the ultimate fate of the statue is still debated. What isn't debated though, is that Xerxes treated Babylon far more harshly than his predecessors had. And the city never quite recovered its former status within the empire. So Xerxes empire was on fire basically. And in the middle of putting out those fires, he returned to an old family grudge. And that's Greece, sorry, Christos. Now, in 490 BC, Darius had sent an invasion basically across the Aegean Sea to punish the Athenians for supporting a revolt in the Persian province of Iona. That invasion ended in humiliation at the Battle of Marathon, where a heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians on the beach near Athens. Darius had been planning a second and much larger invasion right before he passed away. So Xerxes basically inherited this problem that he couldn't accept this disrespect and this basically proxy war with the Athenians. And according to Herodotus, the primary Greek source for basically everything that follows in the story, Xerxes initially had no interest in invading Greece. It was his cousin Mardonius and other advisors who pushed him towards it, arguing that Greece's insult to Persian honor couldn't go unanswered. If we let them disrespect us, everyone's going to disrespect us. Da, da, da, da. It was a whole thing. So Herodotus even describes Xerxes having troubling dreams that pushed him towards the invasion, as if like the gods themselves were demanding that he go do this. Now we need to pause here real quick because we got to talk about Herodotus basically, he is the reason that we know most of what we know about Xerxes. But he is also the reason why much of what we know might actually be wrong. You see, Herodotus wrote his histories in the mid 5th century BC, and it remains one of the most important works of ancient literature. He's literally called the father of history by some people, but he was Greek and he was writing for a Greek audience. And his account of the Persian wars was inevitably shaped by Greek bias. In Herodotus's records, the Persians are often described as arrogant and excessive and foolish and basically what you would describe an enemy as. While the Greeks are very, you know, brave and clever and they love freedom and all that stuff. Right. So Xerxes in particular comes across as very emotional and impulsive and prone to these fits of rage. And according to Herodotus, he whips the sea when a storm destroys his bridge, like as a way to punish the ocean, and then he beheads his own engineers. He is, in short, everything that the Greeks believed a barbarian king would be. I mean, if you've seen the movie 300, then you know King Xerxes as this screaming tyrant who throws waves of soldiers at 300 Spartans. And, you know, this is why that depiction exists, because it is a product of, you know, Greek propaganda and filtered through 25 centuries of Western storytelling. Right. I mean, the victors always write history, as the saying goes. So, of course, if we have records from the Greeks, it's going to be their interpretation that shapes how we view their enemies. Right, Christos? Or the truth, or maybe. All right, let's just see. All right. I would argue that the real Xerxes is probably more complicated. So our boy Herodotus and our Greek sources are probably a little bit biased or correct. Yeah. So we just have to consider this when we're referencing them right. Now, the good news is that we do also have some Persian sources. Xerxes himself left inscriptions at Persepolis and at the Naksh, a rostam that basically paint a completely different picture. And in these descriptions, Xerxes presents himself as a very pious and deliberate ruler who's acting under the guidance of the, you know, of Ahura Mazda, the supreme God of Zoroastrianism. He doesn't describe himself as a raging tyrant. Now, of course, what tyrant would describe himself that way? But he goes on to describe himself as righteous and maintains the cosmic order. And of course, these inscriptions are propaganda on the other side. They never mention the defeats and they present the king as literally a servant of God. So in a way, they're kind of a counterweight to the Greek version and the records that we have from Herodotus, the truth is probably in between. So fast forward, Xerxes is getting ready for his invasion of Greece. Now, by ancient standards, what he puts together is incomprehensible. All right, so once again, Herodotus claims that Xerxes marched with 1.7 million soldiers, plus cavalry, plus a massive naval fleet. Now, virtually no modern historian takes that number seriously. They look at it and they're like, all right, it probably wasn't 1.7. I mean, logistics alone make it impossible. You can't feed 1.7 million people while on campaign, and you can't supply them with enough water. I mean, it's just impossible. Modern estimates will range from like 100,000, maybe 300,000, which is still crazy. And roughly a fleet of like, 600 to 1200 warships. Even on the lower end, that's still maybe the largest military force that the ancient Mediterranean world had ever seen up until that point. And even at 100 or 200,000 men, you're talking about a literal city of men going to kill you and destroy you and your people and take everything that you've ever had. I mean, think about that. The preparations for this would take years. Now, Xerxes ordered a canal dug across the peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece. This is a massive engineering project that he designed in order to try and avoid some treacherous waters that had previously wrecked one of Darius fleets. He also ordered two pontoon bridges to be built across the Hellespont. Now, the Hellespont was this narrow strait separating Asia and Europe. Today, it would be between Turkey and Greece, roughly. And each bridge stretched roughly a mile across open water. And then when a storm destroyed the first set of bridges, Herodotus tells us that Xerxes ordered the sea itself to be whipped 300 times and had chains thrown into the water as punishment. He was basically trying to punish the sea or the God of the ocean to send a message, basically like, hey, don't mess with my stuff. And then he had the engineers beheaded and he built a new bridge. Now, did this actually happen? We don't know. Again, there is a biased record coming from Greek sources. It's the exact kind of story that the Greeks would have loved to have told about Xerxes or any other Persian king. Like, oh, yeah, he got his bridge destroyed and he killed all his buddies. Isn't that this guy's crazy, huh? So, again, we don't know but even if the whipping story is embellished, the bridges themselves were probably real and they were an engineering marvel. There were hundreds of ships basically lashed together side by side with planks laid across them to create a road that was wide enough for an army to march over the sea. It reportedly took the army seven days just to cross. And then in the spring of 480 BC, Xerxes led his forces into Greece. What's up guys? We're gonna take a break really quick. Cause I gotta tell you a story. Imagine you're sitting in your house, it's cold outside, it's a little snowy. And you're like, man, I just want a panini. So you go and you order it, you know, from Doordash or something like that. And it never gets to you. You're looking at the app, you're like, dude, it's been four hours. Where's my panini? You're calling? No one answers. Well, this is a true story that happened. There was a woman, a client that was working as a doordash driver, and she slipped and fell on an icy walkway outside of a Panera Bread in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She breaks her elbow, which leads to surgery and hardware having to get inserted into her arm. She can't work. And originally, you know, she sues Panera. And Panera's like, okay, we'll give you like 125,000. But then the good people over at Morgan and Morgan fought for her and got her the million dollar verdict that she deserved. Yes. If you never heard of them, Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. Yes. And they are that way for a reason. They've been fighting for the people for over 35 years. Now, I'll be honest. If I ordered, you know, a panini and the woman gets paid a million bucks because she slipped, I mean, it's a tragic thing to happen, of course, but I deserve a little bit of that. I should get a cut at least, right? I'm the one that ordered the panini. If I never ordered that panini, she never would have slipped, never got a million bucks, which obviously she deserved. You know what I mean? But maybe next time she gets a million and million point one, I can get a cool a hundred thousand out of that. Regardless. All I'm saying is if you're ever injured and you are looking to get the money that you deserved, the compensation that is entitled to you for from your injuries, Morgan and Morgan could be the way to go. Hiring the wrong law firm can be disastrous. I mean, you can be locked up and litigate. It's a nightmare. But hiring the right law firm could substantially increase your settlement. And with Morgan and Morgan, it's easy to get started. Their fee is $0 unless they win. That's right. Their fee is free. Unless they win your case, you don't pay zero. You pay zero cents. Unless they win your case, you can visit forthepeople.com gagnon g a g n o n that is f o r the people.com gag gagnon or dial pound law. That's pound five hundred and twenty nine from your cell phone. That's for the people.com gagnon. Or click the link in the description below. And thank you so much to the good folks over at Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring this program and making this show possible with this paid advertisement. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you know what time it is. It's time to level up. And bluechew just dropped something wild. Okay? Bluechew's been rocking with us from the beginning, so of course we have to rock, pun intended, with them. All right? And what they've just done is change the game. All right? This is next level gold, metal, energy. This bluechew gold, if you've never heard of it, this is the newest innovation from the number one chewable ed brand. All right? This isn't the little blue pill that your grandpa used. This is the four in one beast that is setting the gold standard for performance. We're talking two ingredients to keep the good times rolling, okay? Mixed with apomorphine and oxytocin that are going to turn up the arousal and the connections in your brain as well as the ingredients to keep the blood flow to keep everything pumping. Okay? Bluechew gold dissolves in your tongue and works in as little as 15 minutes. And that means you're going to be rocking quicker and staying in the game longer. Let me just say that's how we put this tent up every single episode. We give Christos a bluechew. And you know what? We have this tent rocking all year round, okay? That's what it takes. Now, I recommend this in a, you know, a married, Christian relationship, but you know what? You guys can do whatever you want. Bluechew is the ultimate service to get you these chewables to your door in a discreet way to keep the bedroom on fire. We have a special deal for the listeners of this program. You're going to get 10% off your first month of bluechew gold if you use the code Gagnon G A G N O N. That's promo code Gagnon G A G N O N. You can visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And thank you so much to Bluetooth for keeping the lights on and making this show possible. Now let's get back to it. The Greeks were terrified and unfortunately very divided. Many Greek city states just submitted to Persia without a fight, offering, you know, water and food as tokens of surrender. And the ones who chose to resist, primarily Athens and Sparta, were vastly outnumbered. Their first line of defense was a narrow coastal pass in central Greece called Thermopylae. And this is the part that basically everyone knows if you've seen 300 or you know, even ever heard about the story, or at least it's what people think that they know. You see, King Leonidas of Sparta took a small force of roughly 700 Greek soldiers, including his famous 300 Spartans, and he held the narrow pass against Xerxes massive army for three days. The pass was so narrow that the Persians, even though they had this numerical superiority, they were basically meaningless against the Spartans and the other Greeks. They could only send a few men through at a time. And so the heavily armored Greek hoplites cut them down in waves. But this is what's really interesting because the battle of Thermopylae wasn't actually a Greek victory. A Greek traitor named Ephialtes showed the Persians a mountain path that actually allowed them to outflank the Greek position. When Leonidas realized that they were surrounded, he dismissed most of the Greek army and basically stayed behind with, you know, his 300 Spartans in order to fight. And unfortunately they were annihilated. The cost of resistance was made clear when Xerxes went on to destroy the city of Plateau and Thespe and the homes of the allies who stood with Sparta. Now Xerxes continued to march south and Athens was directly in the path. But when the Persian army arrived, they found Athens nearly empty. The Athenians had already evacuated. So Xerxes ordered the city to be completely burned. The Acropolis, the sacred hilltop that was the heart of Athens and you know, all its temples and everything was destroyed. This act would have had enormous consequences. I mean, burning Athens would become a rallying cry for Greek unity and eventually would serve as justification when Alexander the Great burned Persepolis over a century later. But Xerxes triumph at Athens was even, you know, shorter lived than that. The moment that would defy the entire evasion basically came at sea during the battle of Salamis. In September of 480 BC, the Athenian commander Themistocles lured the massive Persian fleet into the narrow straits between the island of Salamis and the Greek mainland. And these waters were so confined that the Persians numerical advantage once again became a liability. This is basically like a repeat of Thermopylae, but now at sea, their ships were packed too tightly to maneuver and the smaller, more agile Greek triremes actually just tore them apart. Herodotus tells us that Xerxes watched the battle from a golden throne set up on the shore. Literally just posted up on land, watching the ocean and all of his troops fighting. And he actually witnessed the destruction of his navy in real time. Now whether that specific detail is true or not, we don't know, but the outcome was devastating. Xerxes lost roughly a third of his fleet in a single afternoon. Now, with the fleet crippled and his supply lines at risk, Xerxes did the rational thing. He cut his losses and took the core of his army home. He left behind a large force under his general Mardonius to continue the campaign. But the following year, the Battle of Plateau. In 479, a combined Greek army army decisively defeated Mardonius and his forces. Mardonius himself was killed. And on that same day, or perhaps within days, the Greek fleet destroyed what was left of the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor. The Greek invasion was officially over and Xerxes and his efforts had failed. But the truth is, Xerxes Greek invasion, as dramatic as it was, occupied only a few years of a reign that lasted over two decades. And when you look at what Xerxes actually spent most of his time doing, it wasn't conquest or war, it was actually building. You see, Xerxes poured enormous resources into completing and expanding Persepolis. Again, this ceremonial capital that his father had actually started to build himself. And what he built there was truly staggering. So the Gate of all nations, sometimes called the Gate of Xerxes, was this massive ceremonial entrance into the complex of Perzopolis. Two enormous stone bulls flanked the western doorway. This massive human headed winged bull thing guarded the eastern entrance. And this giant inscription was carved into the stone and it says, King Xerxes says by the favor of Ahura Mazda, again the king of Zoroastrianism, I built this Gate of all Nations. Much else that is beautiful was built in the Persepolis which I found I built and which my father built. So literally just being like this is fire. I did it, my daddy did it. And that's what it is. And, you know, like every ancient monarch, you gotta throw your name on it. So every visiting dignitary, every person that brought tribute, you know, if someone was trying to do business, they had to come through and pass through the gate. And this was a deliberate reminder that they were entering the presence of the big dog, the king of kings, Xerxes himself. I mean, imagine that walking into Persopolis at, you know, an ancient new year festival of Nawruz. And, you know, Nauruz is a more cultural celebration than a religious one. So a bunch of different people would basically come together to celebrate the birth of the new year. And as you can imagine, the most impressive and bountiful Narus celebration was right in the heart of Persepolis. So you would have delegates from every single nation filing through the gate in their native dress, you know, Babylonian robes or, you know, everyone would have their different thing. Ethiopians would have the ivory. You'd have incense and roasted meat. You know, all these different people talking different languages, you know, with these massive columns. And it wasn't just a palace. It was like this statement. It was like, we have the best festivals. It's everything you can imagine now, right? It's what you would do if you were having, you know, like, Times Square, New Year's Eve, like, right in the heart of New York City. You got everyone coming together, trying to show off. And this is what they were doing even back then. Xerxes also began construction of what is known as The hall of 100 Columns, also known as the Throne hall, which, when completed, was one of the largest roof structures in the entirety of the ancient world. 100 stone columns, each over 60ft tall, supporting this massive roof made of cedar wood. The doorways were carved with these elaborate designs showing the king in combat with these mythical beasts. And, you know, this was a visual representation of the king's role as a protector of the cosmic order, so to speak. He also expanded the Apadana, which is the name of the great audience hall that his father had started to build. He added to its magnificent reliefs, which depicted images of all the nations of the empire paying tribute to the Persian people and to the Persian king. And these reliefs, or, you know, designs, rather, are some of the finest surviving examples of Achaemenid art. And they tell us something really crucial about how the Persians saw their empire. Unlike the Assyrians, whose palace reliefs glorified conquest and brutality, the Persopolis reliefs showed people coming willingly, bearing gifts, giving stuff from their homeland, dressed in their own native clothing. And the message here was that this is an empire that valued cooperation and diplomacy, not just domination and conquest. Now, whether this was actually true or if this was propaganda that was created by Xerxes and his royal court to basically paint himself and, you know, a more diplomatic and enlightened light, this is a different question. But either way, the art is extremely sophisticated and deliberate to try to present this image. Xerxes also built extensively in the cities of Susa and at Naksh I Rostam, where his eventual tomb was carved into the rock face of this massive cliff alongside the tombs of his predecessors, including Darius. Now, it's worth mentioning here that most of what we know about Xerxes as a builder doesn't come from written sources. It actually comes from the designs and the archaeological excavations at these sites. And the stones themselves kind of function as the best records. The point is this. If you know Xerxes from the Greco Persian wars, you're maybe only seeing like 10% of who this guy was. Again, he did do these wars that, you know, he won some battles but ultimately lost these conflicts. But that's only a few years out of over 20 years of ruling to his own people. He was a builder that was creating these massive cities and these giant structures. He was a patron of art and architecture and a king who expanded the physical and cultural infrastructure of one of the greatest empires on earth up until that point. Now, at this point, you've probably heard of Xerxes from, you know, the movie 300, or perhaps you know him from another episode we did here on History Camp. Or maybe you know him from a class you took in college, but you might have also heard of him in the Bible, like the Book of Esther, okay, in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament, you probably have heard the story of Hazarus. This was a great Persian king who ruled over 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. Now in the story, Hazaras throws a lavish banquet, gets rid of his queen Vashti for refusing to come dance for him and his guests. And so eventually he goes and marries this young Jewish girl named Esther, who for her safety has concealed her Jewish identity. When the king's right hand man, this guy Hemon, plots to exterminate all the Jews in the empire. Esther reveals her identity to the king and persuades him to shut down Hemon and his plot in order to save her people. The Jews are then spared, Haman gets executed and the event is commemorated on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Now, here's what's interesting. Most scholars believe that Ahasuerus is actually King Xerxes. A small number of scholars have suggested other identifications, but these remain minority views compared to the, you know, King Xerxes theory. And the evidence is pretty strong. The Hebrew name for Hazrus is widely considered to be a Hebrew rendering of the old Persian name Kashaosha, which is the Persian form of Xerxes. The Greek name Xerxes comes from the same Persian original, just filtered through, you know, like the Greek Alphabet and you know, the Greek language basically instead of Hebrew. Also, the Bible's description of Ahasuerus and his empire stretching from India to Ethiopia with its capital being Susa matches the Achaemenid empire under Xerxes perfectly. I mean, the lavish banquets, the sprawling bureaucracy, the system of, you know, royal decrees sent to all the provinces with like a road and pony express, da da, da. All that fits what we know about Xerxes and the Persian court at the time. The timeline also works here. The book of Esther places its events in the third year of Ahasuerus's reign for the initial banquet in the seventh year for Esther's selection as queen, which would correspond with roughly like 483 to 479 BC in Xerxes reign. Intriguingly, that gap between the third and seventh year is exactly when Xerxes was away leading his invasion of Greece. Some scholars have suggested that the search for a new queen began after Xerxes return from his failed Greek campaign, which would then explain the timing perfectly. But, and this is important, not every scholar agrees on this and the identification is not without problems. So for example, the Book of Esther has no corroboration in Persian records. There's no mention of a queen named Esther or Vashti in any Persian inscription. Though frankly that isn't necessarily surprising. A lot of Persian royal inscriptions don't typically discuss the king's personal life and, you know, his romance in that kind of way. Herodotus, the Greek historian, name Xerxes queen as Amestris, not Esther or Vashti. Though some scholars have tried to connect Amestris to, you know, some of these other names like Esther or Vashti through some linguistic studies. But again, it's not really conclusive. There are also historical controversies. So for example, the book of Esther describes Ahasuerus issuing a decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves and kill their enemies throughout the empire. This would have been a massive empire wide event that would have left some trace in Persian or Greek records, but there's nothing the Story has literary features like these dramatic reversals and symbolic names and like, almost like a plot structure you would expect from like a book or like a novel or something that have led many scholars to consider Esther as a historical novella, a story set in a real world, but is shaped into a festival origin tale for this holiday of Purim rather than like an actual event. Again, this is contested and debated by historians. Now given the supposed scale of the events and you know, this empire wide decree and mass killings and this last minute reversal and going right up to the edge and then saving the day at the last second and the silence of both Persian and Greek sources about any of this is one of the strongest arguments for, you know, basically going against the telling of Xerxes in the Book of Esther. Now the scholarly consensus, if there is such a thing, is something like this. The Book of Esther is set in, you know, against a broadly accurate backdrop of a Persian court under Xerxes and Hazaras is almost certainly representative of Xerxes. But the specific events of the story, the plot against the Jews and Esther's intervention, the killings, might be some type of literary elaboration rather than a strict documented historical retelling. The book may preserve genuine memories of what it was like being Jewish in the Persian Empire in 6 BC or whatever, but just wrapped in a narrative framework designed to explain and celebrate the festival of Purim. What's not debated is the cultural impact. Purim remains one of the most joyous holidays in the Jewish calendar. I actually went to Purim in Williamsburg this past year. I pulled up, it's a massive party. Like there's like lights and trucks with music. It's a celebration of like, survival and a community saved by destruction at the last minute, all that stuff. And at the heart of that celebration is a Persian king who, whether the details are historical or literary, represents the complex relationship between the Jewish Diaspora and the empire that both ruled over them and at times may have even protected them. So just an interesting detail and I think worth mentioning if we're going to do an episode on Xerxes. So religion is a huge part of, you know, Xerxes reign. He was very much into religious freedom and he himself is even referenced in the Christian Bible in the, the Jewish, you know, Hebrew, Old Testament. But now let's take a look at the final act of Xerxes life. After his Greek campaign, Xerxes largely withdrew from, you know, military adventurism. He wasn't going out on campaigns. And the last 15 or so years of his reign are kind of poorly documented. The Greek sources lose interest once you know the Greco Persian wars end and the Persian inscriptions tend to focus on the building projects rather you know, his day to day life for the monotony of his reign or the political narratives around his time. What we do know is that Xerxes continued to rule the empire, continued to, you know, build massive structures and appears to have maintained the basic administrative structure that his father had established. The empire didn't collapse after the Greek defeat. It was actually the opposite. The Achaemenid empire would endure for another century and a half all the way up until Alexander the Great actually destroyed it in 330 BC. But Xerxes end was unfortunately very violent. In 465 BC Xerxes was assassinated in his own palace. And the details here once again will vary depending on the sources. Tisius, a Greek physician who later served at the Persian court and wrote a history called Persica gives us the most detailed account. Though Tisias is generally considered less reliable than Herodotus. According to the most common version of the story. This is basically what happens, all right. The commander of the royal bodyguards, basically this guy named Artabanus conspired to kill the king. Some accounts say that Artabanus murdered Xerxes in his bed at night. Others provide a more elaborate conspiracy involving eunuchs and palace intrigue. And even Aristotle tells another version in which Prince Darius, who was Xerxes eldest son was killed first and then Xerxes, which is a reversal of the, you know, normal sequence of events. Regardless, these conflicting accounts of Xerxes death remind us how murky history gets when different sources have an agenda. Honestly, it's kind of like how the news still works to this day. The story of what we're told really depends on who's telling it and when and why. What happened next was unfortunately a bloody power struggle. Art of Banis apparently tried to manipulate the secession, possibly attempting to to take the throne himself. He reportedly told Xerxes son Artaxerxes that the murder had been committed by his brother Prince Dariu, prompting Otter Xerxes to kill his own brother. You see what's happening. The bodyguard murders Xerxes and then tells the prince basically hey, it was actually one of the other princes, you should take him out. So then when Artaxerxes eventually discovers the truth, he then kills Artabanus. I mean it's this me like what a mess. And then Artaxerxes the first takes the throne and then would rule for over 40 years. He's actually the Persian King who appears most frequently in later books of the Hebrew Bible, like the book of Ezra, Nehemiah. They both mention Artaxerxes in connection with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. And then Xerxes was buried at Naksh I Rostam. This is a, basically like a tomb cut into a cliff face alongside his father Darius. The tomb's facade shows the king standing on a platform supported by representatives of all the people of his empire, with the winged symbol of Ahura Mazda, again, that God of Zoroastrianism hovering above. And a final statement of legitimacy and divine favor basically frozen for eternity. The image of the tyrannical Eastern king drowning in luxury while his subjects are all suffering kind of became a stereotype in European thought. And I think a lot of this comes from Herodotus, Greek sources, the legacy of Xerxes, probably the Bible to an extent. And of course Alexander the Great, you know, if he's going to destroy a kingdom, we need to have a good justification. So as a result, a lot of our understanding of Xerxes has been framed in this lens. But modern scholarship has been pushing, pushing back on the narrative for a long time. The Achaemenid empire, far from just only being, you know, brutal tyranny, was in many ways one of the most progressive, large scale governments in the ancient world ever. I mean, it practiced religious tolerance mostly. It allowed people within the empire to maintain their own language and customs and local governance. It was building roads and had a, you know, a postal system and standardized commerce and coinage and all that stuff and really maintained relative peace across a massive piece of territory going all the way from the Indus river to the Aegean Sea. Some modern writers have even held up the accumulated policies like allowing subjects to keep their language and their own religions as a distant ancestor of later ideas about imperial pluralism and, you know, human rights and all that kind of stuff. Now, that might be overstated, but it does highlight how different Persian rule could look compared to a lot of Greek city states where democracy was limited to only, you know, dudes that had land and slavery was everywhere, that kind of stuff. Now this doesn't mean that Persia was, you know, a modern liberal state, but it does mean that the, you know, Europe good people over there bad, tells us a lot more about kind of how later politics was kind of written for American and European audiences. And Xerxes himself was neither the monster that the Greeks describe or the flawless king that was doing God's will that he would claim he was a ruler of this enormous empire and was dealing with rebellions and Conquest and wars and construction and religious policies and all sorts of stuff. And, of course, assassination. And he was doing it all at the same time. So, of course, he made decisions that were sometimes good and some that were terrible. He won some battles, he lost some others. Just like every ancient leader, it's not just all one way. So in other words, he was human. And unfortunately, with Xerxes being reduced to a caricature, you know, the villain to the Greeks, right? Croesus. All right, The Greeks needed a tyrant to basically make a meaningful victory, right? If Alexander the Great's gonna go in there and destroy a whole city, they gotta be bad people. The Bible needs a powerful king to make Esther's courage look so extraordinary. Hollywood needs a spectacle. And as a result, underneath all of those layers of storytelling is the real king, the guy who actually built this massive gate of all nations and had these massive festivals and prayed to, you know, Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian deity. And a lot of that was almost lost. And maybe that's kind of the lesson, that history, as we know, doesn't belong to the people who live it. It belongs to the people who tell it. And that is typically the people who win. So maybe it's time we try to, you know, listen to the actual people. But that, my friends, is an abridged history of the life of the Persian king, Xerxes. I mean, pretty interesting, Croesus. Do you have a different appreciation for this guy that, you know, tried to destroy you and all your people? Well, we took him down, so, I mean, we gotta get back. Yeah, all right. Sort of. You lost a Thermopylae. You're not gonna win all of them. I like that. I like that. You got bodied by a trader, one of your own that sold you guys out. See, that's what it took. It really does. It really does. Be your own sometime. You know what I mean? That's crazy. Damn, that's wild. Tried to tell you facts, right? Look at that. I mean, yeah, I think Xerxes is an interesting leader. I remember hearing about him. But it's just funny how, like, you get this caricature of someone in history and then you're like, oh, yeah, this guy was like a warlord. And then you're like, oh, it was like three years. He was doing some battling and he was mostly just like posted up, like, build and stuff. You know, lifespans were shorter then. So that's actually pretty long. It's decently long. All right. Yeah. You're so hung up on some ancient war dude. Get over it. You know, you guys need to just stop the Greeks with your ancient history. We won. All right, what do you guys think? If you're Greek, let me know. Is Christos being crazy here? If you're Persian, tell me how dumb Christos is. Either way, as long as they're debating about you, that's, you know, makes me smile. They're gonna tell me I'm done anyway, so. I told you. I see the AI inscriptions of, like, the. The episode commentary, and it's like the number one thing. It's like some severe and negative discourse over Christos's continual interjections. But the AI does think I'm a co host, which is. That is nice. Step up. I mean, you are basically. You know, I mean, look at us. I mean, you'll never get a camera as long as I live, but, I mean, it's not bad. We have a camera right here. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's broken. I'm almost positive it's broken. Anyway, please drop a comment. Let me know what you think. If you guys like more history stuff. Great news. We. We do these episodes every single week. We also have Religion Camp, where we deep dive on all the religious topics of the day. We also do Camp Gagnon, the main channel, where, you know, we do deep dives and all sorts of crazy stuff and interviews with people way smarter than me. And then, of course, we have Patreon. Patreon.com Camp Gagnon. We got the camp Merch site, Camp R D. I'm also on the road. Mark Agnon Live. I'm hitting a bunch of places at the end of this year with a brand new hour that I really hope you guys are going to like. And as always, if you just rock with history Camp, great news. We do these every single week. And I will see you all in the future to talk about the past. Peace.