Xerxes

Xerxes his son took it, and killed the priest who warned him not to move the statue.

Xerxes agreed to this, and Sataspes went to Egypt where he received a ship and a crew from the Egyptians, and sailed past the Pillars of Heracles.

But Xerxes did not believe that Sataspes spoke the truth, and, as the task appointed was unfulfilled, he impaled him, punishing him on the charge first brought against him.

And still more the dwelling of Menelaus, and that of a man returned from a campaign—does he not describe it as something Persian and Median, almost not far short of the palace of Semiramis, or of Darius and Xerxes?

Or have you not heard that Xerxes, the king of the Persians, made the land sea, cutting through the greatest of the mountains and severing Athos from the mainland, and through the sea led his land army, driving upon a chariot?

When, at any rate, Xerxes and Darius drove from up-country, from Susa, a great crowd of Persians and Medes and Sacae and Arabs and Egyptians, hither into Greece to perish, were they doing a kingly or a cook's work, driving a prey to be cut up?

from that Olympiad to the crossing of Xerxes, two hundred and ninety-seven years;

Besides, if you wish to abolish the lawgiver's commandments, why is it that you try to abolish "You shall not commit adultery" and "You shall not corrupt boys" and whatever conduces to continence, on account of your own incontinence, but do not abolish the winter that He made, so as to make summer while it is still mid-winter, nor make the earth navigable and the sea passable, as those who compose …

And the Delphians, when Xerxes was marching against Hellas, the Pythia having proclaimed, "O Delphians, pray to the winds, and it shall be the better," having made an altar and a sacrifice to the winds, had them as helpers;

But at a later time, when the Persian War took place (Xerxes, who was then king, having gathered together a fleet of thirteen hundred triremes and a land force numbering five millions in all, including seven hundred thousand fighting men, and led this vast force against the Hellenes), the Spartans, although they were masters of the Peloponnesus, contributed to the sea-fight which determined the is …

For if anyone were to assert that Athens and Sparta had been the causes both of the greatest benefits and, after the expedition of Xerxes, of the greatest injuries to the Hellenes, without doubt he would be thought by those who know anything about the history of those times to speak the truth.

For they contended with the utmost possible bravery against the power of that King, but, having done this, although they ought then to have adopted sound measures also for the tasks which followed upon that achievement, they fell into such a degree, not of folly, but of madness, that they made peace with the man who had led an army against them and who had purposed to annihilate both these cities …

All these things that the Greeks performed against one another and the barbarian, occurred in about fifty years, between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of this war:

Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias.

and I am also pleased with thy proposals.

Then came the later expedition, which was led by Xerxes in person;

But of the same breed as those which have been mentioned, and of such a kind as would naturally be expected of men descended from such ancestors, are the deeds of those who fought against Darius and Xerxes.

the Lacedaemonians envying our city its victory at Marathon, and seeking to even the score, and fearing, furthermore, lest our city should twice in succession be the instrument of saving Hellas;

At least they all loved their country so much that they nearly stoned to death Alexander, the envoy from Xerxes, formerly their friend, because he demanded earth and water.

Our ancestors, though they were being deserted by all the Greeks, forcibly liberated themselves and the others too by making them assist at Salamis in the naval battle against the Persians, and so triumphed unaided over both enemy and ally, in a way appropriate to each, conferring a favor upon one and defeating the other in battle.

It was for this reason, gentlemen of the jury, that all the Greeks exchanged this pledge at Plataea, before taking up their posts to fight against the power of Xerxes.

And if that same god should say to you again, that you are to hold sway here in Europe, but are not to be allowed to cross over into Asia and to interfere with the affairs of that region, I believe you would be equally loth to live on those sole conditions either—if you are not to fill, one may say, the whole world with your name and your power;

So I imagine, if someone should say to the king’s mother Amestris, who was wife of Xerxes, The son of Deinomache intends to challenge your son;

And then, suppose that you had to make what show you could of your ancestors, and of Salamis as the native land of Eurysaces, or of Aegina as the home of the yet earlier Aeacus, to impress Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, how you must expect to be laughed at!

so, if we shall say that the wise man, equipped and adorned with the most numerous and weighty arts and virtues — not, like Xerxes, traversing seas on foot and mountains with fleets, but embracing in his mind the whole heaven and the whole earth with the entire sea — seeks pleasure, we shall be saying that he toiled so greatly for the sake of honey.

and for that one cause Xerxes is said to have ordered the temples of the Athenians to be set on fire, because he reckoned it a sin that the gods, whose house was this whole universe, should be shut up and confined within walls.

So that you would say you were listening to Tiberius Coruncanius or Publius Scaevola, chief pontiffs, not to a man who has utterly done away with all religion and overthrown the temples and altars of the immortal gods, not with hands, like Xerxes, but with arguments.

For Xerxes, indeed, stuffed with all the prizes and gifts of fortune, content with neither cavalry, nor foot-forces, nor multitude of ships, nor boundless weight of gold, set a prize for him who should discover a new pleasure — with which itself he was not content;

And again, when Xerxes came against Greece and the Thebans went over to the side of the Medes, the Plataeans refused to withdraw from their alliance with us, but, unsupported by any others of the Boeotians, half of them arrayed themselves in Thermopylae against the advancing barbarian together with the Lacedaemonians and Leonidas, and perished with them;

For what could exceed the enmity which the Hellenes felt toward Xerxes?

Thus Xerxes, although he had suffered defeats and calamities of such magnitude the like of which have never been known to befall other kings, because he preserved his life, not only retained his throne and handed it over to his children, but also so administered Asia that it was no less formidable to the Greeks than before.

And he also, he-

Trampling upon it with his cavalry,

Who whilom paved a highway down the sea,

Do you know, said I, to whom I think the saying belongs—this statement that it is just to benefit friends and harm enemies?

But how much more easygoing Xerxes!

And so Xerxes, more wretched from shame than from loss, gave thanks to Demaratus, because he alone had told him the truth, and permitted him to ask what he wished.

Yet the very man who wept was himself about to bring that fate upon them, and was to destroy some on the sea, some on land, some in battle, some in flight, and within a brief span to consume those for whom he feared the hundredth year.

When the most insolent king of the Persians spread out his army over vast plains and could grasp not its number but only its extent, he poured forth tears that within a hundred years not one of so great a host of young men would be left alive.

If they were able to bestow on the Romans, why did Minerva not defend Athens from Xerxes?

It was in this year that Cyrus put to death Autoboesaces and Mitraeus, who were sons of Darius’ sister—the daughter of Darius’ father Xerxes—because upon meeting him they did not thrust their hands through the corê, an honour they show the King alone.