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Xerxes I, commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of Darius the Great and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great. In Western history, Xerxes is best known for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC, which ended in Persian defeat. Xerxes was designated successor by Darius over his elder brother Artobazan and inherited a large, multi-ethnic empire upon his father's death. He consolidated his power by crushing revolts in Egypt and Babylon, and renewed his father's campaign to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and its allies for their interference in the Ionian Revolt. In 480 BC, Xerxes personally led a large army and crossed the Hellespont into Europe. He achieved victories at Thermopylae and Artemisium before capturing and razing Athens. His forces gained control of mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until their defeat at the Battle of Salamis. Fearing that the Greeks might trap him in Europe, Xerxes retreated with the greater part of his army back to Asia, leaving behind Mardonius to continue his campaign. Mardonius was defeated at Plataea the following year, effectively ending the Persian invasion.
Xerxes II was a Persian king who was very briefly a ruler of the Achaemenid Empire, as the son and successor of Artaxerxes I.
Darius I, commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
Darius III was the last Achaemenid King of Kings of Persia, reigning from 336 BC to his death in 330 BC.
Artaxerxes I was the fifth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, from 465 to December 424 BC. He was the third son of Xerxes I.
Arses, known by his regnal name Artaxerxes II, was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 405/4 BC to 358 BC. He was the son and successor of Darius II and his mother was Parysatis.
Arses, also known by his regnal name Artaxerxes IV, was the twelfth Achaemenid King of Kings from 338 to 336 BC.
Ochus, known by his dynastic name Artaxerxes III, was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 359/58 to 338 BC. He was the son and successor of Artaxerxes II and his mother was Stateira.
Atossa was an Achaemenid empress. She was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the sister of Cambyses II, the wife of Darius the Great, the mother of Xerxes the Great and the grandmother of Artaxerxes I.
Amestris was an Achaemenid queen, wife of king Xerxes I and mother of king Artaxerxes I.
Parysatis was a Persian queen, consort of Darius II and had a large influence during the reign of Artaxerxes II.
The history of Persian Egypt is divided into two eras following the first Achaemenid conquest of Egypt punctuated by an interval of independence:
The Orontid dynasty, also known as the Eruandids or Eruandunis, ruled the Satrapy of Armenia until 330 BC and the Kingdom of Armenia from 321 BC to 200 BC. The Orontids ruled first as client kings or satraps of the Achaemenid Empire and after the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire established an independent kingdom. Later, a branch of the Orontids ruled as kings of Sophene and Commagene. They are the first of the three royal dynasties that successively ruled the antiquity-era Kingdom of Armenia.
The Achaemenid dynasty was a royal house that ruled the Persian Empire, which eventually stretched from Egypt and Thrace in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.
Damaspia was an Achaemenid queen, wife of the king Artaxerxes I and mother of Xerxes II, his legitimate heir.
Stateira was an Achaemenid queen, consort of the Persian king Artaxerxes II and mother of his successor, Artaxerxes III.
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the largest empire by that point in history, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres. The empire spanned from the Balkans and Egypt in the west, West Asia as the base, the majority of Central Asia to the northeast, and the Indus Valley to the southeast.
Persica is a lost Ancient Greek text, divided in 23 books, on Assyrian, Median and Persian history written by Ctesias of Cnidus, a physician at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II. The work's style and value for the study of the Achaemenid history have been a subject of much controversy among modern scholars.
Aspasia of Phocaea, daughter of Hermotimus, was carried away from her country to be in the harem of the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger, who so admired her beauty and her superior qualities of mind and character that he made her his favorite wife, nicknaming her "the wise one" (sophe). She may or may not have been a hetaira.
Tiridates was a eunuch in the court of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, described as "the most handsome and attractive man in Asia", and the king's lover. He features in Claudius Aelianus's account of Artaxerxes, in his Varia Historia, but is absent in the accounts of a similar time frame of Xenophon and Plutarch. Scholars generally believe some of the later writers were referencing different, earlier accounts of events that are now lost.
References
- 1 2 3 Llewellyn-Jones 2022.
- ↑ Schmitt 2011.
- 1 2 Waters 2014, p. 193.