The name of the ruler of the Achaemenid Empire means “warrior” in translation. His life was made up of military victories, but defeats played a big role in history. The Roman historian Gnaeus Pompey Trog in the famous work “Philip's History” calls the Persian king Xerxes I “the terror of the peoples”. Indeed, the ruler of the vast Achaemenid empire struck fear into those whom he subjugated or was about to subjugate.

Xerxes I was the son of Darius I and his second wife Atossa. The date of his birth varies between 519 and 521 B.C. He took his throne in 486 B.C. with the help of his mother, who had great influence at court and did not allow the accession of Darius' eldest son from his first marriage Artobazan. After his father's death, Xerxes inherited a vast Persian empire, whose territory stretched from the Indus River in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west, and from the first threshold of the Nile in the south to the Transcaucasus in the north. Such a vast kingdom was difficult to hold: anti-Persian revolts were constantly breaking out in various parts of the empire. Suppressing them, the new ruler tried to strengthen his power in the localities even more, to make it unitary. Thus, having dealt with a rebellion in the Babylonian kingdom in 481 BC, Xerxes ordered to take to Persepolis (the capital of the Achaemenid Empire) a golden statue of Marduk, the supreme deity and patron of Babylon. By doing this, he deprived the Babylonians of the opportunity to crown their kings in the presence of their gods and thus liquidated the Babylonian kingdom, turning it from a vassal state into a grassroots satrapy.

It was important for the ruler of Persia not only to keep subordinate lands in check, but also to constantly expand his expansion. Like his father, Xerxes looked to Europe, but the Greeks stood in his way, and the history of confrontation with them began under Darius. The origins of the confrontation lay in the Ionian revolt of 499 BC, when the city-states of Athens and Eretria aided the rebels and incurred the wrath of the Persians. He intended to take revenge on the Greeks and moved to conquer Athens, but his troops were defeated at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. A few years after his accession to the throne, Xerxes decided to continue his father's work and conquer the Greek city-states. As Herodotus writes in his “History”, before preparing for the campaign, the king said to his nobles: “And the sun will not shine over any other country adjacent to ours, but I will turn all these countries with your help into a single power and will pass through the whole of Europe ... There is no more any city and people in the world who would dare to rebel against us.

The first difficulty along the way was the crossing of Xerxes' army across the Hellespont Strait (present-day Dardanelles). For this purpose, pontoon bridges were built near the city of Sista, each more than one kilometer long. When the work was finished, a storm came up on the sea and destroyed the structures. The angry king, according to Herodotus, “ordered to give the Hellespont three hundred blows with a whip as punishment, and to lower a pair of fetters into the open sea”. At the same time the people who supervised the construction of the bridges were beheaded. Then the bridges were rebuilt again and fastened more securely. On the day of crossing the Hellespont, Xerxes asked the sun god not to prevent his conquest of Europe and threw precious objects (a sacrificial bowl, a golden goblet and a Persian sword) into the water to placate the sea. This time the Hellespont was calm and the crossing was successful.

The Persian invasion began in 480 BC with the Battle of Thermopylae. Athens, Sparta and other Greek cities rallied in the face of the “Persian threat”. In order to have a real opportunity to resist the superior forces of the enemy it was decided to meet the enemy at the Thermopylae Gorge, whose narrow passage allowed to delay the Persians on their way to Hellas. According to different data, the army of Xerxes consisted of 200 or 250 thousand soldiers. At Greeks to the beginning of battle had 5 - 7 thousand soldiers. Led the alliance of Greek forces Spartan king Leonidas. Two days he managed to hold off the onslaught of Xerxes' army, but on the third day, the Persians surrounded the army of Leonidas thanks to the treachery of a local resident named Ephialtes, who showed them a mountain bypass. Leonidas, along with 300 Spartans, as well as Thespians (about 700 men) and Thebans (about 400 men, who are not usually mentioned in the legends of the three hundred Spartans) stayed to fight Xerxes until his last breath. As a result, he and his army perished, but forever went down in history because of the valor they displayed. Xerxes, along with the 300 Spartans, also went down in history as the main negative character in the story.

Xerxes himself wanted to associate his name with the conquest of free Greece. He moved on to Athens. The city, left by its inhabitants, was captured and plundered. The Acropolis was badly damaged - the statues of the gods were desecrated and smashed. After this Xerxes thought that Greece was in his hands. However, later on the Greeks won important victories at Salamina (480 BC) and at Plataea (479 BC). The Persian king, having suffered a crushing defeat both at sea and on land, had to return to Asia - the destroyer of Athens, but not the victor of the Greeks.

Having returned to his empire, Xerxes decided to dissolve the bitterness of failure with carnal passions. As Herodotus writes, at first he was “inflamed with passion” for the wife of his brother Masistus, but could not induce her to cheat. Then he planned to marry his son Darius to the daughter of Masista and thus get closer to the woman he desired. When the son brought his young wife Artainta into the house, he became cold to her mother and began to indulge in love affairs with his daughter-in-law. Amestrida, the wife of Xerxes, believed that the king's infidelity was arranged by the wife of Masistos and decided to destroy her. She arranged for Xerxes' bodyguards to disfigure the unfortunate woman beyond recognition. In response, Matista decided to revolt, but was overtaken by Xerxes and killed.

Xerxes intended to immortalize his name in history not only by military victories. His return from a failed campaign against Greece was also marked by an increased focus on architectural projects in Susa and Persepolis. He began to complete the Apadana of Darius, a large and ornate audience hall. Its roof was supported by 72 columns with skillful capitals in the form of lion or bull heads. The hall was decorated with reliefs in which delegates from 23 provinces of the Achaemenid Empire brought their gifts to Darius. Having completed the construction of Apadana, Xerxes built a palace for himself in Persepolis, far exceeding in size the palace complex of his father. It was also lavishly and skillfully decorated with sculptures and reliefs.

The fruits of Xerxes' labors did not last as long as he had hoped. In 330 BC, almost a hundred years after his death, Alexander the Great during his Persian campaign captured and destroyed Persepolis, turning Xerxes' palace and the famous Apadana into ruins. The legendary general did exactly the same thing as the once Persian king had done in Athens.

The last years of Xerxes' life were marked by a deterioration of the economic situation in his power. The reason for this may have been the king's ambitious plans to build new temple and palace complexes in Persepolis, for which huge sums of money were spent. Persepolis sources dating back to 467 BC (two years before Xerxes' death) say that famine reigned in the city, the royal granaries were empty, and grain prices jumped sevenfold. At the same time, rebellions in the Persian satrapies were breaking out again, and loud victories were far in the past. Obviously, the position of Xerxes, became more and more precarious. This decided to take advantage of the head of the royal guard Artabanus. In August 465 BC, he persuaded the eunuch butler Aspamitra to lead him into the bedroom of the king. The sleeping Xerxes was stabbed to death in his own bed. Artabanus then persuaded Xerxes' youngest son Artaxerxes to kill the heir to the throne, his brother Darius. Having done this, Artaxerxes ascended the throne, and soon got Artaban out of the way. who had his own plans for the Persian throne. The new ruler of Achaemenid power had a middle brother, Hystaspes. At the time of the palace coup, he was in office as governor of Bactria. He later tried to revolt, but was defeated in two battles and killed in 464 BC.

Xerxes' reign lasted a little over 20 years. He managed to preserve and slightly expand his empire, but his super goal remained unfulfilled. The Greco-Persian wars were fought until 449 BC, when Artaxerxes signed a peace with the Athenian Union of Callium. Hellas did not succumb to the Achaemenids, and Xerxes, instead of the terror of the nations, experienced the contempt of his subordinates who had taken his life. The preservation of independence as a result of the Greco-Persian wars contributed to the blossoming of ancient Greek culture. True, the cohesion of the polis of Xerxes' time was far in the past. Torn by internal conflicts, Hellas eventually came under the rule of the Macedonian king. And already from Europe, which was not conquered by Xerxes, with a campaign against Persia went Alexander the Great to end the existence of the Achaemenid Empire.