Xerxes is one of those names that anyone interested in history knows. But what do most of us know about him? Personally, I knew him as a Persian King who invaded Greece, ultimately losing the war, and also had an image in my mind of his relief in stone, as depicted on the cover of this book. That was about it.
Richard Stoneman sets out in this book to add some meat to these bones, but starts with a large caveat. He admits that what knowledge we have of Xerxes is very limited, and nearly all of it is filtered through later writers – mostly Greek – who had good reason to view him with their own biases. The result of this is that Xerxes has had a very bad press!
He does two things in this work; first, he gives us the known details of Xerxes life. These are often contradictory and confused, and he spends a lot of time trying to determine the relative merit of different sources. Secondly, he weaves these meagre details into a fuller description of Persia at the time, using some of this to help him make sense of the life of the man.
The first problem is even working out the family tree which resulted in Xerxes. The Achaemenid dynasty, of which he was a part, were written out of history by their successors, leaving a great deal of confusion. Various sources seem to use different names for the same person, or the same names for different people, and it is almost impossible to disentangle a lot of this at this distance. It is still not wholly possible to determine the correct names and dates for various Persian rulers, and separating myth from reality is difficult.
In Greek history – mainly Herodotus – Xerxes is seen as a weak King, taking bad advice, always making the wrong decisions, and largely destroyed by his own arrogance (hubris, a Greek favourite). Others see him as cruel, lost to lust and pettiness. But much that we see in Greek writing is actually just an example of how the Greeks saw themselves, and others around them.
As an example, when Xerxes returns to Persia after the campaign in Greece, Greek writers portray him as running away, rather than perhaps dying in battle as a Greek hero might. But from a Persian perspective, it would be seen very differently. The King was vital to the very existence of the state; like his father (Darius I) and Darius III (150 years later after losing to Alexander) it was the Kings duty to survive, not to die for a cause. As long as the King lived, so did the Persian Empire.
The book is full of such contradictory sources, and the author spends much of his time trying to disentangle them. He also uses later depictions of Xerxes in art and literature as a starting point; basically saying that many of these authors had the few known facts, and then used their own interpretations of these to create their view of the man. He then asks how realistic these views were. Although this is interesting, I’m not sure it works in the context of having so few certain facts to start with.
Although we don’t end up with a rounded picture of Xerxes the man, we do get a much better feel for some of his actions. Traditionally, a Persian King was expected to match the feats of his father and earlier predecessors. His invasion of Greece should be seen in this light; he did it not because he was warlike or reckless, but because he needed to as a proof of his greatness. Although he returned home after some setbacks, he did achieve his stated goal – which was to burn Athens to the ground – so in his eyes, and those of his people, he had succeeded.
Aside from Xerxes himself, there is a lot to hold your interest. The chapter on religion is fascinating, covering Zoroastrianism and its earlier incarnations. It is very complex, but gave me a much better understanding of the faith and its origins. The chapters recounting the Greek invasion are logical, well thought out and detailed. The chapter about the building and meaning of Persepolis – started by his father Darius, but largely built by Xerxes – is also rich in detail.
When I picked this book up, I didn’t expect a detailed, comprehensive biography of the subject, because I knew that the detail simply isn’t available. However, the author does succeed in giving a framework of Xerxes’ life, around which he hangs a lot of interesting material about Persia at the time he was it’s King. I suspect it’s the closest we’re likely to get to understanding the man, unless a lot of new material appears from the archaeological record.
This is a review of the Yale 2015 hardback edition.
