Xerxes: A Persian Life

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Yale University Press, 01.01.2015 - 275 Seiten
The first full-scale account of a Persian king vilified by history

Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire from 486-465 B.C., has gone down in history as an angry tyrant full of insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the 300 against his army at Thermopylae is a byword for courage, while the failure of Xerxes' expedition has overshadowed all the other achievements of his twenty-two-year reign.

In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective. This illuminating volume does not whitewash Xerxes' failings but sets against them such triumphs as the architectural splendor of Persepolis and a consideration of Xerxes' religious commitments. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man who ruled a vast and multicultural empire which the Greek communities of the West saw as the antithesis of their own values.
 

Inhalt

Introduction
1
chapter one Accession
17
chapter two The Persian Empire
35
chapter three The Image of a King
69
chapter four The Religion of Xerxes
88
The Cornerstone ofGreek Freedom
109
The Wooden Walls
139
chapter seven Persepolis
160
Conclusion
210
Appendix 1 Xerxes in Opera and Drama
219
Appendix 2 The Birth of Persian Kings
223
Appendix 3 The Chronology of Xerxes Advancethrough Greece
226
Abbreviations
229
Notes
230
Bibliography
258
Index
268

chapter eight Family Romances
181
chapter nine Assassination
195

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Autoren-Profil (2015)

Richard Stoneman is Honorary Visiting Professor, University of Exeter, and the author of numerous books. He lives in Devon, UK.

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