XERXES I. zerk'si-z, king of Persia: b about 519 wc.; d. 465 Etc He was a younger son of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. and began to reign in 485. He was preferred to his elder half-brothers, born before his father was raised to the throne; Xerxes was born after that event, and was the son of Atossa. daughter of Cyrus. After having suppressed a MI in Egypt in a single campaign, be though• himself able to execute the plan of conquer ing Greece, already conceived by his father, and collected for this purpose an immense army, estimated by the historians as contain ing 1,000,000 men. In all probability the Greeks greatly exaggerated the number of their enemies; and the train of women and slaves who followed the army made at least half of its numerical amount; still the num bers of the Persians were beyond all com parison superior to those of the Greeks B± means of a bridge of boats Xerxes crossed the Hellespont (480) while the Greeks awaited him on the frontier of their country, in the pass of Thermopylae. After the heroic Leoni das had fallen with his Spartans (see Lerixt tows), Xerxes burned Athens, which had been forsaken by its inhabitants. The firs!
naval battle between the two powers at Ar temisium had been indecisive; but it inspired the Greeks with new confidence; and the second naval action at Salamis, in which, if we believe the Greek historians, 2,000 Persia, vessels were engaged against 380 Greek, termi nated in the defeat of the Persians (28 Sept 480). Xerxes now quitted Greece, leaving be hind him his best general. Mardonius, not long after, was routed at Plata-a. Xerxes now gave himself up to debauchery; his con duct offended his subjects and Artabanus, the captain of his guards, conspired against bum and murdered him in his bed The personal accomplishments of Xerxes have been even mended by ancient authors; and Herodonas observes that there was not one man amour the millions of his army that was equal to the monarch in comeliness or stature, or as worthy to preside over great and extensile empire. He was succeeded by his son Ar taxerxes I.