Inside All About History 125: Learn how Xerxes I overcame rebels and plots to claim his throne and dominate West Asia.
The son and grandson of men who had forged the Achaemenid Empire, Xerxes I was born to rule in Ancient Persia, but his path to the throne was not as simple as it might have appeared. Overcoming usurpers and uprisings in major cities, he had to fight for his right to rule.
Unfortunately, the best surviving source for him remains Herodotus, the Greek historian from Halicarnassus, who wrote the history of the Persian Wars . Xerxes is, therefore, the villain of the story, full of hubris and reduced almost to a caricature of a bad ruler. Other contemporary, near-contemporary and later Greek writers add to this picture.
Despite his defeat in Greece, he was a strong ruler who quashed revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had already started when he took the throne in 486 BCE. These had begun in the last years of Darius I and Xerxes put down both efficiently. The empire was, nonetheless, relatively stable under his tenure. He was also responsible for the construction of immense building complexes in both Susa and Persepolis.Jimi HendrixThe ‘Swinging 60s’ were a definitive era in the history of rock music.
The following year, his name was officially changed to James Marshall Hendrix. The instability and poverty the young Jimmy experienced in his first few years would continue to define the rest of his childhood.Hellfire ClubDuring the 18th century, a new form of British male began to populate high society – the ‘rake’. This term came to define aristocratic gentlemen who were purely engaged in the pursuit of pleasure with little respect for the law or traditional morality.
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