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Who was Xerxes?
Xerxes .
Depends which one, I'll assume you mean the most famous king of Persia, Xerxes I. Xerxes I of Persia ruled around the time of 480 BC. He succeeded his father Dariu…s I who led an unsuccessful invasion of hellas around 10 years beforehand which was crushed at marathon by the Athenian forces. But I digress. Xerxes fancied himself divine and his word was as good as done by the time he thought it up, he was a zoroastrian and his tomb is something magnificent, a dedication to Zoroastra and more importantly, himself. His most famous deed was to order the invasion of the Pelopponese. Herodotus records his force of being over 5,200,000 strong. This army traveled through northern Greece supplied itself from the Greek states that had already 'medized' or submitted to the Persian force. It was defeated at the hands of the Athenian fleet at the battle of Salamis, off Athens' coast, but not before sacking Athens and killing one of the Spartan kings..
Xerxes, or Ahaseurus? .
The Persian king identified as Xerxes by Herodotus is also identified as Ahaseurus in the Old Testament, Book of Esther. He is portrayed as a good king who believed in justice, while Herodotus' history of the Persian Wars paints him as something of a megalomaniac. Perhaps both versions are somewhat true. After watching the Persian Navy defeated by the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Salamis, Xerxes went home. The Persian Army remained in Greece until they were defeated at the Battle of Plataea in the following year, and then they went home. Unlike Darius I and his son Xerxes, later Persian kings did not attempt an invasion of Greece, although they meddled in Greek affairs and later sided with Sparta against Athens. By the way, it is believed that Xerxes' invasion force could not have been as large as Herodotus claimed. Some historians suggest that Herodotus was writing historical fiction and exaggerating the numbers to make the Greeks even more the underdogs. I think it is also possible that the numbers were mistranslated and multiplied by ten. Even still, Greece was badly outnumbered, and they were not united under a single authority as the Persian Empire was, but they held every other military advantage. ( Full Answer )