The Inheritance of an Empire

When Xerxes ascended the throne in 486 BCE at the age of 34, he inherited a vast empire built by his illustrious predecessors—Cyrus the Great and Darius I. The Achaemenid Empire stretched from the Indus Valley to the Aegean Sea, a multicultural realm held together by administrative brilliance and military might. Yet Xerxes, despite his royal upbringing, lacked the political experience of his father, Darius, who had groomed no clear successor. Unlike Cyrus and Darius, who balanced ambition with diplomacy, Xerxes displayed a temperament marked by extravagance and brutality—qualities that would soon destabilize his reign.

His early actions followed tradition: he presided over his father’s funeral, donned the humble garb of Cyrus for his coronation at the temple of Anahita (the Iranian goddess of fertility and war), and granted tax relief to provinces—a customary gesture of goodwill. But beneath these formalities, Xerxes faced immediate crises. Egypt, which had revolted under Darius, demanded his attention. His swift suppression of the rebellion revealed his ruthlessness: temples and monuments were desecrated, a stark contrast to Cyrus’s policy of respecting local customs.

The Greek Gambit and Military Catastrophe

Xerxes’ most infamous campaign was his invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, the climax of the Greco-Persian Wars. Assembling a colossal force—including a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont—he aimed to avenge Darius’s defeat at Marathon. Initial successes, such as the Battle of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and his Spartans fell, allowed him to sack Athens. But his overconfidence proved fatal. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, lured into narrow straits, was annihilated. Retreating to Asia, Xerxes left his general Mardonius to continue the war, only for the Persians to suffer another crushing defeat at Plataea in 479 BCE.

These losses ended Persia’s European ambitions and shattered its naval supremacy. Though later rulers like Abbas II of the Safavid dynasty attempted revivals, Persia never regained its dominance at sea until the 20th century. Remarkably, Xerxes’ failures had little domestic fallout—a testament to the empire’s resilience—but they cemented his reputation as a ruler who prioritized grandeur over strategy.

Decadence and Downfall

After Greece, Xerxes retreated into hedonism. He expanded Persepolis, marrying his brother’s widow and elevating Esther, a Jewish queen whose story later inspired literature and art. But his court became a den of intrigue. In 465 BCE, his reign ended abruptly when his own guards, orchestrated by a powerful eunuch, assassinated him.

His successor, Artaxerxes I, stabilized the empire but faced renewed conflicts with Athens. The Peace of Callias (449 BCE) formalized Persia’s withdrawal from the Aegean, yet Artaxerxes cleverly manipulated Greek rivalries during the Peloponnesian War, using gold to influence politics—a tactic even Cyrus had not mastered.

The Collapse of the Achaemenids

The dynasty’s final century was marked by infighting and ineptitude. Artaxerxes III’s brutal reunification of Egypt (343 BCE) briefly restored glory, but his assassination in 338 BCE triggered a power vacuum. Darius III, the last Achaemenid king, faced Alexander the Great. Despite initial resistance, defeats at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela sealed Persia’s fate. Darius’s murder in 330 BCE by his own nobles symbolized the empire’s disintegration.

Alexander’s conquest was merciless. Persepolis was burned—possibly as revenge for Athens—and its treasures looted. Though Alexander later adopted Persian customs (even marrying Darius’s daughter), his empire fragmented after his death in 323 BCE.

Legacy: Hero or Villain?

In Iran, Xerxes and Alexander occupy opposing poles of memory. Xerxes, though flawed, is part of a golden age; Alexander remains “the accursed,” a destroyer of culture. Persian literature, from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh to Nizami’s Iskandarnameh, reflects this dichotomy—Alexander as either demon or divinely guided figure.

Modern historians debate Alexander’s legacy: was he a visionary unifier or a ruthless conqueror? For Iranians, the answer is clear. The Achaemenids symbolize national identity, while Alexander’s fires at Persepolis endure as a warning against imperial hubris.

The tale of Xerxes—from ambitious king to tragic figure—mirrors the Achaemenid Empire’s arc: a rise built on tolerance, undone by tyranny, and eclipsed by a conqueror whose own empire proved equally fleeting.