XERXES I (Persian Hašajāria; Heb. Ahašavēros; Greek Ξέρξης). - King of the Achaemenid dynasty (v.), son of Darius I and father of Artaxerxes I. He reigned from 485 to 465 B.C., when he was killed in a conspiracy. In profane history X. remained famous for his expedition to Greece to avenge the defeat at Marathon. But with the defeat at Salamis (Sept. 23, 480) and at Plataea (Aug. 27, 479), Persian power, which suffered a second naval rout at Mycale, was eliminated from Greece. The war officially ended in 449 with the peace of Cimon, who in 470 had once again defeated the fleet of X.

The profile drawn by Herodotus (IX, 108-10) of the adulterous and incestuous exploits of X. combines perfectly with that of the book of Esther, in which the King appears amid the intrigues of his harem. Nevertheless, the theory that, basing itself on the constant naming of the Septuagint, identifies the Ahasuerus of the biblical text with Artaxerxes II Mnemon, as Eusebius and Jerome already held (Chronicon, Olymp. 93: CB VII, 1, p. 117), is not without foundation.

X. is also mentioned in Estd. 4, 6.

Angelo Penna

@incollection{ec11_serse_i_persiano_hasajaria_ebr, author = {Penna, Angelo}, title = {Serse I (Persiano HaŠAjĀRia; Ebr. AhaŠAvĒRŌS; Greco ΞΈΡΘΗΣ)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {402}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/serse-i-persiano-hasajaria-ebr-ahasaveros-greco-kserthes} }

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Xerxes I

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