Xerxes’ Deliberate Expedition by B.C. Knowlton ook Seven of Herodotus’ Histories telling. It tells the standard narrative of conquer Greece.2 It would seem obvious Bcontains his account of the Persian the conflict between East and West, and it that Xerxes would take up and carry on expedition against Greece led by King tells of many ways in which the conflict his father’s campaign. Rise of an Empire Xerxes in 480 BCE. This campaign was more complicated than that. It tells treats all of this in an inaccurate and followed from the one undertaken ten not just how the Greeks and Persians fantastical way.3 According to Herodotus, years earlier on the orders of his father, came to fight each other, but who the however, initially it is not even obvious King Darius. That Persian force had Greeks and Persians were that they might that Xerxes would be the one to succeed landed at Marathon and been defeated by have fought, or not, but did. his father. Darius had an older son by an the Athenians in a famous battle that has Wherever it is possible to make use earlier wife, and he also had a claim to the ever since been considered a victory of of a movie to introduce students to a bit throne. Xerxes was the eldest son of European freedom over Oriental of history, the risk, or even the Darius’ last wife, Atossa; and Herodotus despotism. Xerxes, determined to avenge temptation, will be to let the movie take thinks that in the end it was her influence his father’s defeat, raised a force reported the place of the text.1 Students these days that secured the throne for her son.4 But by Herodotus to be of as many as two would rather see than read their history, he also tells us that it was at this moment and a half million fighting men, only to and often they would rather their history that the deposed Spartan king Demaratus come up against the 300 Spartans at the was belligerent than deliberate. But for arrived at the Persian court, and furnished Battle of Thermopylae. This narrative of teachers who would stick to the text if not Xerxes with a Spartan argument for the these and the subsequent battles of to the textbook, and who might prefer a superiority of his claim. Salamis and Plataea has been well known less warlike focus, I propose to essay a The question of succession had from its Herodotean source ever since; close reading and detailed explication of arisen because in the midst of the and the muscle-bound and blood- the Persian deliberations as recounted in preparations for the invasion of Greece, drenched deeds of the 300 have recently Herodotus’ Histories. I will follow the there was a revolt in Egypt. Another been made famous again by the movie of narrative thread of the episode and punitive expedition was ordered up, and that name. The more recent sequel to 300 pursue the thematic matters which, in a while Darius had apparently not planned begins with a less accurate account of the history class, could either lead to other to go to Greece himself, he does now plan Battle of Marathon; and, where the first readings or stand as characteristically to go to Egypt. Herodotus tells us that movie ended with Plataea under way, Rise Herodotean. Herodotus is, of course, a ‘according to Persian law the king may not of an Empire ends with victory at Salamis primary source for this history. This is not march with his army until he has named all but won. Courses in Western or World to say that his inquiries or researches (the his successor’ (7.2). This point of Persian History are likely to come upon the standard translations of the Greek title) law is of pertinent interest to us in that it Persian Wars, and the recent popular are strictly and straightforwardly wie es raises the question of whether and to movies might serve as an accessible and eigentlich gewesen. But the Histories is the best what extent a Persian king is bound to engaging introduction to these historical and often the only source we have for the abide by Persian law or custom (the Greek events and developments. But Herodotus’ Persian Wars, and it is historiographically word nomos translates both ways). The account of how Xerxes came to his significant even where it may not be Persian monarchy is typically depicted as decision to invade Greece, with its historically accurate. absolute, in contrast to the constitutional consideration of politics, rhetoric, and Darius had died while preparations regimes of Greece (whether the religion, is, if not as thrilling, at least as were under way for his second attempt to constitution be democratic, as in Athens, The Journal of Classics Teaching 17 (34) p.49-54 © The Classical Association 2016. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits Downloaded non-commercialfrom https://www.cambridge.org/core re-use, distribution,. IP andaddress: reproduction 170.106.35.76 in any, on medium,27 Sep 2021 provided at 10:35:00 the, originalsubject to work the Cambridge is unaltered Core and terms is properly of use, available cited. The at written 49 https://www.cambridge.org/core/termspermission of Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631016000246 University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. or aristocratic, as in Sparta). A Persian figure in this history, and to point to other heroic Greeks and villainous Persians king, it is usually assumed, can do episodes in the Histories.10 that popular versions of this history give whatever he wants, and is not bound by Xerxes was not at first as determined us. Demaratus is an oligarchical exile, but any law.5 As we will see, Persian kings do as his father had been to invade Greece; Sparta is determined to resist the Persian have to take into account Persian nomoi. and not only because he had an Egyptian invasion – as Demaratus tells Xerxes, The question of succession having rebellion to contend with. That he was as very frankly (7.101-104). The Aleuadae come up, Herodotus gives us a detailed determined as Darius had been to punish of Thessaly, however, are in Persia to account of its resolution. Darius’ elder the Egyptians suggests that Xerxes wasn’t negotiate the ‘medising’ of that region son, Artabazanes, argued that it was ‘by simply disinclined to undertake a of Greece, which means their universal custom’ that he was ‘entitled to campaign. But he evidently needed to be submission to Xerxes. The Greeks inherit his father’s position’ (7.2). This convinced to undertake the campaign referred to the Persians as ‘Medes’, and anticipates the significance of the against the Greeks; and here his advisor many Greek cities did in fact side with deliberation where it specifies Persian Mardonius is like that servant of Darius the Persians in their invasion. The custom. And then of course his father’s who had been ordered to say to him each Pisistratidae were the successors of the position is that of Persian King. Atossa, time he sat down to eat, ‘Master, Athenian tyrants Peisistratus and his son the mother of Xerxes, was ‘the daughter remember the Athenians’ who several Hippias, who had ruled Athens prior to of Cyrus, who won the Persians their years earlier had supported a revolt of the establishment of democracy by freedom’ (7.2). Darius had not been a son Ionian Greeks who were subject to the Cleisthenes in 509 BCE.12 Hippias was of Cyrus, but rather the leader of a group Persian King (5.105). ‘“Master,” exiled from Athens and taken in by the of Persian aristocrats who had Mardonius would say to Xerxes, “the Persians. He had accompanied the overthrown a usurping successor.6 He Athenians have done us a great injury, Persian force that landed at Marathon; thereupon married the daughter of Cyrus, and it is only right that they should be had it defeated the Athenians, Hippias which had enhanced his legitimacy; and punished for their crimes”’ (7.5). On the would have been installed as satrap in now for her son to succeed him is more in other hand, Mardonius is not like that Attica. The presence of these Greek line with the dynasty. The significance of servant of Darius, for Darius had ordered exiles at the Persian court reminds us Cyrus having not simply been Persian him to do as he did, having already that, on the one hand, there were Greek King but having given the Persians their decided to attack Athens. Xerxes is at first cities who stood up to the Persians, and freedom complicates both the opposition actually ‘not at all interested in invading others that gave in; and that on the other between Persia and Greece and the Greece’ (7.4), and Mardonius takes it on there were even within cities factions definition of freedom usually assumed by himself to nag him about it. There is a that were either for or against resistance readers. Cyrus had given the Persians kind of politic logic to this part of to Xerxes. freedom from the Medes, by whom they Mardonius’ argument, but another part That oracular character also warrants had been subjected.7 From then on, the strikes a decidedly false note: for ‘to the a close reading. He is ‘an Athenian named Medes were subject to the Persians.