Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

CHAPTER II.
Xerxes Canal of Athos Thermopylae Salamis Artaxerxes I
Darius II Artaxerxes II Cyrus the Younger Artaxerxes III
(Ochus) Darius III Alexander Graneikus Issus Visit
to Jerusalem Arbela.
XzRXF.s 1 who succeeded , to the throne of Darius
B.C. 486, was not his eldest son ; he was, however, the
son born to him while actually king, and further, by
his mother, Atossa, the lineal descendant of Cyrus. As
a man of easy temper and luxurious habits, he was at
first disinclined to take up the two wars his father had
bequeathed to him ;
and would have preferred limiting
himself to the re-subjugation of Egypt. Such a plan
was not, however, agreeable to the young nobles about
him, still less to Mardonius, who was naturally anxious
to retrieve his past ill-luck. Add to which, there were
Greek traitors at his Court, to spur him on, careless
what misery they caused their own country, so only
their own base revenges were gratified. Thus the
Peisistratidae sought reinstatement at Athens, and De-
maratus at Sparta ;
the general effect being, that Xerxes
1 As Ahasuerus Is the natural Hebrew form of the Persian Khsha-
yarsha, it is probable
that Xerxes is the Monarch of the book of
Esther.