The reign of Xerxes, and especially his invasion of Greece in 480–479 BCE, has always been viewed as a watershed for Greek history as well as Achaemenid historiography – the former emphasizing a historical narrative and the latter studying the historical sequence. This is not surprising, because they both involve many of the same sources. The study of subsequent Achaemenid history typifies the methodological problem so prevalent in studying Xerxes’ invasion of Greece: a disproportionate reliance on Greek source material. Royal inscriptions become fewer, shorter, and more stylized. Economic and administrative archival materials from Near Eastern sources retain their paramount importance, but the material (with a few exceptions) is more sporadic and less richly detailed than the Persepolis Fortification tablets.

PALACE INTRIGUE AND THE ASSASSINATION OF XERXES

A Babylonian tablet contains reference to Xerxes death: “on the 14th day of Abu, Xerxes’ son killed him.” The terse reference is to the point and relatively precise on the time of death – by our calendar sometime in late July or early August in 465 BCE. For a narrative account, we must turn to the Classical tradition. Ctesias, Diodorus Siculus, and Justin all point to a plot hatched by one of Xerxes’ courtiers, a certain Artabanus (Artapanus in Ctesias), who was abetted by other high officials. No reason for the plot is given, although Justin relates a stereotyped view that Xerxes’ defeat in Greece – fifteen years earlier than his death – was somehow responsible for a serious decline in both Xerxes’ and the Empire’s fortunes, a view contradicted by more than 130 years of continued Persian rule.