Imagining Xerxes: Ancient Perspectives on a Persian King (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Book 1)

Few events left such a vivid impression on history as the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, King of Persia. In this lively, erudite and nuanced cultural history of the ancient portraits of Xerxes, Emma Bridges throws fresh new light on the ancient - and modern - western images of Asia and its archetypal ruler. -- Edith Hall, Professor of Classics, King's College London, UK The central concern of Dr Bridges’ original and challenging exercise in ancient reception-studies is to explore the richness and variety of Persian Great King Xerxes’ afterlives within a diverse and complex literary tradition. This is a powerfully written and conceptually sophisticated treatment of an important topic within classical studies, which has the added appeal of including an excellent discussion of the cinematic reception of Xerxes in the 21st century. -- Paul Cartledge is the A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge, UK What to make of Xerxes? Ruthless tyrant? Hubris personified? Prisoner of history? Glorious war-lord? Victim of fortune? Decadent playboy? Lubricious harem-master? Or just the foil for Greece's glory, the great invader who brought out the best in those freedom-fighters of 480 BCE? He was all of those things, and Emma Bridges’ beautifully written book traces all the shifts in the ideas and stories and fantasies that later generations wove as they dwelt on Greece's finest hour. -- Christopher Pelling, Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford University, UK Xerxes, the Persian king who invaded Greece in 480 BC, quickly earned a notoriety that endured throughout antiquity and beyond. The Greeks' historical encounter with this eastern king – which resulted, against overwhelming odds, in the defeat of the Persian army – has inspired a series of literary responses to Xerxes in which he is variously portrayed as the archetypal destructive and enslaving aggressor, as the epitome of arrogance and impiety, or as a figure synonymous with the exoticism and luxury of the Persian court. Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the richness and variety of Xerxes' afterlives within the ancient literary tradition. It examines the earliest representations of the king, in Aeschylus' tragic play Persians and Herodotus' historiographical account of the Persian Wars, before tracing the ways in which the image of Xerxes was revisited and adapted in later Greek and Latin texts. The author also looks beyond the Hellenocentric viewpoint to consider the construction of Xerxes' image in the Persian epigraphic record and the alternative perspectives on the king found in the Jewish written tradition. Analysing these diverse representations of Xerxes, this title explores the reception of a key figure in the ancient world and the reinvention of his image in a remarkable array of cultural and historical contexts. Hailed by Tom Holland as a 'fascinating and compendious survey of ancient attitudes to Xerxes' and now available in paperback, Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the richness and variety of Xerxes' afterlives within the ancient literary tradition and the reinvention of his image in a remarkable array of cultural and historical contexts. This Persian king, who invaded Greece in 480 BC, quickly earned a notoriety that endured throughout antiquity and beyond. The Greeks' historical encounter with Xerxes – which resulted, against overwhelming odds, in the defeat of the Persian army – has inspired a series of literary responses to the king in which he is variously portrayed as the archetypal destructive and enslaving aggressor, as the epitome of arrogance and impiety, or as a figure synonymous with the exoticism and luxury of the Persian court. Emma Bridges examines the earliest representations of the king, in Aeschylus' tragic play Persians and Herodotus' historiographical account of the Persian Wars, before tracing the ways in which the image of Xerxes was revisited and adapted in later Greek and Latin texts. The author also looks beyond the Hellenocentric viewpoint to consider the construction of Xerxes' image in the Persian epigraphic record and the alternative perspectives on the king found in the Jewish written tradition. FC 1 Halftitle 2 Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Illustrations and Photographs 9 Note on Translations, Illustrations and Abbreviations 10 Acknowledgements 11 Introduction: Encountering Xerxes 14 1 Staging Xerxes: Aeschylus and Beyond 24 2 Historiographical Enquiry: The Herodotean Xerxes-Narrative 58 3 Xerxes in his Own Write? The Persian Perspective 86 4 Pride, Panhellenism and Propaganda: Xerxes in the Fourth Century bc 112 5 The King at Court: Alternative (Hi)Stories of Xerxes 140 6 The Past as a Paradigm: Xerxes in a World Ruled by Rome 170 Epilogue: Re-imagining Xerxes 204 Bibliography 214 Index 240 Xerxes, the Persian king who invaded Greece in 480 BC, quickly earned a notoriety that endured throughout antiquity and beyond. The Greeks' historical encounter with this eastern king â€" which resulted, against overwhelming odds, in the defeat of the Persian army â€" has inspired a series of literary responses to Xerxes in which he is variously portrayed as the archetypal destructive and enslaving aggressor, as the epitome of arrogance and impiety, or as a figure synonymous with the exoticism and luxury of the Persian court. Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the r A Series Of Interpretations Of The Ways In Which Xerxes Was Envisaged And Presented By Ancient Perspectives From The Fifth Century Bce To The Third Century Ad.