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  • 2 - The consolidation of the empire and its limits of growth under Darius and Xerxes

  • from PART I - THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 53-111

  • Summary

    Darius and his successors ruled a large land mass containing a bewildering variety of ethnic groups for almost two hundred years. They did it with very little violence and without the need for the almost annual military activity characteristic of the smaller Assyrian empire. Xerxes was a powerful figure, but it would seem that he never lived up to his early promise and was certainly never the king, or perhaps the man, that his father Darius had been. Early in the reign of Xerxes rebellion broke out in Babylon. Whatever the timing or cause of the revolt in Babylon, it is put down with a firm hand. Xerxes sends Megabyxus in command of troops to crush the revolt, which is apparently accomplished in almost no time at all. In the end, Xerxes has the honour to be the first of the great Achaemenid kings to be assassinated.