Xerxes

Ancient and modern images and interpretations of Xerxes Knowledge of Xerxes is limited by the operative available. Iranian sources are fragmentary and are unable to hallow the balance historians need to make an adequate assessment. Most of the quiet sources are Grecian and these accounts have influenced modern historians. Ancient interpretations Herodotus was innate(p) around 484BC and is the well-nigh contemporary of the ancient sources. He similarly traveled in the Persian empire. He is probably the most fit writer, presenting Xerxes as generous and compassionate, appreciative of natural beauty, that unstable, intolerant of criticism and weakly-willed. Aeschylus was also a contemporary, who fought at battle of Marathon and peradventure at Salamis. He portrays Xerxes in his play The Persians as a weakling to be despised. He wished to demonstrate that everything classical was superior. Xenophon, penning in the fourth century BC, sees Xerxes as a despot and a womaniser. Later ancient historians have followed this tradition. Although Pausanius tells that Xerxes achievements were glisten and Josephus praises his piety, Aelian calls him smashed and Cicero despises him. Modern interpretations Early scholars saw him as libertine and slothful, weak and degenerate; later scholars are more balanced, laborious to guess him in the Persian context of his day. P.Green (The Greco-Persian Wars, Berkeley, 1996) sums up the ordain: Our tralatitious picture of Xerxes is a caricature, put together from hostile, and faintly contemptuous, Greek propaganda. We see him asa cowardly tyrant command by his women and his eunuchscruel in victory, spineless in defeat. Persian sourcesreveal a very different man. Tall, regal and braggy he stands in the Persepolis reliefs, and his proclamations have a resonance self-regard which echoes down the agesIf you want to get a unspoiled essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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