ABSTRACT
—According to Persian custom, Darius had many wives. Among them was the daughter of Gaubaruva or Gobryas, one of his fellow-conspirators in the attack on the false Gaumata. By her he had three children, the eldest 01 whom, Artabazanes, had long been regarded as heir to the throne. But Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, ranked supreme, and her influence on the old king was so strong that just before his death he nominated as his successor her son Khshayarsha, better known by his Greek name Xerxes, and he ascended the throne without opposition. The new monarch, the Ahasuerus of the book of Esther, was famous for his radiant beauty and superb physique, but he was indolent, weak, and easily swayed by his advisers. Voluptuous and fond of luxury, he had no desire for glory, and to these defects in his character Greece, in all probability, owed her salvation. From the first he was inclined to treat the failure in Hellas as of no importance; but Mardonius insisted that the prestige of Persia would suffer, and remonstrated with such effect that in the end he gained his point, and the great invasion was undertaken.
