ABSTRACT
The son of *Darius I, Xerxes succeeded his father as Emperor in 486 BC, and shortly after, he defeated an Egyptian uprising. Unlike his father, he did nothing to improve or enhance conditions in Egypt and inaugurated no building programmes in the Egyptian temples. He was apparently prepared to use the Egyptians to suit his own ends, as when, at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), he led a large Egyptian fleet against the *Greeks. According to *Herodotus (vii, 7), he was cruel and tyrannical to the Egyptians. He was murdered, and Artaxerxes succeeded him in 465 BC.
