While reading this book on an airplane, its title and cover inspired a conversation with the man sitting next to me about the film 300 and its sequel. The discussion turned from the cinematography to the depiction of the king as an inhuman monster, and then to what the film drew from history and what was Frank Miller's and what was Zach Synder's imaginations. As the film has loomed large in students' imaginations it provides a convenient starting part for discussions of what F. Ollier termed ‘le mirage spartiate’ (Le Mirage spartiate [1943]). This book aims to do the same for the Persian King Xerxes. The book covers an extensive timescale, but for the most part focuses on the king's reception within the Classical world; 300 and its sequel are considered only in the epilogue. The book is divided into six chapters, grouped by chronology and genre, which engage with the Greek and Roman version of Xerxes from Aeschylus to Juvenal.
Keeping in mind the importance of artistic renderings of the Great King, each chapter begins with an artistic reinterpretation of a range of different presentations of Xerxes along with some original interpretations of the image of Xerxes. While yet another modern reinterpretation, they add another dimension to B.'s portrait of the king.
The first chapter begins with Atossa's dream, through which B. reveals the two conflicting images of Xerxes that come to dominate the Greek, and eventually Roman and modern, imagination of the king: the fearsome leader of armies who whipped the Hellespont and the defeated, humiliated wreck that crawls home in rags. The division of the chapters into named sub-chapters helps develop this double view of Xerxes. The majority of this first chapter carefully outlines the role Xerxes plays in the development of Aeschylus' re-framing of the Greek narrative about the Great King's invasions. B. argues for a nuanced view of the king, rather than either a victorious Athenian narrative or a tragedy demonstrating the frailty of the human condition. Rather, both visions of the king can be developed from the text, the frightful invader and the failed conqueror. This careful analysis lays the ground for the argument in the following chapters. Following the discussion of Aeschylus, B. evaluates what we can learn from the fragmentary performances. She identifies not only thematic links between Timotheus' and Aeschylus' Xerxes, but also the lyrical echoes in the later play. She ends by noting that despite the similarities, Timotheus' king remains the hostile enemy without the human failings evident in Aeschylus, which makes this version useful for the developments in pan-Hellenic rhetoric in the fourth century.
The second chapter moves from tragedy to history and the construction of Herodotus' narrative. Here, B. places Xerxes within the context of Herodotus' portrait of oriental despots. In addition to developing the image of a brutal barbarian king, the importance of the Persian court comes into greater focus. B. highlights the importance of yoking metaphors in all the texts examined thus far. One difference that develops in Herodotus' account that is well discussed is the problematic nature of identifying individual Persian kings. As B. demonstrates earlier, Xerxes could be presented as the invading barbarian par excellence to the extent that he did not even need to be named. Furthermore, he can even take on attributes of his father's invasion. This is clearly not the case in B.'s reading of Herodotus. Here Xerxes' actions are judged in light of his ancestors, going so far as to be instructed by a series of dreams. B. defines Herodotus' Xerxes not as driven by his own desires but by the history of his empire, his ancestors, his court and finally the gods.
The third chapter turns towards the presentation of the king by those in his homeland, rather than his opponents. The Persian Xerxes, B. argues, is just as much a construct as the one presented by the Greek sources. She wisely warns against interpretations of archaeology that are based on literary texts. The dynastic image cultivated by Darius and continued by Xerxes presents the king very much in the image of his father, to the extent of verbal repetition on his tomb. B.'s interpretation of the daiva-inscription proceeds from her earlier analysis. By demonstrating how the Greek tradition can influence our understanding of other evidence, she cautions against filling in the gaps in the document with information culled from ideological Greek sources. Even this one piece of what is usually classed as evidence for the king's intolerance, she manages to place within a context of other texts. Further, she cautions against defining any one text as ‘concrete evidence for Xerxes’ personal characteristics’ (p. 93). Rather than reading any of the texts, either Persian or Greek, as evidence for an understanding of Xerxes as man, B. makes a considered argument for Xerxes as a construct, whether Greek or Persian.
The fourth chapter explores Athenian literary responses from the fourth century. Here B. argues that the themes and motifs created by her two principal authors, Aeschylus and Herodotus, were reused or alluded to as Athenian rhetoricians sought to redefine their place after the Peloponnesian War. B. argues that the defeat of Xerxes often became a stock feature of Athenian achievements, as well as almost a caricatured depiction of the themes of barbaric despotism. The alternative to the rhetorical tradition is represented by Xenophon's Cyrus. In Xenophon's version of Cyrus we see the opposite presentation of what we have hitherto seen with Xerxes, a positive representation of the possibilities of a good king. As such there is limited space for the bad king, in Xenophon's account Xerxes hardly appears. Both these traditions culminate in Alexander's arrival in Persia. There the king both finds revenge for Xerxes' aggression and begins, at least in Plutarch's eyes, to diverge from the path of a good king and towards the model of a despotic Persian king (i.e. Xerxes).
From Alexander's burning of Persepolis, the fifth chapter returns us to the city, first through the eyes of Ctesias and Diodorus who still utilise the familiar tropes – yoking the two continents – but also expands on the interests of the court in defining the role of the king, a theme explored here in terms of Herodotean narrative. These courtly traditions are brought into sharper focus through the comparisons with the biblical tradition evident in the Book of Esther. Arguing for the independence of this tradition, the similarities become all the more important. This court is taken to the extreme by Chariton, whose Callirhoe suffers through many of the imagined possibilities of the Persian court.
The final chapter looks at Roman views of the king. For the Romans, as for the Athenians in the fourth century, Xerxes is well enough known to need no introduction. From this observation, we are turned towards the use of the trope of democratic victory over barbarism to their own dealings with Parthia, although the obvious reference to the Seleucid king at Thermopylae is withheld until later. The Roman use of the problematic nature of Xerxes' rule to raise questions about individual emperors can be seen as a development of Valerius' use of exempla. B. argues that Josephus effectively subverts this dichotomy and places the Romans in Xerxes' place before the destruction of his holy city. This discussion prefaces similar arguments for Strabo and Plutarch.
The book closes with an epilogue on the modern presentation of the king in Zach Synder's 300 and its sequel. This discussion, while learned and perhaps useful for most students who will have come across Xerxes first in this way, almost seems out of place given the focus on antiquity. Its inclusion forces a rushed survey of post-Classical appearances of the king, before giving a careful analysis of his role in the two films.
This book presents a useful synopsis of the various roles that Xerxes has played in the Graeco-Roman literary imagination since he first set foot on European soil. It effectively chronicles how the early characterisation of the king set the stage for his continued reception. The book will provide an essential starting point for anyone who wishes to work on our image of not only Xerxes but also his successors.
