Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Richard Stoneman. Xerxes: A Persian Life .

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 121; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ahr/121.4.1343

1937-5239

John W. I. Lee,

Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research

Recent research on Achaemenid Persia (ca. 550–330 b.c.) has reevaluated familiar ancient sources, revealed new documents, and explored the archaeology of an empire that stretched from the Aegean to Central Asia. Ancient and modern receptions of the Achaemenids have attracted much attention, with monographs on Darius III (r. 336–330) by Pierre Briant and on Xerxes I (r. 486–465) by Emma Bridges as well as an edited volume on responses to the Greco-Persian Wars. Against this background, Richard Stoneman aims to “recreate something of what it was like” to be Xerxes and to investigate the origins of the dominant modern picture of his reign (15). Despite the source challenges, he is confident a “character sketch” (210) of the king is possible. Nine lively digressive chapters proceed from Xerxes’s accession to questions of kingship and religion, through the invasion of Greece in 480–479, then to the site of Persepolis, court affairs, and Xerxes’s assassination.