Xerxes I
Xerxes
Xerxes son of Darius, Great King from 486 BC and leader of the vast expedition of 480 that bridged the Hellespont with pontoons, scourged the sea when the first bridge was torn apart by a storm (the notorious episode of the 300 lashes and the fetters cast into the water), marched through Thrace and Thessaly at the head of an army Herodotus hyperbolically numbers at 1.7 million infantry (modern scholars estimate 150,000–300,000), and watched from a throne on the Attic heights as his fleet was broken in the straits of Salamis. After Salamis he retreated through Thessaly with Mardonius holding a land corps south of Thermopylae; the following year Mardonius died at Plataea and Xerxes's fleet remnant was destroyed at Mycale. He returned to Susa and was assassinated in his palace by the commander of the royal guard in 465 BC.
