Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Xerxes, as it were, comma, his son killed him.

It's really amazing.

So this is the only extra classical source to talk about

Xerxes' assassination.

But of course, frustratingly, we don't know which of his sons did it.

But my money has to be on Ocus, I think, who wasn't the eldest of the sons.

And in fact, what Ocus manages to do in the last months of Xerxes' life before he is killed, he manages to instigate a plot against his eldest brother, Darius.

and has the boy executed, the man executed.

So he's gotten rid of his chief rival already.

This man, this Occas, is really a mover and shaker.

And what we get from the Greek historiography is that Xerxes' personal life is in chaos, right?

And, you know, I don't know how much emphasis we really should put on it, but, you know, well, the Greeks are certainly interested in it.

Yeah, yeah.

So there's this great story that Xerxes, with all of these women in the harem, you know, could choose any woman in the empire as a lover.

He decides to have an affair with his daughter-in-law, who is Darius's, this Prince Darius's wife.

And there's a very interesting tale that's told about this.

So the king's wife, a mistress,

She makes the king with her own hands this beautiful robe, a sort of riding coat, and she gives it to him.

And it's, you know, a great gift, obviously, you know, a great pride to a mistress that she's done this.

But this mistress of Xerxes, a girl called Arteyinti, his daughter-in-law and his niece at the same time, his brother's daughter,