Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Yeah, so there's a lot more to Xerxes than meets the eye, and a lot more than we just see in the Greek historians.

I think we should see him as a very able king who, during the heights of his power, was an active politician, a good military commander, a good leader, somebody who was very aware of the empire that he created.

However, as he got older, there seems to have been this...

religious nagging pull that he's trying to deal with as well.

That's not unusual, again, in long reigns, you know, for people to, you know, take different approaches or to become obsessed with other things.

So I think there is a slight change in the personality of Xerxes towards the end.

But I think by and large, we should judge him far more favorably than historians have usually given him justice.

I think more than anything, it's the kind of legacy that he's left behind for us because he is one of the best known

He has been written about constantly.

He's been portrayed on stage, on screen, in opera.

And I think it's lovely that he's there.

There's only been one attempt, however, to write a biography of him by the late Richard Stoneman, a really fine writer.

a classical historian who went to Iran about 10 years ago, fell in love with the place like we all do when we go there, you know, and attempted to write this story of Xerxes.

I would love to see more people attempting that with more Persian great kings anyway, because we can do it if only we look for the Persian version.

That's right, absolutely, called Persians, The Age of the Great Kings.

Thank you for having me again.

Thank you for having me again.

Thank you for having me again.

Ja, definitiv. Definitiv immer noch sehr mysteriös. Nur weil wir, obwohl wir einige ihrer Schriften lesen können, sie nicht verstehen. Denn die wenigen restlichen Inskriptionen, die wir haben, die die Sprache oder die Sprachen, die von den Minoanern gesprochen werden, ausdrücken, are very, very few.

Ja, definitiv. Definitiv immer noch sehr mysteriös. Nur weil wir, obwohl wir einige ihrer Schriften lesen können, sie nicht verstehen. Denn die wenigen restlichen Inskriptionen, die wir haben, die die Sprache oder die Sprachen, die von den Minoanern gesprochen werden, ausdrücken, are very, very few.