Tristan Hughes

I mean, is his mother still around and influencing him?

Do we know much about the harem of Persian rulers, including Xerxes?

Do we know much about its composition?

Is that the blue blood idea?

Yeah, I suppose.

And how important were eunuchs to Xerxes' rule and indeed to Persian rule?

So they're tied to the king.

And we hear them with Xerxes, do we?

Yes, we do.

You mentioned Cnidus there in passing.

So that's part of the Greek world, but it's on the western coast of Turkey, isn't it?

So it's within the sphere of Persian influence.

And of course, the biggest thing many people remember with Xerxes is his massive, ultimately failed invasion of Greece.

We're not going to cover that in detail in today's chat because we've done an episode, a detailed episode with Dr. Raoul Kananadak as well.

Two episodes on both the invasion of Greece by his dad, Darius, and by Xerxes too.

So we'll kind of cover it quickly, but I think an overarching question to cover it will be how much of Xerxes' reign, I mean, how much attention does he really give to the Greeks?

How much would you argue?

This is their victory at the Battle of Thermopylae, isn't it?

So Themistocles as well, which is going to be interesting, the man who wins the Battle of Salamis.

But it is coincidental, isn't it, that his decision to return to Asia does happen right after the Athenian victory at the Battle of Sanimus, the naval victory.