Imagining Xerxes ancient perspectives on a Persian king Emma Bridges.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bridges, Emma, author.

Series:

Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception

Bloomsbury studies in classical reception

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Xerxes I, King of Persia, 519 B.C.-465 B.C. or 464 B.C.

Xerxes.

Greece--History--Persian Wars, 500-449 B.C--Historiography.

Greece.

Iran--Kings and rulers--Biography.

Iran.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (246 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York Bloomsbury Academic 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Xerxes, the Persian king who invaded Greece in 480 BC, quickly earned a notoriety that endured throughout antiquity and beyond. The Greeks' historical encounter with this eastern king - which resulted, against overwhelming odds, in the defeat of the Persian army - has inspired a series of literary responses to Xerxes in which he is variously portrayed as the archetypal destructive and enslaving aggressor, as the epitome of arrogance and impiety, or as a figure synonymous with the exoticism and luxury of the Persian court. Imagining Xerxes is a transhistorical analysis that explores the richness and variety of Xerxes' afterlives within the ancient literary tradition. It examines the earliest representations of the king, in Aeschylus' tragic play Persians and Herodotus' historiographical account of the Persian Wars, before tracing the ways in which the image of Xerxes was revisited and adapted in later Greek and Latin texts. The author also looks beyond the Hellenocentric viewpoint to consider the construction of Xerxes' image in the Persian epigraphic record and the alternative perspectives on the king found in the Jewish written tradition. Analysing these diverse representations of Xerxes, this title explores the reception of a key figure in the ancient world and the reinvention of his image in a remarkable array of cultural and historical contexts

Contents:

Introduction: encountering Xerxes

Staging Xerxes: Aeschylus and beyond

Historiographical enquiry: the Herodotean Xerxes-narrative

Xerxes in his own write? The Persian perspective

Pride, panhellenism and propaganda: Xerxes in the fourth century bc

The king at court: alternative (hi)stories of Xerxes

The past as a paradigm: Xerxes in a world ruled by Rome

Epilogue: re-imagining Xerxes

Introduction: Encountering Xerxes

1. Staging Xerxes: Aeschylus and beyond

2. Historiographical enquiry: the Herodotean Xerxes-narrative

3. Xerxes in his own write? The Persian perspective

4. Pride, panhellenism and propaganda: Xerxes in the fourth century BC

5. The king at court: alternative (hi)stories of Xerxes

6. The past as a paradigm: Xerxes in a world ruled by Rome

Epilogue: Re-imagining Xerxes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index

ISBN:

9781472511324

1472511328

9781474260725

1474260721

9781472593160

1472593162

9781472511379

1472511379

OCLC:

1138497803