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Xerxes II

(Encyclopedia)Xerxes II, d. 424 b.c., king of ancient Persia (424 b.c.), son of Artaxerxes I. After a reign of 45 days he was murdered by his half-brother Sogdianus. ...

Xerxes I

(Encyclopedia)Xerxes I (Xerxes the Great) zûrkˈsēz [key], d. 465 b.c., king of ancient Persia (486–465 b.c.). His name in Old Persian is Khshayarsha, in the Bible Ahasuerus. He was the son of Darius I and Atos...

Achaemenids

(Encyclopedia)Achaemenids ăkˌəmĕnˈĭdz [key], dynasty of ancient Persia. They were descended presumably from one Achaemenes, a minor ruler in a mountainous district of SW Iran. His successors, when Elam declin...

Mardonius

(Encyclopedia)Mardonius märdōˈnēəs [key], d. 479 b.c., Persian general; son-in-law of Darius I. Darius sent him (492 b.c.) to retaliate against Eretria and Athens for aiding the Ionians in the Persian Wars, bu...

Ahasuerus

(Encyclopedia)Ahasuerus āhăsˌyo͞oēˈrəs [key], Hebrew form of the name Xerxes, as used in the Bible. The Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther is probably Xerxes I. That in the Book of Tobit may be Cyaxares I, dest...

Alwand

(Encyclopedia)Alwand äˈvänd [key], mountain, c.11,600 ft (3,540 m) high, W Iran. It bears cuneiform inscriptions of Darius I and Xerxes I. ...

Edward II

(Encyclopedia)Edward II, 1284–1327, king of England (1307–27), son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, called Edward of Carnarvon for his birthplace in Wales. When trouble threatened with the new king of Fran...

Danilo II

(Encyclopedia)Danilo II (Danilo Petrović-Njegoš), 1826–60, prince of Montenegro (1851–60). He secularized (1852) his principality (chiefly in order to be able to marry) and transferred his ecclesiastic functi...

Darius II

(Encyclopedia)Darius II, d. 404 b.c., king of ancient Persia (423?–404 b.c.); son of Artaxerxes I and a concubine, hence sometimes called Darius Nothus [Darius the bastard]. His rule was not popular or successful...

Aleksy II

(Encyclopedia)Aleksy II: see Alexy II.