XERXES I, king of Persia 486-465 BC. The Hebrew Achashverosh is a careful transcription of Old Persian Khshayarsha, which Greek rendered Xerxes; the identification is secure. He is the son of Darius I and the father of Artaxerxes I, under whom Ezra and Nehemiah came up — so Esther falls between Ezra 6 and Ezra 7. ⚠ His third year (Esther 1:3) is 483 BC, which Herodotus describes as the period in which Xerxes gathered his nobles and provincial governors to plan the invasion of Greece; the campaign sailed in 480 and ended at Salamis, and Esther becomes queen in his seventh year, 479, just after his return. The book never mentions the war, and the gap between its first two chapters is exactly the length of it. Herodotus also portrays him as impulsive, extravagant and easily swayed by courtiers, which is recognizably the king of this chapter.