What is the succession dispute (Herodotus 7.2-3)?

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What were Xerxes' family background and lineage, and how did the succession dispute with Artobazanes and the death of Darius I in 486 BC shape his accession?

Xerxes' background, family and accession, including his descent from Darius I and Atossa (daughter of Cyrus the Great), his upbringing as crown prince, the legitimacy dispute with his elder half-brother Artobazanes reported by Herodotus (7.2-3), the death of Darius I in 486 BC, the smooth accession, and the early consolidation of his reign against the revolts in Egypt and Babylon

A focused answer to the HSC Ancient History dot point on Xerxes' background: son of Darius I and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great; the legitimacy dispute with his elder half-brother Artobazanes (Herodotus 7.2-3); upbringing as crown prince; the smooth accession on Darius' death in 486 BC; and early consolidation, read through Herodotus and Persian inscriptions.

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Quick answer

Xerxes was the son of Darius I (r. 522 to 486 BC) and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great, making him a grandson of the empire's founder. Born c. 518 BC, he was the eldest son born after Darius became king, but not the eldest overall; Herodotus (7.2 to 3) records a succession dispute in which his half-brother Artobazanes claimed seniority while Xerxes claimed the stronger pedigree, aided by the exiled Spartan Demaratus's advice and, Herodotus says, by Atossa's influence. Darius designated Xerxes, and on Darius's death in 486 BC the accession was unusually smooth. Xerxes then suppressed revolts in Egypt (485 to 484 BC) and Babylon (c. 484 BC). The background must be read critically, with the Greek narrative of Herodotus set against the ideological Persian royal inscriptions such as the Persepolis "harem" inscription (XPf).

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What this dot point is asking

NESA's "Background" strand for Xerxes wants you to explain who he was before and at the moment he became king: his lineage as the son of Darius I and Atossa (and so a grandson of Cyrus the Great), his upbringing as the designated crown prince, the legitimacy dispute with his elder half-brother Artobazanes that Herodotus records (7.2 to 3), the death of Darius I in 486 BC, the notably smooth accession that followed, and the early consolidation of his reign against revolts in Egypt and Babylon. You also need to handle the evidence critically, because almost everything narrative comes from a Greek source, Herodotus, set against the very different voice of the Persian royal inscriptions.

In plain English

Think of the Persian Empire as a giant family firm. The founder was Cyrus the Great, a legend. The current boss is Darius, who married the founder's daughter, Atossa, so their son carries both the founder's blood and the current boss's authority. That son is Xerxes.

The catch: Darius already had an older son, Artobazanes, from an earlier marriage. So there is a boardroom argument about who inherits. The older son says, "I was born first, so it's mine." Xerxes says, "Yes, but I was born after Dad actually became boss, and my mum is the founder's daughter, so my claim is better." A visiting adviser (an exiled Spartan king) coaches Xerxes on how to phrase that argument. Dad agrees and names Xerxes as heir, and Herodotus adds that Xerxes' mother was so powerful behind the scenes that he was always going to win anyway.

When Darius dies in 486 BC, the handover is smooth, no bloody scramble. Xerxes' first job is to put out two fires his father left burning, revolts in Egypt and Babylon, which he does quickly, and only then turns to the famous invasion of Greece.

The answer

Lineage: son of Darius I and Atossa

Xerxes (Old Persian Khshayarsha, "ruling over heroes") was born about 518 BC, the son of Darius I and his queen Atossa. Darius had come to the throne in 522 BC not by direct inheritance but by seizing power after the death of Cambyses and the killing of a claimant he called a usurper, an origin Darius justified at length in the Bisitun (Behistun) inscription. Because Darius's own hold on kingship depended on presenting himself as the legitimate Achaemenid, the lineage of his heir mattered enormously.

Atossa was a daughter of Cyrus the Great (r. c. 559 to 530 BC), the empire's founder. Her marriage to Darius joined his Achaemenid line to Cyrus's prestige, and it made Xerxes a grandson of Cyrus on his mother's side as well as the son of the reigning king. That double descent is the hinge of the whole background: it is what let Xerxes argue, when the succession was contested, that his pedigree outranked mere seniority.

Upbringing as crown prince

Unlike Akhenaten, whose youth is almost undocumented, Xerxes appears to have been raised as the intended heir once Darius settled the succession in his favour. Herodotus (7.2 to 3) treats him as already the designated successor before Darius's death, and later Persian royal inscriptions have Xerxes state that his father made him "the greatest" of the sons during his own lifetime. The surviving evidence for the details of that upbringing is thin and largely ideological rather than biographical, so the crown-prince phase is better understood as a status (designated heir) than as a documented education.

The succession dispute (Herodotus 7.2-3)

Herodotus gives the fullest account of the accession, and it turns on a genealogical argument. Before Darius became king, he had sons by an earlier wife (a daughter of the noble Gobryas); the eldest of these was Artobazanes. After Darius became king, Atossa bore him sons, the eldest being Xerxes. When Darius prepared to name a successor, a dispute arose:

Artobazanes' claim: he was the eldest of all Darius's sons, and it was the universal custom that the eldest should rule.
Xerxes' claim: he was the eldest son born to Darius while Darius was already king, and, through Atossa, a grandson of Cyrus, "the man who won the Persians their freedom."

Herodotus (7.3) adds that the exiled Spartan king Demaratus, then living at the Persian court, advised Xerxes to press a further point: among the Spartans, a son born after his father came to the throne was preferred as heir. Darius judged the argument just and proclaimed Xerxes his successor. Herodotus then offers his own opinion: that even without Demaratus's advice Xerxes would have become king, because Atossa "held all the power."

Read this account critically. It is a Greek narrative, composed roughly two generations after the events, and it is shaped by Herodotus's interest in how great expeditions begin. The neat courtroom-style debate, and the sweeping claim about Atossa's omnipotence, are literary framings as much as records of fact. What can be trusted in outline, because it is independently consistent with Persian evidence, is that Xerxes was a younger but more royally connected son who was chosen over an elder brother.

Darius' death in 486 BC and the smooth accession

Darius I died in 486 BC. Herodotus (7.4) reports that he had reigned 36 years and that he died before he could punish either the rebel Egyptians or the Athenians, leaving both tasks to his son. Because Darius had already designated his heir, the transfer of power to Xerxes was, by Achaemenid standards, strikingly smooth: there is no record of the kind of violent contest that had accompanied Darius's own accession in 522 BC. This orderly handover is itself a historically significant fact, and it reflects both the earlier settlement of the succession and the ideological weight Persian kingship placed on the designated, god-chosen heir.

Early consolidation: Egypt and Babylon

Xerxes inherited unfinished business. Egypt had revolted late in Darius's reign; Xerxes suppressed the rising early in his own reign (485 to 484 BC) and, according to Herodotus (7.7), placed his brother Achaemenes over Egypt as satrap, binding the province more tightly to the royal house. Around 484 BC Babylonia rose under local claimants (Bel-shimanni, and then Shamash-eriba); Xerxes' forces put down the revolts, after which the way the king's Babylonian titulature was used appears to change. Only once these fires were out did Xerxes turn to the great project his father had left him, the invasion of Greece of 480 to 479 BC, treated on a separate dot point.

Persian royal inscriptions versus Herodotus

The dot point is a good place to practise setting written Greek narrative against Persian inscriptional evidence. The Old Persian royal inscriptions carved for Xerxes at Persepolis, most usefully the so-called "harem" inscription (XPf), present the accession from the Persian side: Xerxes states that Darius had other sons, but that Ahura Mazda's desire was that Darius make Xerxes "the greatest" after himself, and that on his father's departure from the throne Xerxes became king by the god's will. This is direct, contemporary, official evidence, but it is ideological: it presents the succession as calm and divinely sanctioned and says nothing of the dispute Herodotus records. The two sources are strongest together, Herodotus for the human politics, the inscriptions for the royal ideology that politics was dressed in.

Chronology at a glance

Approx. date	Event
c. 559 to 530 BC	Cyrus the Great founds and rules the empire
522 BC	Darius I seizes the throne
c. 518 BC	Xerxes born, to Darius and Atossa, after Darius became king
before 486 BC	Succession dispute; Darius designates Xerxes heir (Hdt 7.2 to 3)
486 BC	Death of Darius I; Xerxes accedes smoothly
485 to 484 BC	Xerxes suppresses the revolt in Egypt; Achaemenes made satrap
c. 484 BC	Xerxes suppresses revolts in Babylon
486 to 465 BC	Reign of Xerxes

Modern scholarship on the background

Pierre Briant (From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002) is the leading synthesis; he insists on reading Achaemenid succession through Persian ideology, the reigning king's designation of a god-chosen heir, rather than through Greek assumptions about primogeniture. Amelie Kuhrt (The Persian Empire, 2007) assembles the sources and repeatedly warns that Greek writers frame Persia through Greek preoccupations, so Herodotus must be handled critically. Maria Brosius (on Persian royal women) cautions that Greek sources can exaggerate the personal power of queens such as Atossa, even as their dynastic status was genuinely important. Josef Wiesehofer (Ancient Persia) and Lindsay Allen (The Persian Empire) provide accessible overviews that likewise balance the hostile or dramatising Greek tradition against the Persian evidence.

How to read a source on this topic

Section III sources on Xerxes' background fall into two very different families: Greek literary narrative (overwhelmingly Herodotus) and Persian royal inscriptions (the Old Persian texts from Persepolis). The single most useful skill here is telling them apart and playing them against each other.

First, date and place the source. Herodotus wrote in Greek, roughly two generations after 486 BC, for a Greek audience; the inscriptions are contemporary, Persian, and official. Neither is neutral, but they are biased in opposite directions.

Second, read for purpose. A royal inscription exists to legitimise, so its silences are as telling as its statements: XPf's silence about Artobazanes is not evidence there was no dispute, it is evidence the dispute was something the regime wished to erase. Herodotus's vivid debate scene, by contrast, is shaped to dramatise how a great expedition was set in motion.

Third, corroborate. Where Greek narrative and Persian ideology agree in outline, that Xerxes was Darius's designated heir, chosen over others, you can argue for a reliable core; where they diverge, say so, and use the divergence itself as evidence of each source's angle.

Command words and using this evidence

"Outline" and "identify" want correctly sequenced facts with brief development, one mark per point; they do not require you to resolve a debate. "Explain" wants a causal chain (for example, why double royal descent gave Xerxes the winning argument), not just what happened. "Assess," "evaluate" and "to what extent" require a sustained judgement: weigh the usefulness or bias of a source, or weigh how far family background (against designation and ideology) explains the accession.

When a source appears, work through content, then reliability (who produced it, in what genre, for what purpose), then usefulness (what it does and does not let a historian conclude), then perspective (Greek outsider versus Persian royal voice). Weave historians in as argument, for example "Briant reads the inscriptions as ideology, so their silence on the dispute is expected, while Herodotus supplies the politics they hide," rather than listing names at the end.

Model responses

Model 1 (source-analysis, extract). A reconstructed Persian royal inscription that has Xerxes chosen as "the greatest" of Darius's sons by the will of the god is useful but must be handled as motivated evidence. Its usefulness is that it gives the Persian, contemporary framing of the accession, confirming that Xerxes was designated by his father and that other sons existed, which corroborates the outline of Herodotus (7.2 to 3). Its reliability as a record of events is limited: as royal self-presentation it exists to legitimise, so it suppresses the dispute entirely and explains the outcome by divine will rather than politics. The strongest use is comparative: set against Herodotus, who names the rival Artobazanes and Atossa's influence, the inscription supplies the ideology and Herodotus the human conflict. Marker's note: the response uses origin and purpose to judge the source, treats its silence about the dispute as itself significant, and corroborates it against a second, different kind of source rather than taking it at face value.

Model 2 (essay paragraph on family background). The decisive feature of Xerxes' accession is that it was won as an argument about lineage, not seized by force. Herodotus (7.2 to 3) stages the succession as a contest of claims: Artobazanes rests on being the eldest of all the sons, while Xerxes rests on being the eldest son born to a reigning king and, through Atossa, a grandson of Cyrus, the empire's founder. Demaratus only sharpens a case already rooted in Xerxes' family position, and Darius accepts it. Pierre Briant's insistence that Achaemenid succession worked through the reigning king's designation of a god-chosen heir explains why background alone was not enough, Darius still had to choose, but it also shows that what Darius chose between was precisely competing pedigrees. Marker's note: the paragraph answers a "to what extent" style prompt with a clear line of argument, cites specific evidence (Herodotus 7.2 to 3), and uses a named historian (Briant) to qualify rather than decorate the claim.

Common exam traps

Muddling Xerxes' relatives: Cyrus is his maternal grandfather, Darius his father, Atossa his mother, and Artobazanes his elder half-brother; Gobryas is a noble whose daughter was Darius's earlier wife, not a brother. Name each relationship precisely.
Treating Herodotus as a transparent record: The succession-debate scene is a Greek narrative written two generations later and shaped for effect; use it, but flag that it is Herodotus's framing, and set it against the Persian inscriptions.
Assuming primogeniture: Persian succession did not automatically go to the eldest; it turned on the reigning king's designation and on ideology, which is exactly why the younger but more royally connected Xerxes could win.
Skipping the early revolts: The accession was smooth, but "background and accession" includes the immediate consolidation, the suppression of Egypt (485 to 484 BC) and Babylon (c. 484 BC), before the invasion of Greece. Leaving these out weakens an "accession" answer.

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation3 marksOutline Xerxes' family background before he became king.

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A 3-mark "outline" wants three correct, clearly stated points.

Parents: Xerxes was the son of Darius I (r. 522 to 486 BC), the reigning Achaemenid king, and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire.
Royal descent on both sides: Through his mother he was a grandson of Cyrus, which gave him a claim to the imperial founder's bloodline as well as to his father's line; through his father he belonged to the ruling Achaemenid house.
Position among the sons: He was not the eldest of all Darius's sons, but he was the eldest of the sons born to Darius after Darius became king, and he was raised as the designated heir (crown prince).

Markers reward the three points stated clearly, and in particular the double royal descent (Achaemenid father, Cyrus's daughter as mother), which is the key to the later succession argument.

foundation4 marksIdentify four individuals connected to Xerxes by descent, and state each relationship.

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A 4-mark "identify" needs four distinct, correctly stated relationships.

Cyrus the Great: Xerxes' maternal grandfather, founder of the Achaemenid Empire (r. c. 559 to 530 BC).
Darius I: Xerxes' father, the reigning king (r. 522 to 486 BC), who designated Xerxes as his successor.
Atossa: Xerxes' mother, a daughter of Cyrus the Great and Great Royal Wife of Darius; Herodotus (7.3) presents her as highly influential at court.
Artobazanes: Xerxes' elder half-brother, the eldest of Darius's sons by an earlier wife (a daughter of Gobryas), and his rival for the throne.

Markers reward four distinct, correctly labelled relationships rather than a general family narrative; a common slip is to muddle Artobazanes (a brother) with the courtier Gobryas (his maternal grandfather).

core6 marksSOURCE ANALYSIS. Source A (owned reconstruction, ExamExplained): a paraphrased royal inscription in the style of those carved for Xerxes at Persepolis. It reads, in part, 'Darius had other sons; but such was the desire of the god that Darius my father made me the greatest after himself. When my father departed from the throne, by the god's will I became king upon my father's throne.' Assess the usefulness and reliability of Source A for a historian investigating Xerxes' accession.

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A 6-mark source task needs balanced usefulness AND reliability, anchored in origin and purpose, plus own knowledge.

Origin and purpose: This is a royal, monumental inscription commissioned by Xerxes himself. Its purpose is ideological, to proclaim a legitimate, god-sanctioned succession, not to give a neutral account. That purpose shapes everything it says.
Usefulness: It is useful because it is a Persian voice on a question our main narrative (Herodotus) reports only from the Greek side. It confirms that other sons of Darius existed, that Xerxes' selection was contested enough to need justifying, and that Xerxes was chosen and elevated by his father before Darius died, which fits Herodotus's report (7.2 to 3) that Darius named Xerxes heir.
Reliability and limitation: As official self-presentation it is not reliable evidence that the succession was smooth or divinely ordained; it is exactly what a victor in a disputed succession would erect. It suppresses the dispute rather than describing it, and attributes the outcome to the god's will (Ahura Mazda), a religious formula, not a historian's explanation.
Corroboration: Read against Herodotus, who names the rival Artobazanes and credits Atossa's influence (7.3), the two sources together are stronger than either alone: the inscription supplies the Persian ideological frame, Herodotus supplies the human dispute the inscription hides.

Markers reward candidates who treat the inscription as motivated official evidence, use origin and purpose to judge it, and set it against Herodotus rather than taking either at face value.

core5 marksExplain why the succession dispute reported by Herodotus (7.2-3) was significant for Xerxes' accession.

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A 5-mark "explain" needs the dispute defined, the resolution stated, and the significance argued.

The dispute: According to Herodotus (7.2), before Darius became king he had sons by an earlier wife, the eldest being Artobazanes; after becoming king he had sons by Atossa, the eldest being Xerxes. When Darius prepared to name an heir, Artobazanes argued he was the eldest of all the sons; Xerxes argued he was the eldest son born to a reigning king and a grandson of Cyrus, the empire's founder.
The resolution: Herodotus (7.3) reports that the exiled Spartan king Demaratus advised Xerxes to add the argument that a son born after his father took the throne had the stronger claim. Darius judged this just and named Xerxes his successor; Herodotus adds his own view that Xerxes would have prevailed anyway because Atossa "held all the power."
Significance: The episode matters because it shows Xerxes' accession rested on an argument about legitimacy, not simple primogeniture, and it foregrounds two forces that shaped the reign: the prestige of descent from Cyrus, and the influence of royal women. It also shows how our knowledge of the accession depends heavily on a Greek source written decades later.

Markers reward the causal link from the competing claims to the chosen heir, and recognition that the account is Herodotus's, not a Persian record.

core6 marksOutline the early consolidation of Xerxes' reign following the death of Darius I in 486 BC.

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A 6-mark "outline" wants a clear sequence of correct points with brief development.

The accession (2 marks): Darius I died in 486 BC after a reign Herodotus (7.4) gives as 36 years, before he could march against the rebel Egyptians or the Athenians. Xerxes, already designated heir, succeeded without a recorded internal power struggle, an unusually smooth Achaemenid transition.
Egypt (2 marks): Egypt had risen in revolt late in Darius's reign. Xerxes suppressed it early in his own reign (485 to 484 BC) and, according to Herodotus (7.7), installed his brother Achaemenes as satrap, tightening royal control of the province.
Babylon (2 marks): Babylonia rose under local claimants (Bel-shimanni, then Shamash-eriba) around 484 BC. Xerxes' forces crushed the revolts; the disruption is reflected in changes to how the king's Babylonian titles were used thereafter.

Markers reward a correct sequence with dates and the specific measures (Achaemenes in Egypt, the Babylonian suppressions), not a vague statement that Xerxes "put down rebellions."

exam20 marksESSAY. To what extent does Xerxes' family background explain his accession to the throne in 486 BC?

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A Band-6 essay sustains a judgement on "to what extent," uses specific dated evidence, and weaves historiography. Plan plus a model paragraph.

Thesis: Family background explains a great deal of Xerxes' accession, because his double royal descent and his mother Atossa's influence supplied the winning argument in a contested succession; but it does not fully explain it, because the outcome also required his father's active designation and the ideological machinery of Achaemenid kingship.
Argument line 1: descent as the decisive claim: Herodotus (7.2 to 3) makes lineage the very substance of the dispute. Artobazanes was the eldest son overall, but Xerxes was the eldest son born to a reigning king and, through Atossa, a grandson of Cyrus the empire's founder. Background did not merely qualify Xerxes; it furnished the precise legitimating argument that defeated the older brother.
Argument line 2: the power of royal women: Herodotus (7.3) states Xerxes would have become king anyway because Atossa "held all the power." Modern scholars such as Maria Brosius caution that Greek sources may overstate individual queens, yet even discounted, Atossa's status as Cyrus's daughter was a structural asset, again a matter of family.
Argument line 3: what background does not explain: Descent alone did not crown Xerxes; Darius had to choose and elevate him, as the Persepolis royal inscriptions later advertised in the language of divine selection. Pierre Briant stresses that Achaemenid succession worked through the reigning king's designation and an ideology of the god-chosen heir, not automatic primogeniture. Background gave Xerxes the raw material; the institution of designated kingship converted it into a throne.
Model paragraph (line 1): The clearest sign that background was decisive is that the succession was argued on genealogical grounds. In Herodotus's account the brothers do not fight; they plead cases. Artobazanes' case is pure seniority; Xerxes' case is that he was born "to a king" and descends from Cyrus, and it is this second, richer pedigree that Darius accepts. The exiled Spartan Demaratus only sharpens an argument already rooted in Xerxes' family position. When Xerxes' own later inscriptions claim he was made "the greatest" of Darius's sons, they confirm that the throne was won as a claim about lineage, not seized by force, which is precisely why background is the leading explanation.
Conclusion: Xerxes' accession is best explained by family background, decisively so at the level of the legitimating argument, but the explanation is not total: the designation of Darius and the ideology of divinely sanctioned kingship were also required. Judgement: substantial but not sufficient on its own.

Marker's note: Band 6 responses give a clear verdict on "to what extent," cite precise evidence (Herodotus 7.2 to 4, the Persepolis inscriptions), integrate at least two historians as argument (Briant, Brosius) rather than decoration, and distinguish what background supplied from what the institution of kingship added.

exam25 marksESSAY. Evaluate the usefulness of Herodotus and the Persian royal inscriptions for understanding Xerxes' background and accession.

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A Band-6 essay sustains a weighted judgement on "usefulness," compares two very different kinds of source, and names evidence and historians throughout. Plan plus a model paragraph.

Thesis: Herodotus and the Persian royal inscriptions are each useful but each partial: Herodotus supplies a detailed human narrative of the succession that no Persian source gives, while the inscriptions supply the Achaemenid ideological self-image that Herodotus cannot. They are most useful read against each other, correcting the bias of each.
Line 1: what Herodotus offers: Herodotus (Histories, Book 7) is the only connected account of the accession: the rival Artobazanes, the competing arguments, Demaratus's advice, Atossa's influence, Darius's death after 36 years (7.2 to 4). Without him the dispute would be invisible.
Line 2: Herodotus's limitations: He wrote as a Greek, roughly two generations later, without access to Persian court records, and shaped his narrative around themes of ambition and coming catastrophe. Amelie Kuhrt warns that Greek sources frame Persia through Greek preoccupations; his figures and motives (especially Atossa's omnipotence) are literary as much as documentary.
Line 3: what the inscriptions offer: The Old Persian royal inscriptions, above all the Persepolis "harem" inscription (XPf), give Xerxes' own claim: that Ahura Mazda desired Darius to make him "the greatest" and that he took the throne by the god's will. This is direct, contemporary, Persian evidence of how the accession was officially presented.
Line 4: the inscriptions' limitations: They are royal propaganda, not narrative history. They suppress the very dispute Herodotus records; they explain the succession by divine will, not by politics. Pierre Briant uses them precisely to reconstruct Achaemenid ideology, while insisting they cannot be read as neutral fact.
Model paragraph (synthesis): The two bodies of evidence are useful in inverse proportion to each other's blind spots. Herodotus tells us there was a contested succession, with a passed-over elder brother and an influential queen, exactly the human friction a triumphal inscription is designed to erase. The inscriptions, in turn, tell us how the winner wished the accession remembered, as the calm, god-given elevation of the "greatest" son, exactly the official gloss a Greek storyteller had no reason to preserve. A historian who used only Herodotus would risk a Hellenised court drama; one who used only the inscriptions would get seamless propaganda. Used together, Herodotus's dispute and the inscriptions' divine designation reveal both the politics and the ideology of the same event, which is why the combination is far more useful than either alone.
Conclusion: Both sources are indispensable and both are biased; usefulness lies in the comparison. Judgement: highly useful in combination, unreliable in isolation, with Herodotus stronger on events and the inscriptions stronger on ideology.

Marker's note: Band 6 answers evaluate (weigh strengths against limits), name specific evidence (Herodotus 7.2 to 4; the XPf inscription), distinguish written from archaeological/inscriptional evidence, deploy historians (Kuhrt, Briant) as argument, and reach a comparative verdict rather than praising or dismissing one source wholesale.