Xerxes (reigned 486-465 BC), a king of Persia, made an unsuccessful effort to conquer Greece in 480-479, suffering a major naval defeat at the Battle of Salamis.

Xerxes was the son of Darius I and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus I. When Xerxes succeeded his father, Egypt was already in revolt and troubles soon broke out in Babylon; further, there was still pending the matter of the Greeks, where the Persian defeat at Marathon called for vengeance. He crushed the revolts in both Egypt and Babylon with great severity, not sparing even the gods, and then turned to the conquest of Greece.

The superiority of the Greek infantry, man for man, was by then well known, but Xerxes' force outnumbered the Greeks, and he decided to make a land invasion around the northern end of the Aegean. Enormous preparations were made all the way to the borders of Greece...