Xerxes I

Xerxes whipped the Hellespont sea, burnt it with hot irons, abused it in a thousand ways;

Artabanus coming by surprise once upon his nephew Xerxes, chid him for the sudden alteration of his countenance.

Boges, governor in Eion for King Xerxes, being besieged by the Athenian army under the conduct of Cimon, refused the conditions offered, that he might safe return into Asia with all his wealth, impatient to survive the loss of a place his master had given him to keep;

Amestris, the mother of Xerxes, being grown old, caused at once fourteen young men, of the best families of Persia, to be buried alive, according to the religion of the country, to gratify some infernal deity.

Xerxes was a coxcombical blockhead who, environed with all human delights, proposed a reward to him who could find out others;