Introduction: encountering Xerxes -- Staging Xerxes: Aeschylus and beyond -- Historiographical enquiry: the Herodotean Xerxes-narrative -- Xerxes in his own write? The Persian perspective -- Pride, panhellenism and propaganda: Xerxes in the fourth century bc -- The king at court: alternative (hi)stories of Xerxes -- The past as a paradigm: Xerxes in a world ruled by Rome -- Epilogue: re-imagining Xerxes.