What King Xerxes Did to His Daughters Was Worse Than Death | History

Описание: Behind the golden walls of Persepolis, far from the clash of spears and the thunder of marching armies, another war was being fought—one without witnesses, without mercy, and without escape. This documentary-style history explores the hidden world of King Xerxes I of Persia, a ruler remembered for invading Greece and commanding the largest empire the ancient world had ever known, but rarely examined as a product—and a prisoner—of absolute power.

This story uncovers the brutal realities of the Persian royal court, where ritual transformed a man into a god, and humanity became a liability. Through ancient sources like Herodotus and Ctesias, we follow the psychological machinery of the Achaemenid palace: prostration rituals, isolation, fear, and the systematic erasure of agency, especially for the women who lived inside the Anderun—the sealed inner world of the royal household.

At the center of this narrative is one of antiquity’s most horrifying crimes: the mutilation of Masistes’ wife after she refused the king. Her fate was not an exception, but a symptom of a system designed to reduce human beings into instruments of power. Queens like Amestris and later Parysatis did not merely survive this system—they mastered it, turning the palace into a labyrinth of paranoia, torture, and calculated cruelty.

The video follows the ripple effects of this culture of fear, culminating in Xerxes’ assassination in his own bed and the fratricide that followed, proving that absolute power ultimately consumes even those who wield it. As Persepolis later burned under Alexander the Great, it erased not just an empire, but the silenced lives trapped within its walls.

This is not just ancient history. It is a warning—about power without accountability, systems that disguise oppression as honor, and cages so beautiful that their prisoners forget they are trapped.