Xerxes

Episode 13 Xerxes Becomes King

The Persian Empire

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

Xerxes was born in 515 BC, son of Darius I’s second wife. Like most Persian nobles, Xerxes had 20 years of military training starting from age five. He learned archery and how to hunt, grow plants and collect herbs. He was also sent to survive in the wilderness.

In 486 BC Darius I departed Persepolis to put down a revolt in Egypt and appointed Xerxes (who had governed Babylonia for a decade) as crown prince over his older half brothers. Darius I died a year later under unclear circumstances. Immediately after assuming the throne, Xerxes departed for Egypt, suppressed the revolt and appointed his brother Achimedes the Egyptian governor. An extremely harsh ruler, the latter only provoked further rebellion.

in 484 BC there was a revolt in Babylon after Xerxes carried off the official statue of the Babylonian god Marduk. Xerxes crushed the revolt and significantly reduced Babylonian autonomy.

Xerxes was notorious for holding lavish banquets hosting thousands guests. The latter dined on wheat, barley, apples, pomegranates, grapes, garlic, onions, capers, ducks geese, grape and palm wine, lamb, beef, turtle doves, ducks geese while entertained by flautists and harpists.

According to Dr Lee, the Greek playwright Aeschylus and the Greek historian Herodotus portray Xerxes as the most decadent and despotic of the Persian kings. However referring to him as Ahasurus, the bibical books of Daniel and Esther speak very favorably of his reign.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/15372393/15372428

Episode 12 Across the Bitter Sea 

The Persian Empire

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

Darius I claimed the god Ahuramazda directed him to attack Athens and Eretia to punish them for their sneak attack during the empire’s battle to suppress the revolt of the Ionian Greek cities (on the Anatolian Peninsula, ie modern day Turkey)

With the intention of restoring the tyrant the people of Athens had ousted to establish a democracy, Darius sent 200 ships, 10,000-15,000 infantry, 500 cavalry and numerous siege engines on the long journey from Sardis on the Anatolian peninsula, through Thrace and Macedon (both controlled by Persia) to capture and burn Eretria (on the island of Euboia), deporting all its residents to Elam near Susa.

From there, Darius I marched his forces to the Marathon Plain in Attica, territory belonging to Athens. A militia of 10,000 Athenian citizens (regularly employed as farmers and craftsmen), providing their own weapons and food marched to the Marathon Plain.*

The Athenians launched a surprise attack on the Persians, who unlike the Greeks were all professional warriors, many of them Phoenician, Socca and Ionian mercenaries. The latter had sent their cavalry horses north to graze after running short of fodder.

In addition to defeating the Persians, the Greeks captured seven ships. 192 Athenians were killed, in contrast to 600 Persian troops.

*The Greeks had sent a runner (historical origin of the “marathon” race) to Sparta requesting their assistance, but the Spartans declined because they were celebrating a special feast of Apollo.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372390

Episode 11 Challenges in the West

The Persian Empire

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

To stop the continual raids by Scythian nomads on the Eastern Persian empire, Darius I led his warriors into Scythia (modern day Ukraine) intending to incorporate the region into his empire. He built a special pontoon bridge ( there would be no permanent bridge in modern day Istanbul until 1973) to cross the Bosporous into Thrace while the Ionian Greeks provided naval support.

The Scythians proved impossible to defeat because they kept withdrawing and refused to engage militarily with the Persians. However Darius I did succeed in bring Trace and Macedon on the Greek mainland into the empire.

In 494 BC the Greek cities in Ionia (on the west coast of the Anatolian peninsula) revolted against Persian control. Athens and Eretia on the Greek mainland supported the them.

It took a total of five years to suppress the revolt. The Persians castrated the most handsome Greek boys and sold the most attractive girls into slavery.

Darius appointed Artaphenes satrap of Sardis. The latter enacted a series of reforms to prevent further insurrection by the Greeks:

1. A system to arbitrate disputes between cities.

2. Land reform – to provide farmland for landless Greek peasants.

3. After Artaphenes deposed the tyrants ruling the the Ionian Greek cities, he allowed them to establish democracies.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372419

Episode 10 East of Persepolis

The Persian Empire

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

In this lecture, Dr Lee looks at the eastern Persian empire, which controlled roughly 2,000 miles of the Silk Road to China, which started in Bactria. This was the first time in history the western section of the Silk Road was controlled by a single power. The Asian climate was much wetter in 500 BC, and there was a substantial crop cultivation around oases and caravan cities, especially after the Persians provided them with irrigation canals.. Largely pastoral nomads, Persia’s eastern subjects revolted frequently against the Persian kings.* The most prominent eastern satropies were

• Karasmia – northern most satropy in the eastern empire, located in modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Although some Karasmians remained nomadic pastoralists, others mined turquoise, worked as palace administrators, as metal or stone workers or as mercenaries in Egypt.
• Bactria – in modern north-central Afghanistan, had a population of 2 million and was famous for fertile lands, cattle and land. Its people spoke a language related to old Persian but used Aramaic for administrative purposes.
• Sodiana – in modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, had vast open areas for pastoral nomads. Its largest city Samarkind, a center of culture and Silk Road trade, was renowned for its lapis lazuli and cornelian. Western Sodiana residents were known as Scythians. Scythian nomads became infamous for their aggression against the the Persians, who built a series of military forts to contain them.
• Gandara – having built cities and kingdoms (in region corresponding to modern day Pakistan) prior to their conquest by the Persians, Cyrus appointed native born satraps to administer this region.
• Hindush (Indus River Valley) – Indian satraps were required to send gold, ivory, elephants, and camels as tribute, as well as supplying the emperor with troops. Many Hindus from this region worked as administrators in the Persian capitols.

*Cyrus was killed trying to suppress a nomad revolt.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372408

Episode 9 Royal Roads and Messengers

The Persian Empire (2012)

Dr John W I Lee

Film Review

In this lecture, Dr Lee looks at the 20 provinces Darius I governed, along with the extensive road and messenger system that enabled the him to control an empire of 25 million people. Lee calls the Persian Empire the first “information empire.”

Darius began by expanding on the the road network of the Assyrian Empire, which also had a long distance messenger system. Although Persian roads were only paved in the major cities, all were extremely well-maintained with relay stations (providing food, water and fresh horses) every 10-20 miles. In addition, tens of thousands of private persons used Persian roads daily, traveling by donkey camel, chariot and light two-wheeled carts. Goods were transported in caravans of four-wheeled ox drawn carts.

The government issued leather passports to messengers and officials (eg tax collectors, judges and inspectors monitoring the satrapies). Printed in Aramaic, they entitled the bearer to food and drink at the relay stations. The Persian kings also built canals, an equally important form of transportation.

Darius divided the empire into 20 provinces or satrapies. The satraps appointed to rule them were responsible for maintaining local roads and canals. Most of the satraps were Persian, and each had their own palace, treasury and troops (to defend both the satrapy and, where required, the king). Satraps often rewarded retired soldiers with grants of land for their services.

Although most of the old Assyrian cities were abandoned following Persian conquest, Babylon remained a major financial and religious center. Likewise Phoenicia kept their own king (who was required to pay tribute) and issued their own coins after being conquered by Persia.

After proclaiming himself pharaoh in Egypt, as well as king of Persia and Babylon, Darius built numerous Egyptian canals, including an early version of the Suez Canal between the delta and the Red Sea.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372432

Episode 8 The Great King – Image and Reality

The Persian Empire 

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

Greek philosophers and historians portray Darius I and other Persian kings as tyrannical and decadent despots who treated their subjects like slaves. Lee disputes this view, citing evidence from the sculptured reliefs at the great palace Darius I built at Persopolis. All I can conclude from Lee’s evidence is the great king knew exactly how to project a positive image of himself.

One relief depicts representatives of the 23 nations ruled by Persia bringing tribute to Darius I. They all walk upright (not kneeling, kissing feet or holding up hands in submission as in Egyptian representations of the pharaoh), with some carrying weapons. In Lee’s view this represents voluntary cooperation and support of faithful servants rather than subjugation.

Another relief depicts the enthroned king supported on the fingertips of figures representing the 23 captive nations. This, according to Lee, suggests the subjects of Darius I benefit from his rule.

Lee also cities inscriptions from the tomb of Darius I, proclaiming the moral code embraced by the late ruler: righteousness, truth, protecting the weak against the strong, making careful judgements after listening to all sides.

Other sculpture and cylinder seals depict him as good gardener and planting his own apple, pear, mulberry, pear, olive and quince trees.

In addition to military garrisoned in each of the capitols when the emperor was present, the palace at Persepolis ran a number of state owned industries that raised cattle, grew grain and produced beer, wine and leather to supply a vast staff (who according to “weren’t slaves but weren’t free”).

• secretaries from across the empire, fluent  in Aramaic, Akkadian, Elamite and Greek, who issued passports and handled political and diplomatic correspondence.
• a treasurer who collected taxes in the form of goats oxen and grain and distributed rations of flour and meat to the army garrisoned there and palace staff.
• artisans (mainly metal and leather workers and sculptors) sometimes including women and children.
• a cup bearer (to test the king’s food and drink for poison), a spear bearer, a word bearer, a grand vizier (a kind of prime minister)
• 10,000 imperial guards (armed with spears or bow and arrow) to guard the gates, exterior walls and the citadel on a high terrace above the palace.
• magi to interpret dreams and omen and give political advice, as well as teaching the royal children.
• Greek and Egyptians physicians
• castrated males (eunuchs) to oversee the royal harem.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372395

Episode 7 The Persian Capitals and Palaces

The Persian Empire

Dr John W I Lee (2012)

Film Review

Under Darius I, Persia had five capitols: Pasargardae, Ecbatana, Babylon, Susa and Persepolis

• Pasargardae – located in highland fertile valley (6,000 feet) on important trade route conemporary Fars province of Fars. Built by Cyrus, palace takes up 400 acres, encompassing sacrificial altars, tomb of Cyrus II and tent space for garrison protecting it. Architecture manifests Egyptian, Elamite, Median, Babylonian, Lydian, Ionian influence.
• Ecbatana (former capitol of Media) – on highland fertile plains, enabling Persian control over Silk Road and Mediterranean horse and wheat trade. Several palace buildings had silver roofs, as an effective way of storing precious metal.
• Babylon – located in Mesopotamian plain (at a time when Euphrates river still crossected it. Had 100,000 population and named streets laid out in grid pattern. Darius designated himself king of Babylon and professed allegiance to Babylonian god Marduke.
• Susa (setting for for the Biblical story Esther) – Darius rebuilt the palace in Susa from bricks owing to a shortage of stone. Chosen for its strategic military access to Babylon Persian Gulf (via Persian river network). Expansive tent space for troops when king in residence.
• Persepolis – built by Darius just south of Pasagardae, palace complex reveals strong Egyptian influence

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372448

Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars and now boasts that he has resolved eight wars. In reality, this claim is delusional, and his foreign policy is a disaster. The United States remains mired in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and now Trump is careening blindly into new wars in Latin America.

The dangerous disconnect between Trump’s delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategy document. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting U.S. foreign policy in the hands of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose neocon worldview and behind-the-scenes maneuvering has consistently undercut Trump’s professed goals of diplomacy, negotiated settlements and “America First” priorities.

The eight wars Trump claims he has ended include non-existent wars between Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo, and the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that ended in 2023, after Azerbaijan invaded and ethnically cleansed the ancient Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh. Trump stole credit for peace between Thailand and Cambodia, which was actually mediated by Malaysia, while India insists that it ended its war with Pakistan without help from Trump.

Trump recently invited the presidents of Rwanda and the DRC to Washington to sign a peace deal, but it’s only the latest of many agreements that have failed to end decades of war and proxy war that rage on in the eastern Congo.

Trump even claims to have brought peace to Iran, which was not at war until he and Netanyahu plotted to attack it. Now diplomacy with Iran is dead—torpedoed by Trump’s treacherous use of negotiations as cover for the U.S.-Israeli surprise attack in June, an illegal war right out of Rubio’s neocon playbook.

Rubio has undermined diplomacy with Iran for years. As a senator, he worked to kill the JCPOA nuclear agreement, framed negotiations as appeasement, and repeatedly demanded harsher sanctions or military action. He defended the U.S. and Israeli attacks in June, which confirmed the claims of Iranian hardliners that the United States cannot be trusted. He makes meaningful talks with Iran impossible by insisting that Iran cease all nuclear enrichment and long-range missile development.  By aligning U.S. policy with Israel’s, Rubio closed off the only path that has ever reduced tensions with Iran: sustained, good-faith diplomacy.

Trump’s eighth claimed peace agreement was his Gaza “peace plan,” under which Israel still kills and maims Palestinians every day and allows only 200 truckloads per day of food, water, medicine, and relief supplies into Gaza. With Israeli forces still occupying most of Gaza, no country is sending troops to join Trump’s “stabilization force,” nor will Hamas disarm and leave its people defenseless. Israel still calls the shots, and will only allow rebuilding in Israeli-occupied areas.

As secretary of state, it was Marco Rubio’s job to negotiate peace and an end to the occupation of Palestine. But Rubio’s entire political career has been defined by unwavering support for Israel and corrupted by over a million dollars from pro-Israel donor groups like AIPAC. He refuses to speak to Hamas, insisting on its total isolation and destruction.

Rubio even refuses to negotiate with the weakest, most compromised, but still internationally recognized, Palestinian Authority. In the Senate, he worked to defund and delegitimize the PA, and now he insists it should play no role in Gaza’s future, but he offers no alternative. Contrast this with China, which recently convened 14 Palestinian factions for dialogue. With a U.S. secretary of state who won’t talk to any Palestinian actors, the United States is only supporting endless war and occupation.

Ukraine is not on Trump’s list of “eight wars,” but it is the conflict he most loudly promised to end on day one. Trump took his first steps to resolve the crisis in Ukraine with phone calls with Putin and Zelenskyy on February 12, 2025. War Secretary Pete Hegseth told a meeting of America’s NATO allies in Brussels that the U.S. was taking Ukraine’s long-promised NATO membership off the table, and that “we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

Zelenskyy and his European backers are still trying to persuade Trump that, with his support, they can win back at the negotiating table what Ukraine and its western allies lost by their tragic decision to reject a negotiated peace in April 2022. Russia was ready to withdraw from all the land it had just occupied, but the U.S. and U.K. persuaded NATO and Ukraine to instead embark on this long war of attrition, in which their negotiating position only grows weaker as Ukraine’s losses mount.

On November 21st, Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine that was built around the policy Trump and Hegseth had announced in February: no NATO membership, and no return to pre-2014 borders. But once Rubio arrived to lead the U.S. negotiating team in talks in Geneva, he let Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and the Europeans put NATO membership and Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders back on the table.

This was a poison pill to deliberately undermine the basic concept of Ukrainian neutrality that Russia insists is the only way to resolve the security dilemma facing both NATO and Russia and ensure a stable and lasting peace. As a European official crowed to Politico, “Things went in the right direction in Geneva. Still a work in progress, but looking much better now… Rubio is a pro who knows his stuff.”

Andriy Yermak, who led Ukraine’s negotiating team in Geneva, has now been fired in a corruption scandal, reportedly at Trump’s behest, as has Trump’s envoy to Kyiv, Keith Kellogg, who apparently leaked Trump’s plan to the press.

Trump is facing a schism in his foreign policy team that echoes his first term, when he appointed a revolving door of neocons, retired generals and arms industry insiders to top jobs. This time, he has already fired his first National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, several NSC staff, and now General Kellogg,

Trump’s team on Ukraine now includes Vice President J.D. Vance, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Deputy National Security Advisor Andy Baker and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who all seem to be on board with the basic policy that Trump and Hegseth announced in February.

But Rubio is keeping alive European hopes of a ceasefire that postpones negotiations over NATO membership and Ukraine’s borders for a later date, to allow NATO to once again build, arm and train Ukrainian forces to retake its lost territories by force, as it did from 2015 to 2022 under cover of the Minsk Accords.

This raises the questions: Does Rubio, like the Europeans and the neocons in Congress, still back the Biden-era strategy of fighting a long proxy war to the last Ukrainian? And if so, is he now in fact working to undermine Trump’s peace efforts?

Ray McGovern, the founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, thinks so, writing

“…we are at the threshold on Ukraine, at the beginning of a consequential battle between the neocons and Europeans on one side, and Donald Trump and the realists on the other. Will Trump show the fortitude to see this through and overcome his secretary of state?”

But it’s perhaps in Latin America where Rubio is playing the most aggressive role. Rubio has always promoted regime-change policies, economic strangulation, and U.S. interference targeting left-leaning governments in Latin America. Coming from a conservative Cuban family, he has long been one of the most hard-line voices in Washington on Cuba, championing sanctions, opposing any easing of the embargo, and working to reverse Obama-era diplomatic openings.

His position on Venezuela is similar. He was a leading architect of the Trump administration’s failed “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela, promoting crippling sanctions that devastated civilians, while openly endorsing failed coups and military threats.

Now Rubio is pushing Trump into a catastrophic, criminal war with Venezuela. In early 2025, Trump’s administration briefly pursued a diplomatic track with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, spearheaded by envoy Richard Grenell. But Marco Rubio’s hard-line, pressure-first approach gradually overtook the negotiation channel: Trump suspended talks in October 2025, and U.S. policy shifted toward intensified sanctions and military posturing.

Rubio’s hostility extends across the region: he has attacked progressive leaders in Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, and Brazil, while supporting authoritarians aligned with U.S. and Israeli interests. While Trump has warmed to Brazil’s president Lula and craves access to its reserves of rare earth elements, the second largest after China’s, Lula has no illusions about Rubio’s hostility and has refused to even meet with him.

Rubio’s approach is the opposite of diplomacy. He refuses engagement with governments he dislikes, undermines regional institutions, and encourages Washington to isolate and punish rather than negotiate. Instead of supporting peace agreements—such as Colombia’s fragile accords or regional efforts to stabilize Haiti—he treats Latin America as a battleground for ideological crusades.

Rubio’s influence has helped block humanitarian relief, deepen polarization, and shatter openings for regional dialogue. A Secretary of State committed to peace would work with Latin American partners to resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy, and reduce U.S. militarization in the hemisphere. Rubio does the reverse: he inflames tensions, sabotages diplomacy, and pushes U.S. policy back toward the dark era of coups, blockades, proxy wars and death squads.

So why is Trump betraying his most loyal MAGA supporters, who take his promises to “end the era of endless wars” at face value? Why is his administration supporting the same out-of-control American war machine that has run rampant around the world since the rise of neocons like Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s?

Is Trump simply unable to resist the lure of destructive military power that seduces every American president? Trump’s MAGA true believers would like to think that he and they represent a rejection of American imperialism and a new “America First” policy that prioritizes national sovereignty and shared domestic prosperity. But MAGA leaders like Marjorie Taylor Green can see that is not what Trump is delivering.

U.S. secretaries of state wield considerable power, and Trump is not the first president to be led astray by his secretary of state. President Eisenhower is remembered as a champion of peace, for quickly ending the Korean War – then slashing the military budget – and for two defining speeches at the beginning and end of his presidency: his “Chance for Peace” speech after the death of Soviet premier Josef Stalin in 1953; and his Farewell Address in 1960, in which he warned Americans against the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex.”

For most of his presidency though, Eisenhower gave his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, free rein to manage U.S. foreign policy. By the time Eisenhower fully grasped the dangers of Dulles’ brinksmanship with the U.S.S.R. and China, the Cold War arms race was running wild. Then Eisenhower’s belated outreach to the Soviets was interrupted by his own ill-health and the U-2 crisis. Hillary Clinton had a similarly destructive and destabilizing impact on Obama’s first-term foreign policy, in Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria and Honduras.

These should be cautionary tales for Trump. If he really wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, not a warmonger, he had better make the necessary personnel changes to his inner circle before it is too late. War with Venezuela is easily avoidable, since the whole world already knows the U.S. pretexts for war are fabricated and false. Rubio has stoked the underlying tensions and led this escalating campaign of lies, threats and murders, so Trump would be wise to replace him before his march to war crosses the point of no return.

This would allow Trump and Rubio’s successor to start rebuilding relations with our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, and to finally change longstanding U.S. policies that keep the Middle East, and now Ukraine, trapped in endless war.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-peace-marco-rubio-go/5908265