You will notice as we study this intriguing ancient king, that just about every account is biased against him. Either he was a greedy, tyrannical, stupid, vain, and hubristic man, or the sources we have are wildly anti-Persian.While reading about Xerxes, always bear in mind - he ruled for 20 years, and had some major successes within his kingdom, despite his defeats in the Greco-Persian Wars: putting down three revolts, and building the great city of Persepolis, as well as extending the empire to the east.
Here are some of the online biographies I have found:
A short and comprehensive account of his life at biographybase.com
An anti-Xerxes article at sacklunch.net
An extract from the Histories, by Herodotus, about the incident where Xerxes allegedly had the sea whipped 300 times, to punish it for a storm that destroyed his bridge...
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