Special Guest Blogger: Xerxes I

I am probably most well known for fighting the Greeks, they made quite a decent film about me.
Back then, life was hard, even for a prince and my name in Iranian meant 'ruling over heroes' so that's a title to live up to.
Raised by eunuchs and powerful Zoroastrian religious figures, my upbringing was intense and at the age of seven I was learning to ride horses and hunt game to make me battle-ready because when i was 16, all Princes has to serve 25 long years of national service learning archery and spear throwing but handily my sudden ascension to the throne aged 20 cut this short.
My fathers favourite past-time was declaring war on Greece for which he taxed his citizens heavilly but it was marching to a scrap with Egypt that he died leaving me in charge but the king needed a queen and i had a sweet Cousin and we was wed and we were ready to rule our vast empire.
The issue with our empire was it was too vast and encompassed many different religious groups who would get a bit uppity sometimes but going in and destroying all their religious temples and statues soon put out their fire.
Being a ruthless leader and sending in troops all over soon depleted my army so the next fight with the Greeks was postponed for 4 years while i built up my army and charted a course and literally moved heaven and earth to smooth the journey to Greecewell, the earth part, at least as i oversaw the digging of the Xerxes Canal through the Mount Athos peninsula, had provisions brought ahead and stored along the route, and built two bridges across the Hellespont Strait in preparation. Two because the first one collapsed so i had the Strait whipped 300 times and the strait learnt its lesson as the second attempt at the bridge was successful.
The stage was set so I personally led his army across the Hellespont into Europe and won a battle at Artemisium and many Greeks offering support to side with us and when i arrived at Thermopylae to face the Spartans we numbered 1 million men.
Laughably we faced 300 men led by King Leonidas and obviously we slaughtered them and capture Athens which we promptly burnt to the ground.
It was now that i perhaps got a bit cocky because with most of the land conquered, i went after the Greek fleet and should have waited until the storm passed by told them to attack anyway and the Greek fleet, with something of a home advantage in the poor conditions, trounced us so i ran away with what was left of my army and went home and built magnificent structures instead and having affairs.
By August of 465 BC, I was no more, betrayed by one of my own bodyguards.