Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

his right hand was longer than his left (Plut. _Artax._ i.). He was the younger son of Xerxes, and was raised to the throne in 465 by the vizier Artabanus, the murderer of his father. After a few months he became aware of the crimes of the vizier, and slew him and his sons in a hand-to-hand fight in the palace. His reign was, on the whole, peaceful; the empire had reached a period of stagnation. Plutarch (_Artax._ i.) says that he was famous for his mild and magnanimous character, Nepos (_de Reg._ i.) that he was exceedingly beautiful and valiant. From the authentic report of his cup-bearer Nehemiah we see that he was a kind, good-natured, but rather weak monarch, and he was undoubtedly much under the baneful influence of his mother Amestris (for whose mischievous character cf. Herod. ix. 109 ff.) and his sister and wife Amytis. The peacefulness of his rule was interrupted by several insurrections. At the very beginning the satrap Artabanus raised a rebellion in Bactria, but was defeated in two battles. More dangerous was the rebellion of Egypt under Inarus (Inaros), which was put down by Megabyzus only after a long struggle against the Egyptians and the Athenians (460-454). Out of it sprang the rebellion of Megabyzus, who was greatly exasperated because, though he had persuaded Inarus to surrender by promising that his life would be spared, Artaxerxes, yielding to the entreaties of his wife Amytis, who wanted to take revenge on Inarus for the death of her brother Achaemenes, the satrap of Egypt, had surrendered him to her for execution. In spite of his weakness, Artaxerxes I. was not unsuccessful in his polity. In 448 the war with Athens was terminated by the treaty concluded by Callias (but see CALLIAS and CIMON), by which the Athenians left Cyprus and Egypt to the Persians, while Persia gave up nothing of her rights, but promised not to make use of them against the Greek cities on the Asiatic coast, which had gained their liberty (Ed. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alt. Gesch._ ii. 71 ff.). In the Samian and the Peloponnesian wars, Artaxerxes remained neutral, in spite of the attempts made by both Sparta and Athens to gain his alliance. During the reign of Artaxerxes I. the Jewish religion was definitely established and sanctioned by law in Jerusalem, on the basis of a firman granted by the king to the Babylonian priest Ezra in his seventh year, 458 B.C., and the appointment of his cup-bearer Nehemiah as governor of Judaea in his twentieth year, 445 B.C. The attempts which have been made to deny the authenticity of those parts of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which contain an account of these two men, taken from their own memoirs, or to place them in the reign of Artaxerxes II., are not convincing (cf. Ed. Meyer, _Die Entstehung des Judentums_, 1896; see further JEWS, SS 19, 21, 22; EZRA AND NEHEMIAH). Artaxerxes I. died in December 425, or January 424 (Thuc. iv. 50). To his reign must belong the famous quadrilingual alabaster vases from Egypt (on which his name is written in Persian, Susian and Babylonian cuneiform characters and in hieroglyphics), for Artaxerxes II. and III. did not possess Egypt. A great many tablets, dated from his reign, have been found in Nippur (published by H. von Hilprecht and Clay, _The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania_, series A, vol. ix.), and a few others at other places in Babylonia. Inscriptions of the king himself are not extant; his grandson mentions his buildings in Susa. For the suggested identification of Artaxerxes I. with the Biblical Ahasuerus, see AHASUERUS.