etc.). This is all true of Xerxes, but of no other Persian monarch. The character of Ahasuerus, as portrayed in the Book of Esther, also agrees well with the account of Xerxes given by Herodotus and other Greek historians. For these reasons there is general agreement among modern scholars, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant, that by Ahasuerus the author of the Book of Esther means Xerxes.1 An important biblical piece of evidence for the identification of Xerxes is Ezra 4:5–7, which places this Ahasuerus