Although founded by Cyrus the Great, and expanded by Darius, the Persian Empire became truly great only through Artaxerxes Mnemon II, this — in the view of his contemporaries and later the historians — feeble, susceptible, enervated, and at first, this delicate and generous man, who was originally called Ŗtaxšaçā in his own language, and then later called Artsaces by the Greeks, and who for a long time could not get over having had to bury the eunuch Tiridates, the boy-love of his youth, before — as perhaps Herodotus has noted — he had a chance to emerge from childhood; his grief was so great that he ordered the assumption and the practicing of the deepest mourning across the entire Empire, at which his mother, in the hopes of bringing it to an end, threw all her might into the creation of a marital union auspicious for the Empire, through which she also wished to obstruct him, Artsaces, from gaining the throne, for in her heart — if in the case of Parysatis we can even speak of such a thing as a heart — she intended the throne for her second-born, but in vain, not even one of her plans came to fruition, for she had to behold as her favorite, the passionate Cyrus the Younger, created to rule, died at Cunaxa, and it was precisely the despised first-born, and then again the Babylonian slut designated for the marriage not only didn’t encumber Artaxerxes II’s ascension to the throne, but actually directly expedited it, for that accursed foreign serpent, as Parysatis called her among her closest devotees, had become so popular practically since her very first public appearance, when, in procession behind her husband, the Emperor, she was able to take part in a large festival dedicated to Ahura Mazda, that the people wanted to see her on the queen’s throne immediately, and there they saw her, because the Emperor wanted to see her there too, and the magi of the Medes placed the crown on her head, and she became the Great Queen of the powerful Empire, and she became as well the one for whom the Emperor, in one swift blow, could forget his bereavement over Tiridates, for it was enough to look at Vashti and he was bewitched; Parysatis tried everything humanly possible against her, availing herself of the wives secluded in the zenana, particularly the jealous Ionian Asparia, pushed into the gray background of the zenana because of Vashti; she used all the machinations of zenana-intrigue, she used the priests of the faith of Marduk and the priests opposed to the faith of Marduk, as well as the so-called “male societies” formed to resist the autocracy of Ahura Mazda, as well as the antipathies of the Zoroastrian priests who repudiated these “male societies,” she tried everything but without result, her first-born, and not high-born, was blinded by the Babylonian beauty, who sat upon the throne and wore the crown on her sweetly curling flaxen hair as if she had always been seated upon that throne, and as if that crown had always been meant for her; simply put, nothing could touch her, nothing in the entire God-given world, Vashti’s position grew ever more solid, in parallel with the Empire, which again only strengthened the position of the Great Queen as it grew and became ever more powerful, never had there been an Empire of this extent in all the world within the reason’s grasp, in addition the residents of the Empire relished the great peace in the wake of the great wars, which they ascribed to the personal talents of the Emperor, taking it as equal proof that the most supreme Deity of the Heavens, Ahura Mazda, was happy to see the Great King upon the throne; in short, Vashti seemed unassailable; the Queen Mother fretted in her apartments, maddened by the impotence of her fury, only able to trust now that something would happen to bring about the end — as it usually did — to this nauseating peace in the Empire and this deplorable romance in the royal palace, she watched the Great King, growing ever stouter, and she was besieged by splitting headaches, she watched the radiant Babylonian slut and she was nauseated, but for the time being there was nothing she could do, just keep watching, Parysatis said to herself in between the headaches and the nausea, one day this too will come to an end, because Ahura Mazda in the heavens wished it so, and thus it came about, and her waiting and her torment were not in vain, for the end did come, so easily, so self-evidently that she herself, Parysatis, was the most surprised of all, when she heard after the conclusion of the official celebration of the monarch’s ascension to the throne that the Great King was held by even his closest devotees to be incapable of the most trifling of decisions, and the word had began to spread as well in the subjugated provinces that the Emperor was weak; Artaxerxes would permit anything at all, but not this, so that after the rejoicing, lasting 180 days, a festival of seven days was ordered for the old and newly conquered princes, the old and newly conquered kings, to be held on the opposite bank of the river, in the Apadana, built as it were to face the palace of Darius in Susa in order to demonstrate the dignity of his right to the throne and his strength — but from this point on everything became very confused, and even Parysatis could only follow the events with difficulty, as for a while she had believed that the Great King was incapable of true wrath; the first reports of this had already arrived, the only problem being that custom did not allow her to approach the Apadana herself, to witness with her own two eyes at this so-called celebration, descended into drunken roistering, this anger, in any case the second report spoke of violent rage, the eunuchs practically flying between the zenana and the Apadana, the Emperor is foaming at the mouth, they whispered into her ear, he is jabbering and yammering and howling and bawling, and all of the guests are in shock; the celebration has fallen apart and come to an end; they reported, in the palaces of Susa, of the unexpected events; and Parysatis was happy once again, for the mere fact that the Emperor’s repulsive yet seemingly unassailable sense that there could be no problems at all between him and Vashti, for whatever foolishly squalid reasons, thrilled her, so that both her headaches and her nausea immediately disappeared; she felt wonderful, her eyes glittered, her brow unfurrowed, her back straightened, once again assuming that immovable face, so dreaded by all those around her, while Vashti herself was writhing between proud dignity and wounded humiliation, sitting in the audience hall of the Queen’s apartments convinced of the justness of her own response, and waited for him, the one of whom and from whom such appalling reports arrived, she waited for the Great King but he did not come, only more and more reports, and Vashti fell deeper and deeper into shock, and grew despondent, and she could know already what was to follow, for there was nothing else that could follow, she knew how the council — the convening of which she had been, in keeping with tradition, immediately informed — would decide, just as they were, drunken and starving for a fatal scandal, that she would have to proceed from the queen’s apartments across the desolate palace to the forbidden gate, she would have to follow the centuries-old mandate and take the first steps of exile, so that in the end she would be no more than one smothered in ashes, like a dog that had disobeyed.