As part of this initiation, Xerxes was obliged first “to divest himself of his own clothes, and put on a robe which Cyrus had worn before becoming king,”11 and then to down various foul concoctions prepared for him by the Magi, necromantic brews of curdled milk and sacred herbs. A scepter was placed in his right hand; the kidaris, the fluted tiara of royalty, upon his head. Xerxes was then led into the glaring brightness of the Persian day. The satraps, the high officials, the
