Plutarch, a Greek from Chaeronea in what is now Greece, wrote Parallel Lives, biographies of famous Greeks and Romans. This is the life of Artaxerxes, a Persian king, and it has no Roman pair. The story sits in the Persian Empire, the land we now call Iran and its neighbors.

Artaxerxes II, called Mnemon, took the throne and had to kill his brother Cyrus for it. At Cunaxa, near Babylon in present-day Iraq, the Ten Thousand — hired Greek soldiers — punched through the line; Cyrus died in the charge, and the king was left with a victory that felt like a wound. The queen-mother Parysatis poisoned the queen, and the court ate itself. Cadusian wars, a Greek peace bought with gold, sons who rebelled. He died old, having kept the empire by patience, poison, and hired Greeks. You are walking into a palace story: survival as a kind of genius, and glory optional.