They eventually ostracized and exiled him, at which point the wily politician switched sides and presented himself at the court of Xerxes' son, Artaxerxes I, who gave him a swath of Anatolia to govern.

19) Like Williams, Bunyan also traced the entrance of the spirit of antichrist into the world to the time of Constantine in Of Antichrist, and His Ruine (1692), and in that same document he applauded King Artaxerxes of Persia for not imposing religion on the freed Judean exiles and wished that "all Kings would but give such liberty," even if "contrary (if he had any) to his own National Worship.

Nehemiah, a leader of the Jews living in exile in Persia, sought and obtained permission from King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the city which had lain in ruins for a century.