Artaxerxes I (Latin; Greek Ἀρταξέρξης; corruption of Old Persian �������������� Artaxšacā, "whose reign is through arta (truth)")) was king of the Persian Empire from 465 BC to 424 BC. He was the son of Xerxes I of Persia.

He is also surnamed μακρόχειρ "Macrocheir (Latin =Longimanus)", allegedly because his right hand was longer than his left. Via the Georgian house of Pahlavuni, the Russian Rurikid family Dolgoruki claimed descent from him.

After Persia had been defeated at Eurymedon, military action between Greece and Persia had come to a standstill. When Artaxerxes I took power, he began a new tradition of drawing off the Athenians by funding their enemies in Greece. This indirectly caused the Athenians to move the treasury of the Delian League from the island of Delos to the Athenian acropolis. This funding practice inevitably prompted renewed fighting in 450 BC, where the Greeks attacked at the Battle of Cyprus. After Cimon's failure to attain much in this expedition, the Peace of Callias was agreed between Athens, Argos and Persia in 449 BC.

Artaxerxes I offered asylum to Themistocles, who was the winner of the Battle of Salamis, after Themistocles was ostracized from Athens.

Artaxerxes commissioned Ezra, a Jewish priest-scribe, by means of a letter of decree, to take charge of the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the Jewish nation. A copy of this decree may be found in Ezra 7:13-28.

Ezra thereby left Babylon in the first month of the seventh year (~ 455 BC) of Artaxerxes' reign, at the head of a company of Jews that included priests and Levites. They arrived to Jerusalem in the first day of the fifth month of the seventh year (Hebrew Calendar).

The rebuilding of the Jewish community in Jerusalem had begun under Cyrus the Great, who had permitted Jews held captive in Babylon, to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple of Solomon. A number of Jews had consequently returned back to Jerusalem in 537 B.C.

By queen Damaspia *Xerxes II By Alogyne of Babylon *Sogdianus By Cosmartidene of Babylon *Darius II *Arsites By Andia of Babylon *Bogapaeus *Parysatis, wife of Darius II Ochus

*Encyclopedia Iranica

*Artoxares