At the end of the Persian era in 351 BCE, it was invaded by the emperor Artaxerxes III and then by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE when the Hellenistic era of Sidon began.

After Artaxerxes III of Persia and all of his sons were killed by the vizier Bagoas, the vizier installed a cousin of Artaxerxes III, Artashata, to the Persian throne as Darius III.

Artaxerxes III of Persia and all of his sons except one, Arses, were assassinated by the orders of the vizier, Bagoas, who installed Arses on the throne as a puppet king.

Artaxerxes III makes this invocation to the three divinities again in his reign.

* The Persian general and vizier, the eunuch Bagoas, falls out of favour with King Artaxerxes III.

So Bagoas murders Artaxerxes III and all his sons, other than Arses, who is then placed on the throne by Bagoas.

* Artaxerxes III, king of Persia ( murdered ) ( b. c. 425 BC )

* The King of Persia, Artaxerxes III, personally leads the Persian forces invading Egypt.

* When King Philip II of Macedon attacks Perinthus and Byzantium, King Artaxerxes III of Persia sends support to those cities.

* After being besieged by the Persian forces of King Artaxerxes III, Sidon is taken and its population is punished with great cruelty.

Shortly after his accession, at the request of the Persian king, Artaxerxes III, Idrieus equips a fleet of 40 triremes and assembles an army of 8, 000 mercenary troops and despatches them against Cyprus, under the command of the Athenian general Phocion.

The eunuch Bagoas ( not to be confused with Alexander's Bagoas ) was the Vizier of Artaxerxes III and IV, and was the primary power behind the throne during their reigns, until he was killed by Darius III.

* Bagoas ( 4th century BCE ): prime minister of king Artaxerxes III of Persia, and his assassin.

* The Persian King Artaxerxes III orders all the satraps ( governors ) of his empire to dismiss their mercenaries.

* With King Artaxerxes III succeeding in depriving Artabazus of his Athenian and Theban allies, Artabazus is defeated by the Persian King's general, Autophradates.

Salamis was afterwards besieged and conquered by Artaxerxes III.

* Encouraged by a failed effort at invasion of Egypt by King Artaxerxes III, Phoenicia and Cyprus revolt against Persia.

* King Artaxerxes III of Persia forces Athens to conclude a peace which requires the city to leave Asia Minor and to acknowledge the independence of its rebellious allies.

It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BC, in his notes on India (" Indika "), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but have not survived.

* Ochus, satrap of Hyrcania and son of Artaxerxes I and a Babylonian concubine, seizes the Persian throne from his half brother Secydianus ( or Sogdianus ), whom he has executed.

* Artaxerxes III of Persia ( 425 BC – 338 BC ), Artaxerxes III Ochus, r. 358 – 338 BC, son and successor of Artaxerxes II

The third was Ochus, son of Artaxerxes I by his concubine Cosmartidene of Babylon and satrap of Hyrcania.

Ochus was also married to their common half-sister Parysatis, daughter of Artaxerxes I and his concubine Andia of Babylon.

The historical identity of Nebuchadnezzar was unknown to the Church Fathers, but some of them attempted an improbable identification with Artaxerxes III Ochus, not on the basis of the character of the two rulers, but because of the presence of a " Holofernes " and a " Bagoas " in Ochus ' army.

* Artaxerxes III ( Ochus ): 358 – 338 BC

* In Anabasis, Xenophon recounts how Cyrus the Younger hired a large army of Greek mercenaries ( the " Ten Thousand ") in 401 BC to seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II.

Ardashir ( Arđaxšēr from Middle Persian and Parthian Artaxšaθra, Pahlavi ʼrthštr, " Who has the Divine Order as his Kingdom ") is also known as Ardeshīr-i Pāpagān " Ardashir, son of Pāpağ ", and other variants of his name include Latinized Artaxares and Artaxerxes.

Amestris (, Amēstris, perhaps the same as Άμαστρις, Amāstris, from Old Persian Amāstrī -, " strong woman ") was the wife of Xerxes I of Persia, mother of king Artaxerxes I of Persia.

* The Persian satrap Tissaphernes ' enemy Parysatis, mother of Cyrus, succeeds in persuading Persian King Artaxerxes II to have him executed at Colossae, Phrygia ( now Turkey ).

* Artaxerxes I succeeds Xerxes as king of the Persian empire.

In 394 BC, while encamped on the plain of Thebe, he was planning a campaign in the interior, or even an attack on Artaxerxes II himself, when he was recalled to Greece owing to the war between Sparta and the combined forces of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Argos and several minor states.

According to Xenophon, Agesilaus, in order to gain money for prosecuting the war, supported the satrap Ariobarzanes II in his revolt against Artaxerxes II in 364 BC ( Revolt of the Satraps ), and in 361 BC he went to Egypt at the head of a mercenary force to aid the king Nectanebo I and his regent Teos against Persia.

Nehemiah is a cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes II of Persia-an important official position.

The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I ( 486-465 BCE ), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther ( as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II ).

Those arguing in favour of an historical reading of Esther, most commonly identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II ( ruled 405 – 359 BCE ) although in the past it was often assumed that he was Xerxes I ( ruled 486 – 465 BCE ).

Bar-Hebraeus identified Ahasuerus explicitly as Artaxerxes II ; however, the names are not necessarily equivalent: Hebrew has a form of the name Artaxerxes distinct from Ahasuerus, and a direct Greek rendering of Ahasuerus is used by both Josephus and the Septuagint for occurrences of the name outside the Book of Esther.

Instead, the Hebrew name Ahasuerus accords with an inscription of the time that notes that Artaxerxes II was named also Arshu, understood as a shortening of Achshiyarshu the Babylonian rendering of the Persian Khshayarsha ( Xerxes ), through which the Hebrew Achashverosh ( Ahasuerus ) is derived.

Ctesias related that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas which is understood as a similar shortening with the Persian suffix-ke that is applied to shortened names.

Deinon related that Artaxerxes II was also called Oarses which is also understood to be derived from Khshayarsha.

Another view attempts to identify him instead with Artaxerxes I ( ruled 465 – 424 BCE ), whose Babylonian concubine, Kosmartydene, was the mother of his son Darius II ( ruled 424 – 405 BCE ).

The text does not specify whether the king in the passage refers to Artaxerxes I ( 465-424 BCE ) or to Artaxerxes II ( 404-359 BCE ).

" These difficulties have led many scholars to assume that Ezra arrived in the seventh year of the rule of Artaxerxes II, i. e. some 50 years after Nehemiah.

Larissa was indeed the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 ( retold in Xenophon's Anabasis ) meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia ( Meno is featured in Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which Socrates uses the example of " the way to Larissa " to help explain Meno the difference between true opinion and science ( Meno, 97a – c ) ; this " way to Larissa " might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a " way home ", understood as the way toward one's true and " eternal " home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life ).

The historian of the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand, 401 BC, relates that the Greeks suffered severely from the slingers in the army of Artaxerxes II of Persia, while they themselves had neither cavalry nor slingers, and were unable to reach the enemy with their arrows and javelins.

While a young man, Xenophon participated in the expedition led by Cyrus the Younger against his older brother, king Artaxerxes II of Persia, in 401 BC.

Prior to waging war against Artaxerxes, Cyrus proposed that the enemy was the Pisidians, and so the Greeks were unaware that they were to battle against the larger army of King Artaxerxes II.

The army of Cyrus met the army of Artaxerxes II in the Battle of Cunaxa.

* 401 BC: Cyrus the Younger rebels against the Persian king Artaxerxes II but is, however, eventually slain in battle.

* c. 436 BC — birth of Artaxerxes II, king of Persia