I hesitate to believe Wikipedia, as it is not a valid source, but it can be a helpful resource for general information, and in some regards probably even better than the book "History of Xerxes the Great" that I just finished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amestris
Amestris was married to Xerxes and mother of Artaxerxes, and known among ancient Greek historians to be very bad.
It is not known how far her evilness carried her. Documents have shown that human sacrifices were not permissible in the Persian religion (the History of Xerxes mentions human sacrifices, but that might be inaccurate info or come from biased Greek historians).
After Xerxes death she remained influential.
It is possible that she is the biblical Esther. "Wilson who identified Ahasuerus with Xerxes I and Esther with Amestris, suggested that both "Amestris" and "Esther" derived from Akkadian words Ammi-Ishtar or Ummi-Ishtar [2]. Hoschander alternatively suggested Ishtar-udda-sha ("Ishtar is her light") as the origin with the possibility of -udda-sha being connected with the similarly sounding Hebrew name Hadassah."
Sources for this Wikipedia article were:
http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/ctesias/photius_persica2.html
http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Ahasbai
(note: I also liked this link for a Greece time line.
http://www.ancient-greece.org/resources/timeline.html)
Wikipedia also has a good article pertaining to Xerxes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I_of_Persia
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