Esther denouncing Haman. Haman, a favourite at the court of Artaxerxes or Ahasuerus, King of Persia, spitefully attempted to have all Jews within the Empire massacred, saying that they were not friendly to the King's rule. Queen Esther, herself a Jewess, wishing to save her people, denounced him at a banquet, whereupon the King, satisfied of the falsehood of the charge, ordered him to be hanged for his treachery. From Hutchinson's History of the Nations, published 1915.