[Avodah] Why did Achashverosh's feast last so long?

[Zev Sero]

See Malbim, who sees the whole story as a political struggle between 
Achashverosh and the political establishment.  Bavel had been a 
constitutional monarchy, its kinds bound by the law, and remained so 
after the Persian kings conquered it. But Achashverosh, having usurped 
the throne, was not content with this and wanted to change it to an 
absolute monarchy, where the law is subject to the king, and all the 
country's wealth is his to spend as he pleases.

So he unilaterally moved the capital to Shushan, which had never been an 
important city before, and then started spending untold fortunes on an 
endless party, at which his own appointees, servants, and armies were 
honored ahead of the statesmen and ministers who had been there before 
him.  He was rubbing their faces in the new reality.  Then, once he felt 
that point had been made, he punctuated it by throwing a party for all 
the commoners whose only yichus was that they happened to live in his 
new capital city, and at the peak of this party he summoned Vashti, the 
princess of the ancien regime, to humiliate her and show that she is 
subject to his whims, because his authority does not derive from her but 
from his own might.

-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a *healthy* and happy 5781
zev at sero.name       "May this year and its curses end
                      May a new year and its blessings begin"