Basil ( Ocimum basilicum ), a member of Lamiaceae family, is one of the important medicinal plants which are being widely cultivated due to its essential oil content. The essential oil of basil is used in pharmaceutical, perfume and food industry. So, this research was conducted to evaluate the tolerance of basil to a number of photosynthetic inhibitor herbicides as pot experiments were performed in factorial experiment based on completely randomize design with three replications. Treatment included three herbicides (bentazone, tapstar, and ronstar) in three rates (1, 1.5 and 2 ml L -1 ) at two growth stages (4 and 8 leaves) on two basil cultivars (violet and green). Traits includeing malondialdehyde ( MDA ), hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), antioxidant enzyme activities such as catalase ( CAT ), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and guiacol peroxidase ( GPX ), chlorophyll and carotenoid content, plant height, shoot wet and dry weight, crop injury, and essential oil percentage were determined. The result shown all of the herbicides increased MDA and H 2 O 2 concentration (at 2 ml L -1 ), antioxidant enzymes activity (at 1 and 1.5 ml L -1 ), and essential oil content. Ronstar treatment decreased chlorophyll and carotenoid content, plant height, shoot wet weight. Highest increase in essential oil, plant height, and GPX was recorded at violet cultivar compared to green cultivar. The highest crop injury at first and third step (10 days) was related to the growth stage of 8 leaves and higher crop injury at second step (10 days) was related to the growth stage of 4 leaves. Both cultivars were able to recover the damage caused by the crop injury, and there were no difference in the shoot dry weight of basil plant between herbicide treatments at maturity stage. According to the results of this experiment, violet basil is more tolerant to herbicide treatment as compared to green basil. Bentazon is probably a suitable herbicide for selective weeds control in both species. Keywords : Ronstar, tapstar, bentazon, antioxidant enzyme activities, and essential oil.