Darn it. Hard to keep up with this debate when I have so many
more important things to do online such as searching through 1,000+ plus baseball caps to find one with the colors that match my son's new t-shirt! Seriously now ... he owns 26 caps to date! (And he matches Nike sneakers as well!) To think when I gave birth to a boy I thought I would miss out on the mother/teenager "fashion" shopping experience.
Semiramis wrote: Roxane lost a baby before she gave birth to Alexander IV. Sources mention that our hero was pretty upset about that. Then it was a fair while before Roxane got pregnant again.
As far as I know, there's only one source for this which tells us nothing about Alexander's feelings, although both he and his army would surely have regretted the loss of the first potential heir to the Macedonian throne.
Metz Epitome 70 There he found the ships which Porus and Taxiles had built, 800 biremes and 300 store-ships, and he put on board crews and provisions. In the meantime, Alexander’s son by Roxane died.
Semiramis wrote:... I'm quite ignorant on this topic, but did Alexander levy the Bactiran/Sogdian terrotories for troops more than other Great Kings? Otherwise, would the Bactrians expect such special favours like such a close alliance with the new Great King? I tend to operate on the assumption that Persians were the most important "barbarians" to please. The seatings at the mass weddings in Susa, for example, consisted of Macedonians at the center, Persians on the closest inner circle and the rest on the outer circle (from memory). But perhaps the Central Asians were moving up in the world with Alexander's conquests?
Seems to me that the Persians were easier to please.
Apart from the rebels who fled with Darius those Persians who remained behind in the west of the empire, having been thoroughly defeated, offered no further resistance. On the other hand, the Bactrians, Sogdians and Scythians simply refused to be quelled until Alexander changed his political tactics and formed the alliances that culminated with his marriage to Roxane. These people were definitely of greater importance at that point in time because until things were under control in Bactria/Sogdia, Alexander
could not leave and move on to India. Note that the only real defeats of the whole campaign occurred in these eastern territories, with substantial losses to Alexander's forces – around 2,000 in the one battle if I'm remembering correctly.
Semiramis wrote:This is going to get controversial, but Stateira I, Darius' wife died of childbirth. After having been Alexander's captive for a period of time where Darius could not have been the father. After her death, Alexander was "more in need of consolation than giving it". I'm not sure if the Greeks just misunderstood the idea that Darius' harem was Alexander's harem now and he had to follow the proper rituals. Or if it was a true reflection of Alexander's state of mind. Perhaps at the loss of his first son? At the risk of sounding horribly pragmatic, a half-Achaemenid heir?
Only the one source, Plutarch, Alexander 30, states that Stateira died in childbirth. Curtius (4.10.19) who - according to just about everyone here! - didn't miss
any opportunity for a good piece of negative gossip about Alexander simply states that she was
"exhausted by the unremitting hardships of the journey and her dejected state of mind."
Semiramis wrote:On top of all that, it seems Stateira II may have been too young to marry when she was captured. If he wanted an heir that would please the Persians, perhaps he was forced to wait till she turned 13 (as per Persian custom)?
According to most of the sources Stateira's daughters were of marriageable age. Curtius (3.11.25) calls them
"two grown-up but unmarried daughters," and at 3.12.21 describes them as
"The unmarried princesses who were extremely beautiful." Plutarch (Alexander 21) also calls them
"the two unmarried daughters of Darius" and says that
"At any rate Alexander, so it seems, thought it more worthy of a king to subdue his own passions than to conquer his enemies, and so he never came near these women, wife and daughters of Darius." Athenaeus (The Deipnosophists XIII.603b-d) quotes
" …passionate as this king was, he was in like measure self-controlled when it came to the observance of decency and the best form. When, for example, he had taken captive the daughters of Darius and his wife as well, a woman of very distinguished beauty, he not only kept his hands off them, but he even refrained from letting them know that they were captives." IMO, all these expressions would be unfitting if the daughters were, indeed, too young to be married. Why would the sources have to state that Alexander had need to subdue his own passions where children are concerned?
So … why didn't Alexander marry the eldest daughter of Darius earlier in the conquests? Probably, IMO, because his original intent was to marry the
wife of Darius – something he couldn't legitimately do until Darius was dead. Unfortunately, however, she predeceased her husband, and by the time Darius was found murdered Alexander was already obviously hell-bent on taking control of the eastern part of the empire. I think it very unlikely that it ever crossed his mind to return and marry the daughter and
then conquer the rebel territories, but I do think it probable that he began planning the Susa weddings even at this early date. After all, he had been undefeated up to this point and it is doubtful he had any idea just how long he would be spending in Bactria and points east.
Further to the above, Daniel Ogden in
Polygamy, Prostitues and Death: The Hellenistic Dynasties offers an explanation of why Alexander may have planned to marry Darius' wife.
Pages 44-45 By marrying Barsine-Stateira amid the great weddings that he ordained between Macedonian and Persian nobles at Susa in 324 Alexander claimed to be the successor to the Achaemenids. We have seen that the Agead kings like to assert their claim to the throne via the levirate technique of marrying, where possible, a widow of their predecessor. Archelaus and Ptolemy of Alorus had, it seems, done this. Now Alexander could not marry Stateira, the wife of Darius, for she had died c. 332. Perhaps, therefore, the daughter was married to stand in for or even 'become' the mother. This may explain the difficulty surrounding the bride's name in the sources. In Arrian's official Susa wedding list she is called Barsine, but the vulgate sources refer to her as Stateira. As we have seen, it was quite common for the wives of Macedonian princes to change their names, and we specifically argued above that Philip's first wife Audata may have changed her name to Eurydice on marriage in order to evoke the most 'legitimate' (in Philip’s judgement at any rate) of Amyntas II's wives, Philip's mother Eurydice.
Alongside Stateira, Alexander married Parysatis, the youngest daughter of the previous Persian king Artaxerxes III Ochus, and doubtless for similar reasons. . . . . . . Roxane now had good reason to fret: both of Alexander's new brides were royal Persians, and superior in status to a mere Bactrian noblewoman, should her rivals search for arguments against her and any offspring she should have.
Curiously and conveniently, it was also Achaemenid custom for a new king to legitimate his position by marrying the wives and daughters of previous kings: Darius I had married a number of women in both categories; Cyrus I had married the daughter of the median king Astyages, Amytis/Mandane; according to one account Cambyses claimed the throne of Egypt because his father had married the daughter of the Egyptian king.
Interestingly, Ogden also postulates that in putting Roxane's hand in that of Perdiccas' (on his deathbed), Alexander was encouraging "Perdiccas to take power after his death and to legitimate his position by levirate." Once the wars for the succession began, however, Perdiccas found the offers of marriage to Nicea, daughter of Antipater, and Cleopatra, Alexander’s sister, more useful.
Best regards,