First of all, many thanks, Marcus for the file.
dean wrote:Just out of curosity I was wondering, if it wasn't Seleucus who was one of the only ones whose marriage lasted "to the end"?
marcus wrote:Anyway, yes, Seleucus' marriage to Apama is the only one that we know of which "lasted".
A perfect time to ask about something that has bugged me for a while. Eumenes was give Aronis (Artonis, Artone) as a wife at Susa, and when he died, “Antigonus granted his body to his friends, permitted them to burn it, and having gathered his ashes into a silver urn,
to send them to his wife and children.” (Plutarch, Eumenes 19.2). My interpretation of this is that his marriage to Artonis must have lasted; however, this is never mentioned by any modern historian. Heckel claims that the reference in Plutarch is "apparently Artonis and her children though, given the age of Eumenes, this could refer to the family Eumenes left behind when he went to Asia in 334.” But why?
Eumenes would have been around 36 when he married Artonis, hardly too old to have fathered children. Does Heckel think that he must have married and sired offspring before he left for Asia,
because of his age? All the other names given in the Susa marriage list are of a similar age, or older, with the exception of Seleucus. Could this mean they also left brides and children behind in Macedonia? And whether it only applies to Eumenes or to the others as well, previous Macedonian wives would mean that Alexander approved of polygamy outside of the royal family - he’s the one who arranged the marriages after all.
I notice that Antigonus was not given a bride. Was this because he wasn’t important enough, or because, being older, he was already married? If the latter, then the others could not have left wives behind, could they?
Too many questions evolving from Heckel’s statement, while the obvious – that Eumenes was still married to Artonis – makes perfect sense to me. Any thoughts on this?
Best regards