The Eunuch Bagoas

[rocktupac]

I'm just curious what everyone thinks. Sorry if these polls (or this question) is annoying.

[Paralus]

Which one - he that did in Artaxerxes and that Darius poisoned or he that that Alexander loved?

[agesilaos]

Surely the latter is meant Tarn bent over backwards to expunge him no one I think suggests the former was ficticious though some have conflated the two I recall (though not who must be getting old).

[rocktupac]

Yes Paralus, the one that Alexander (supposedly) loved.

[Paralus]

In that case, yes I do think he existed.

Those who deny it usually proceed from the presumption that such a relationship does not fit with the Alexander image they'd prefer. As Agesilaos note re Tarn above.

[Efstathios]

I voted yes. Both Bagoas existed.

[Fiona]

Surely the latter is meant Tarn bent over backwards to expunge him no one I think suggests the former was ficticious though some have conflated the two I recall (though not who must be getting old).

I think it is not these two who are conflated. Bagoas the Eunuch, whom we first meet in the company of Nabarzanes in summer 330, can't be the same person as Bagoas the Poisoner, who was actively poisoning people, to wit, Artaxerxes III, in 338. We know from Curtius that Bagoas the Eunuch was 'in the flower of his youth' when presented to Alexander, which would make him, say, 18 in 330, so unlikely to have been poisoning people in 338, aged about 10. (Though you never know.)
The conflation occurs rather between Bagoas the Eunuch and yet another Bagoas, whom we might call Bagoas the Trierarch. Arrian’s Indica lists among the honorary trierachs one Bagoas, son of Pharnuches. Bosworth has these as two different people, so does Hammond. Lane Fox has them as the same person. Heckel, I think, inclines also to that view.
It seems likely that, as Nabarzanes ‘gave’ Bagoas the Eunuch to Alexander, that he was a slave. A favoured slave might, I guess, acquire enough wealth and status to supply and equip a trireme, but it seems less likely that he’d be identified with a patronymic.
Aelian has Alexander dining at Bagoas the Trierarch’s house in Ecbatana – again, this implies some wealth and status, not impossible for one who was (once?) a slave, but enough to make you wonder if this is a different person.
(I don’t think anyone disputes that the one who won the dancing contest and got a kiss was Bagoas the Eunuch.)
Fiona

[agesilaos]

That sounds more like it; now, where did I leave that Sanatogen.

[Semiramis]

Why wouldn't Bagoas exist? He has no less reason to exist than any other character who has been mentioned in the sources only a few times... I wanted to ask, is Bagoas the dancer the same Bagoas as the Bagoas son of Pharnuces who financed a Trireme in India?