Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Discuss Alexander's generals, wives, lovers, family and enemies

Moderator: pothos moderators

Post Reply
sean_m
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:00 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by sean_m »

Well, once he was safely dead, there were a lot of people who tried to put him into their family tree!

The same had happened with Cyrus. In fact, I think there is a story in Firdusi or the Alexander Romance that Alexander was really a Persian. And of course we like our celebrity gossip about who is sleeping with who too.
My blog (Warning: may contain up to 95% non-Alexandrian content, rated shamelessly philobarbarian by 1 out of 1 Plutarchs)
noman
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:20 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by noman »

What views do you have of Kalash people, who have the same genes as of Greek people today?
sean_m
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:00 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by sean_m »

Hi Noman,

I don't know anything about genetics. For sure, in the time of Alexander and his successors many people from Greece and Macedonia came to Afghanistan and Pakistan and married local women! How that relates to people today is too complicated for me.
My blog (Warning: may contain up to 95% non-Alexandrian content, rated shamelessly philobarbarian by 1 out of 1 Plutarchs)
Alexias
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1082
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:16 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by Alexias »

Noman has deleted the original post, but this was the link https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZAB ... ae&f=false which I thought was interesting, although perhaps the result of some historical wish-fulfilment as Sean said.
noman
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:20 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by noman »

Alexias wrote:Noman has deleted the original post, but this was the link https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZAB ... ae&f=false which I thought was interesting, although perhaps the result of some historical wish-fulfilment as Sean said.
The reason I deleted was there were so many people against it. Most were denying that it's all about myth ans stories made for ALexander's Romance. I don't know how genuine is that, but I do know that 4000 to 5000 people live in Pakistan, who have blonde hair and blue eyes.
Some historians from Pakistan also wrote the ancestry of Alexander III from Adam - Noah - Abraham - Easu - Hercules - Alexander III.

Moreover, they have also claimed that Prithviraj Chouhan was one of the descendants of Alexander III.

Don't know, who is correct!
Alexias
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1082
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:16 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by Alexias »

David Adams did a series of documentaries about Alexander in this region https://www.youtube.com/user/davidadamsfilms and visited these people. To be honest, I can't remember what his conclusion about the origin of these people was.

See this page here http://pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f ... r&start=45 as there is a vague possibility that Alexander had a daughter(s) who married Seleucus's son.
sean_m
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:00 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by sean_m »

noman wrote:
Alexias wrote:Noman has deleted the original post, but this was the link https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZAB ... ae&f=false which I thought was interesting, although perhaps the result of some historical wish-fulfilment as Sean said.
The reason I deleted was there were so many people against it. Most were denying that it's all about myth ans stories made for ALexander's Romance. I don't know how genuine is that, but I do know that 4000 to 5000 people live in Pakistan, who have blonde hair and blue eyes.
Some historians from Pakistan also wrote the ancestry of Alexander III from Adam - Noah - Abraham - Easu - Hercules - Alexander III.
I hope my words did not sound unkind! It is just that there are all kinds of myths about Alexander, starting during his lifetime. In the ancient world, they could not pull out a smart phone and check snopes dot com! And if you look at where some of those stories about Alexander's children come from, I hope you will be able to see why many people doubt them.

Alexander and his family did like to tell everyone that they were descendants of Hercules, and Alexander seemed to like to think he might also be the son of a god. Some people think that the historical Alexander was much more interested in imitating Hercules than imitating Achilles (after all, he didn't know he was going to die shortly after Patroclus died).
My blog (Warning: may contain up to 95% non-Alexandrian content, rated shamelessly philobarbarian by 1 out of 1 Plutarchs)
noman
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:20 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by noman »

Here is the family tree made by a Pakistani man, who considers himself to be the descendant of the Alexander The Great. Persian Historian Al-Biruni wrote the genealogy of Alexander The Great and connects to Esau. According to him, Alexander III was an Edomite.

Link to the book of Al-Biruni:
http://www.archive.org/stream/chronolog ... 2/mode/1up

Link to the Family Tree:
https://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/ ... 1648250304

*Felquos is an Arabic translation for Philips II.
sean_m
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:00 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by sean_m »

I am told that the Metz Epitome says that an infant son of Alexander and Rhoxane died while he was in the east [Richard Stoneman, "Primary Sources," in Z. David Zuwiyya, A Companion to the Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2011) pp. 12, 13]. The Epitome is a respectable source (4th or 5th century CE, seems to draw on Clitarchus or another 'respectable' historian rather than the 'wonder stories') . Does anyone else know more about this?

Even our most detailed sources don't always mention children who died young, because there were so many of them. Probably more than half of all children born in the ancient world died before the age of seven, even in rich families.

Edit: It looks like part ii, chapter 70 https://sites.google.com/site/alexander ... me-part-ii
My blog (Warning: may contain up to 95% non-Alexandrian content, rated shamelessly philobarbarian by 1 out of 1 Plutarchs)
Alexias
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1082
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:16 am

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by Alexias »

This has been discussed here several times before. The general consensus amongst historian appears to be that Justin wouldn't have bothered to invent a baby that didn't exist, and that it was likely to have been a boy as a girl might not have warranted a mention. The child died about 18 months after Alexander and Roxanne married, so depending upon whether Alexander took Roxanne with him into the Swat highlands, it could have been new-born or several months old.

By the same logic, it seems unlikely that Justin would also have invented Caranus and Alexander's other half-brother(s) whom he executed fearing them as rivals to the throne. As discussed elsewhere, Caranus was likely to have been an adolescent rather than Eurydike's newborn son - one of Philip's many sons.
sean_m
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:00 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by sean_m »

Also, for comparison, here is a list of all the people who were said to be Alexander's father in ancient sources:

- Philip of Macedon (boring!)
- The god Amon (attested during Alexander's lifetime as attested by Diodorus, Curtius, Arrian etc.)
- Pharaoh Nectanebo disguised as Amon (probably written down in Egypt within a century of Alexander's death, but all that we know for certain is that the version called α existed when Julius Valerius translated it into Latin sometime after 270 CE)
- Darius III (first recorded by writers in Iran sometime after 1000 CE?)

And since there are hints that Olympias was suspected of not being faithful, its possible that there were other theories which were no longer safe to write down once Alexander became king, and no longer interesting once the son-of-Ammon theory had appeared.
My blog (Warning: may contain up to 95% non-Alexandrian content, rated shamelessly philobarbarian by 1 out of 1 Plutarchs)
ian991
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:41 pm

Re: Alexander IV wasn't the only child of Alexander: The Great. There were 8 others too.

Post by ian991 »

noman wrote:What views do you have of Kalash people, who have the same genes as of Greek people today?
Experts have an assumption that Kalash people are descendants of Alexander the Great. But it is not confirmed.
Post Reply