ATG Trivia

[amyntoros]

I forgot - I found a real bit of Alexander related trivia yesterday. My local library had a sale, and I skimmed through the National Geographic magazines and bought anything of interest. In March 2000 they had their third in a series of articles on Ancient Greece - this one being a piece about Alexander, written by someone called Caroline Alexander. It's not a particularly revealing article, though the photographs and maps sort of make up for it. However, concerning Roxane, the author says:'Accounts state that he was smitten with the beauty of the girl, who was perhaps 12 at the time, but the marriage was also another pragmatic move, making a powerful ally out of one of his most troublesome enemies.'12 years old!!? Now where on earth did she get *that* piece of trivia?Linda Ann

[susan]

The reasoning is probably that she was of marriageable age, ( this is stated in the sources), so that she was probably 15 or less. Also, she did not have children for 4 years, if you exclude the child mentioned in the Metz epitome which may not have been known to the author of this piece; which might imply that she was relatively young - on the grounds that a younger girl ( of around 12 years old) was less likely to become pregnant.It hinges on the definition of marriageable age - often girls from noble families were married at what we would now consider to be very young ages - I think around the onset of puberty.So, there is some logic behind the age of 12, although there isn't enough information to back it up. Susan

[nick]

Hi Halil -Yes, the oranges is my favorite too. I wanna bet: it takes one month. Thirty days. Are you in for this? If we work hard, I suppose we can do this.Thank you for the nice feedback.Regards - NickP.S. I like the letter 'P' speaking disorder too. He called his father 'Willip', not 'Philip'.

[nickw]

Great! Thank you for this input. Yes, the imposter variant is great!Regards -
Nick

[S]

Greetings Susan,
Now *this* can lead to some interesting research, since apparently, the average age for onset of puberty for women (no data on men, that I know of) has differed widely throughout history depending on numerous factors- the "average" has, from what I have been told, ranges from today's 9-11 years old that is starting to occur today to the more familiar 12-15, up to 15-17 at other times in history. Olympiada was, some have said, between 14-17 when she wed Philip, yes?
Excellent question!
Regards,
Sikander

[susan]

I've found some interesting information on the internet, but none about historical data for Asia.The factors that I can think of are:1. she was noble, therefore probably better fed, so puberty may have started earlier for her than for peasant girls. On the other hand, they'd just gone through a war, which I believe often delays the onset of puberty.2. Hazarding a guess - if it was a love match, which I doubt, I'd have expected her to be a bit older than 12.3. If Oxyartes had been fighting for a couple of years, he may not have had the time or opportunity to arrange a suitable marriage, so she might be a few years older than puberty.4. It also depends what is meant by 'marriageable age' - if it means 'capable of bearing children', this is a later stage of puberty.5. It may have suited Alexander to take a wife who was less likely to have children for a few years, so that he could get around to marrying Darius' daughter and having children by her - this would especially be the case if the marriage was a means to get out of Sogdia & Bactria, and move on to India.On balance I think she was probably older than 12 - maybe around 14-15.As you say, a fascinating question.Susan

[amyntoros]

Susan, thanks for a very well thought out response. I had considered that Roxane *could* have been as young as 12 - in my own family history back in good ol' Doncaster, there were marriages of females (and pregnancies) in the 1960's and 70's where the girls were only 15 or 16. And at the risk of being controversial, I do think that a 12 to 13-year-old girl might have been very appealing to Alexander as she would still likely have something of a boyish appearance. However, that can also apply to a 14 to 15-year-old. For the longest time I have been curious about the ages of the few women mentioned in the histories. I've seen modern historians say that Darius' daughters were not of marriageable age when captured, but Curtius says they were grown-up, but unmarried, which could put them well into their 20's by the time of the mass marriages at Susa. Also, were these daughters born of Stateira or of another of Darius' wives? Which brings me to the question of Stateira's age. It's stated that she was Darius' sister, but surely she must have been only a half-sister? I'm told Darius was in his 50's when he died. Stateira had a son who was five-years-old at the time of capture. I know that the childbearing years were much shorter in those times, which is why women were married so young, so even if I pushed Stateira's age to the extreme and said she had her son at age 30 - very unlikely, but it would mean she *could* also have been the mother of Barsine/Stateira and Drypetis - there would still be around 20 years difference in her age and that of Darius. It's unlikely then that Stateira and Darius had the same mother. Any thoughts on this and the age-business would be appreciated.Sorry if I'm a bit off-topic here - but this is really still a trivia question. :-)Linda Ann

[susan]

Linda
I'll get onto this tomorrow - I've got to look up the references, particularly in Curtius. I think, though, that it is possible that Stateira was Darius' half-sister, and that Sisygambis may not have been her biological mother.RegardsSusan

[Linda]

I don't know if the age at which women bore children was shorter in those days. Plato says that the proper time for a woman to bear children is between twenty and forty. No reasons are given. Presumably they knew that the risks were higher over forty years of age, but the younger age limit seems surprising, given that we assume that girls married young.
Linda

[S]

Greetings Everyone,
Some fascinating responses. We also need to add in the fact that in some cultures, people become betrothed, which is a marriage promise, but actual marriage and consumation does not take place until a later date.Having heirs was important (and having heirs that connected you to another family of import doubly so), so it would be important that a daughter- especially of royal or aristo blood- be held out for the best match, so she may have been older.It was not worth much if a bride died on her wedding night, so I suspect care was taken to ensure the bride was actually old enough to make ensure some physical safety. I see a possible thesis in this!Regards,
Sikander

[Jay]

Oh no! I hope you're just kidding about this and none of this will go any further than just a thought. There are already too many Alexander fallacies floating about, and the internet is an excellent vehicle for spreading falsehoods rampantly. And too many people already have such strange ideas about him (the 'hating cats' one really gets me! Where's the proof?) Please, let's not feed the goofy rumour mill any more than fiction already has.

[susan]

These are the references that I've found to DariusGÇÖ family
Arrian:
refers to Stateira as DariusGÇÖ sister, and also that the two unmarried daughters were of marriageable age in 333. Also refers to Pharnaces as the brother of DariusGÇÖ wife, and Mithridates, son-in-law of Darius, who died at the Granicus.Curtius:
DariusGÇÖ mother is described as StateiraGÇÖs mother-in-law, rather than mother, and there were two grown-up daughters, one son.Plutarch:
implies that the two unmarried daughters were of Stateira & DariusDiodorus:
Refers to Mithrobates, satrap of Ionia, as DariusGÇÖ son-in-law, implying that Darius had an older daughter. Book 21 refers to Pharnaces as the brother of DariusGÇÖ queen.
Now, for the speculation:Relations:
Maybe Darius & Stateira were not brother and sister at all. Arrian is the only one who states they were, I think, and then his reference to Pharnaces implies something different. ItGÇÖs always possible that he misunderstood the term GÇÿsisterGÇÖ as a royal epithet. Perhaps he meant that they were half-brother & sister. I think it is more likely that they were of different families. Artabazus was the son of a Pharnaces - maybe there's a clue here.Age:
The grown-up daughters may have been around 13 in 333; if Stateira had been 14 when she gave birth to the eldest, that would make her in her late twenties in 333. Sisygambis was probably at least in her late 60s, if Darius was around 50, so itGÇÖs less likely that she was the biological mother of Stateira if they were at all related.The older married daughter of Darius may have been from a different marriage.One question is why Alexander did not marry Darius' daughter before he set off for the East, if she was of a marriageable age.My guess is :
Sisygambis was born in the mid 390s
Stateira was in her late twenties - born just before 360.
Their son, Ochus was born around 339, their daughters around 346.But, there may be other texts that differ from this.RegardsSusan

[beausefaless]

And some of you think the Greek/Macedonian debate can go bad? Having saying that I dedicate this whole message thread to pseudo chris, pseudo halil and pseudo nick w. and demand this page be deleted at least one moderator is trying very hard to get this web site noticed by influential people but that individual is being undermined by the other powers that be. John was right power corrupts

[nick]

If I might quote gaugamela.com:"Darius [III] was the child of an incestuous marriage in the Achaemenid Royal lineage. His father Arsanes was a son of Ostanes, who was a brother of King Artaxerxes III. For his mother Sisigambis we have at least three options. Sisigambis might have been a daughther of Oxathres, who was a son of Artaxerxes II. Or she might have been both the sister and the wife of Ostanes, the father of Arsanes. She is even said to have been the daughter of Artaxerxes II. Waldemar Heckel concludes that Darius' parents were probably cousins. Robin Lane Fox goes even further by bluntly stating they were brother and sister."Now, apart from that, it is almost certain that the Achaemenid kings after Darius I were monogamous. They probably had some 360 concubines (later Sassanid dynasts had up to 4,000), yes, but ONE wife. So the children of Darius III are highly unlikely to come from "another marriage".In Achaemenid history only Darius I had - as I recall - six of seven wifes: with the dead of Cambyses the 'orginal' line of Achaemenid kings had ended and Darius I's multiple marriages aimed at reconstructing the link with the past. It was Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great, who was the first Achaemenid king to marry his own sister.If Queen Statira, wife of Darius III, was indeed his sister, she is most likely to have been his full sister - because the Persians generally weren't polygamists.Jona Lendering has a good article on princess Statira:http://www.livius.org/so-st/statira/statira.htmlRegards -
Nick

[susan]

Hi NickThanks for the link, Nick, it's very interesting. But, I differ on Barsine-Stateira's age. Livius states:"In 328, Statira's fianc+¬ Mazaeus had died, without marrying the woman he was supposed to marry. This can only mean that Statira had not reached the minimum age to marry in 328, thirteen."
But, Stateira had been a captive since 333, and I don't think that Alexander would have let her marry Mazaeus as he intended marrying her himself. So, this shows that she was not yet 13 in 333, or that Alexander's invasion had delayed the marriage. As for the other marriage, I understand that they weren't polygamous but if Darius had been married before and had an older family, and then his first wife died, this would fit the situation.RegardsSusan