ATG Trivia

[nick]

Hi Susan -Yes, Im with you. Jona (livius) jumps to these conclusions rather hastily. However, Jona is one of the wisest men that I know.But I do not like the theory that Darius III had been married before. There is no single piece of evidence to suggest this. I am not in favor of building upo a new myth about Statira (Queen) being the second wife of widower Darius.And:When Alexander won Issus he was not yet the Great King of Persia. Darius III lived until July 330 and Alexander pursued imposters and usurpers (Bessus) after Darius' death - reclaiming his new Persian empire to the extent that it had under the greatest of Achaemenid monarchs. Only then he returned to Susa to marry both Parisatys and Stateira to forge his bond with the Achaemenid Royal house. I think the age of Stateira at Issus has little to do with Alexander's decisions to act as he did.Regards -
Nick

[nick]

This discussion makes me realize: Oliver Stone's Roxane (Rosario Dawson) is in fact totally misplaced. She (Dawson) was born 9 May 1979 which makes her, hm, 24 years of age.They have casted Connor Paolo (born 11 July 1990) as the young Alexander. I just realized - if we really want an historically accurate movie, the girl playing Roxane should have come from the same age group as Connor Paolo. Now, I do not want to see that. From now on I am perfectly happy with everything Stone does in ignoring the historical facts to create a movie that we can enjoy.Regards -
Nick

[S]

Greetings Nick,
This *does* make an interesting point- and further points out how social/cultural mores can change- sometimes for the good- over time (Unfortunately, those age-old mores remain in much of the world today that allow for these "child-brides"- it is a problem that few seem to want to address). So in this I agree- some changes to the historical details may well be appropriate. That said, we still cannot know how old Roxanne was- there are numerous factors that could affect her age when she married- from family politics to availability of a suitor satisfactory to her station in life.. marriages were carefully arranged and planned among the aristo, daughters were a valuable commodity (for solidifying fortunmes, lands, familiy ties and political treaties) and were not just haphazardly given to anyone. Seen in this light, it makes the task of finding the "right" husband a daunting task, indeed- it may well have occupied a lot of thought as the daughters drew near betrothal/marriage age.
Regards,
Sikander

[amyntoros]

Hello to Susan, Nick and Sikander: I have been gratefully pouring over your responses today - giving new meaning to "crunching the numbers!" What little information I could find regarding the birth of Darius generally gives the year as 380 or 381. With Stateira born around 360 and taking Sisygambis to be the mother of both, it puts Sisygambis close to her mid-thirties when she had Stateira, assuming she gave birth to Darius when she was only around 13-15 - a 20 year gap between births.It makes no sense for Sisygambis to have waited that long between pregnancies, unless there were others in between where the child died. And why else would Darius have waited so long to marry unless he was waiting to marry a sister, though we can't say he wanted to secure the line of succession because he didn't ascend to the throne until later in life. Presumbably, the practice of marrying siblings was common in all families of the ruling class in Persia.I feel Sisygambis must have had other (deceased) children in between. The risk of having only a second child in her mid-thirties was great. Even today, a woman having her first child, or a "later" addition to the family in her late thirties and early forties carries an increased risk to both mother and child. That's why the medical profession actively discourages these births from being delivered outside the hospital. In ancient times, the risk at any childbirth was much higher than today. Without that risk, why wouldn't women have continued to have more children? Sons often died in battles and daughters in childbirth. Take Olympias for example - she had a thirst for power which she sated when Alexander ascended the throne. He could have died before then in battle, however. Why didn't she continue to have children to completely secure the succession? It would be unkind to believe that Philip stopped having relations with her (and his other wives) once a son and/or daughter was born. The more children Philip had, the more secure his position as well. And in response to L&nda's post (sorry for the delay) who quoted Plato as saying the proper time for a woman to bear children is between twenty and forty -he did say that - but it was almost universally ignored! The classical Greeks married quiet young women who had children almost immediately. I'm being cynical here, but I believe that if the wife died at a young age in childbirth, then there wasn't a big investment in her either emotionally or fin

[amyntoros]

.... I'm being cynical here, but I believe that if the wife died at a young age in childbirth, then there wasn't a big investment in her either emotionally or financially and the husband could just try again. Of course, the wife's family, who might have secured their finances and status through the marriage, would be disappointed. Which brings me back to the question of why didn't the Greeks, in this instance, have more children? Again - because the risk of multiple pregnancies was greater. This also applies to the Persians, in particular the royal families where marriages were made with siblings. If a sister died in childbirth and there were no other sisters to marry, then the man would have to marry again outside of the family. Yet there doesn't seem to be many instances of a large number of siblings to "draw" from.Back to Darius! Having waited so long to marry, I doubt he would have wanted to wait much longer for a child, so I do believe that his daughters were conceived as soon as possible, putting them at marriagable age after capture. I agree that it just wasn't the right time for Alexander to marry. He wanted to complete his conquest of Asia before embarking on an action that would secure *his* right of succession. An impressive forward-thinking young man!All this brings me back to Roxane, where it becomes credible that she could have been as young as 12, though it has been posted correctly (thanks again) that many factors put her actual age in question.And at the risk of bringing up a subject that has probably been debated many times before - and if not, should most likely be on a seperate thread - does everyone really believe that Stateira died in pregnancy two years after capture? I don't have my ancient sources in front of me, but wouldn't that negate Darius' understanding that Alexander had treated his family honorably after hearing the news of her death from a eunuch? And one more thing - what happened to Darius' son? Is he mentioned again in the histories after his capture at Issus?Thanks again for all your input.Linda Ann

[susan]

At the end of Curtius' account, Sisygambis laments that of her seven children, only one is still alive - presumably Oxathres. This may of course be a dramatic flourish from Curtius, as she also talks of her eighty brothers killed in a single night by Ochus, which seems a bit unlikely.Also it refers to her grand-daughter Drypetis and grandson ( presumably Ochus) as being with her. So he must have been alive then, but probably not for much longer. The only one of Darius' family known to survive was Amastris, daughter of Oxathres, who was safely out of the way with Craterus.The subject of Stateira's pregnancy has been discussed before. I incline to the view that she didn't die in childbirth, but of something else, and that it was a mistake on the part of Plutarch, but there are good arguments on both sides.RegardsSusan

[Linda]

hullo LindaIt was in reference to the upper age limit of pregnancy rather than the lower I quoted Plato ie that women were as capable then as now of having children to their late thirties and beyond. In fact, I would say Plato was being more "generous" than we would be now, for safety sake. I don't know much about childbirth in those times, nor the age at which women married. Perhaps there were social problems with marriages (as opposed to betrothals) very young, and Plato was trying to standardise Athenian behaviour

[marcus]

Hi Susan,Re the point about "a love match" - King John (of England) arranged to marry Isabella of Angouleme when she was around 12 years old. He was so besotted with her that he didn't wait for her to grow up a little more and married her on the spot. There was quite a bit of scandal over whether he actually slept with her at that point, but there was no doubt that the reason he married her there and then was that he was completely in love with her. (Whether she was as besotted with him is a slightly different question, but she never appears to have been unhappy with the situation).So I wouldn't necessarily assume that Roxane was older than 12 for it to have been a love match - girls sure grew up quickly then!All the bestMarcus

[marcus]

Hi Andrew,I missed all of this thread over the weekend, and just came to it this morning.My first thought was just the same as yours - well, I didn't think it required deletion, but I was very concerned that if we start trying to propagate 'new' myths about Alexander then we are acting very irresponsibly.However, I'm quite OK with what Nick has put up in the myths/trivia section - so long as we explode the myths, rather than start new ones, I'm in favour of it!All the bestMarcus

[marcus]

Well, of course Olympias did have at least one other child, who was at marriagable age by 336BC - Cleopatra. We don't know how many years younger than Alexander she was, but by the reasoning in this thread she could have been pretty much anything up to 7 years younger than Alexander. Personally I would imagine she was in her late teens when she married the Epirote king, but I don't think I have any basis for that supposition.So Philip 'visited' Olympias at least once after Alexander's birth... All the bestMarcus

[amyntoros]

Poor Olympias! I have to believe that she was a desirable woman in her youth, but history has painted such an unfavorable portrait of her that it's not difficult to poke fun. :-)The book, Philip of Macedon by Ekdotike Athenon, has a geneology chart that gives Kleopatra's date of birth as 353. Unfortunately, the code also shows Alexander and Kynnane as having been born of Audata-Eurydike, and Kleopatra and Thessalonike as born of Nikesipolis from Pherai - in the same year! It looks like the proofreader did a lousy job, but does make Kleopatra's date of birth somewhat suspect.I did a quick online search for Genealogy of Alexander the Great. It wasn't useful, but I found a genealogy page that shows Alexander has having a first wife - daughter of Subhuti of Paropamisdae -and a child by her, Sophytes, King of Paropamisdae! What???There are other errors here too, for example, a birth is listed for Stateira/Barsine (another child by the name of Hercules). The knowledge of the site's owner is suspect, but I *am* curious about the above. Is the daughter of the Subhuti of Propamisdae from the Romances, or has someone just decided to claim they are descended from Alexander and added an ancestor to his family tree? Linda Ann

[susan]

The Malay Annals describes the marriage of Alexander to ShahruGÇÖl-Bariyah, daughter of Raja Kida Hindi, ruler of India. Alexander marries her and leaves her with her father without knowing that she is pregnant - and the medieval Rajahs of Malaya trace their descent from their son - although the chronology is very muddled and fanciful.This marriage that you speak of is probably in another version of the Romance. Can you post the link, so that I can add it to my collection ?
Thanks,Susan

[amyntoros]

Hello Susan:Here is the link:http://www.american-pictures.com/geneal ... 2.htmThere aren't any further links to any page outside of the genealogy charts, so unfortunately it is impossible to find out who created this, or why.Linda Ann

[susan]

I've come across this site before - it's a mixture of fact and speculation. Some of the speculation is completely wrong, some of the facts are right. There seems to be no differentiation between sober history and total fantasy. I expect that he's come across something in an offshoot of the Alexander Romance, and has just added it to his tree. A lot of the later Indian kings liked to trace their descent from Alexander even if there was no basis
in fact for this - and I expect it's the same. A slight possibility is that I think Oxyartes became satrap of the Paropamisidae, and so the daughter could have been Roxane, but her son went to Macedonia so it still couldn't be correct.Many other sections of this genealogy are equally far-fetched.RegardsSusan