Kleofis, queen
-Diod. XVII.84; Curt.8.10.22-36; Arr.IV.27.4; Metz Ep.39-45; contra Just. 12.7.9-11
Kleopatra, queen
-Diod.XVI.91.4-6; XVIII.15.3/23.1/25.3; XX.37.5; SEG XXIII, 189.1; SEG IX; Pausanias I.44. (on the patronage of musicians)
Lanike (chief nurse in Pella)
-Curt. VIII..1-2; Athen. IV.129a; Arr.IV.9.3
Married girl in Pella
-Plut. Mor. 179e
Olympias, queen
-(many sources: see Carney 2006, Olympias. Also, see Duris FGrH 76 on the War of the Women)
Parysatis, princess
-Arr.VII.4.4
Pythia, prophetess
-Diod. XVII.51.3 and 93.4; Plut. Al. 14.4; ps. Kall. 125
Roxane, queen
-Diod. XIX.52.1-5 and 105.2-4; Plut. Al. 47.7 & 77.4; Arr.IV.19.5; Curt.8.4.21-30; Metz Ep.28-31/70
Sexy harper of Antipatrides
-Plut.Mor.760c-d and 180f
Stateira (wife of Darius III)
-Plut.Al.30.2-5; Plut. Mor.338e; Arr. II.11.9
Telesippa, hetaira
-Plut. Mor.181a and 329c; and Plut.Al.41.9-10 (*)
Thais, concubine
-Diod. XVII.72; Plut. Al. 38.2
Thalestris, Amazon queen
-Diod. XVII.77.1-3;
(or a Scythian princess?)
Plut.Al.46.1-2; Arr.IV.15;
Thessalonike, queen
-Diod.XIX.35.5 & 52.1
Timokleia, in Thebes
-Plut. Virtues in Women 259-260; Plut Al.12
Syriac soothsayer
-Aristob. FGrH 139; Arr. IV.13.5-6
Sisygambis, queen-mother
-Diod.XVII.31.2/36.2/37.3-6/and id. 38.1-7/59.7/67.1/118.3;Curt. III.3.12.6-12 and X.5.17;Plut. Al. 21.1-3 and 43.3; Arr.II.11.9 / III.22.6; Valerius Max. 4.7.ext.2; Itinerarium Alexandri 15 XXXVII
(*) Plutarch, Moralia 181a and 339c-d:
“When he was discharging the sick, a man admitted to Alexander that he feigned sickness because of love for Telesippa, who was departing for the sea; and Alexander asked, “With whom must one talk concerning Telesippa?” And when he learned that she was not a slave, he said, “Then let us, Antigenes, try to persuade Telesippa to stay with us; for to coerce her, a free woman, is not within our right.”
However, in his Alexander 41.9-10, Plutarch names not Antigenes but Eurylochos as the man who is in love with Telesippa. Heckel, in his Who’s Who, considers the name Antigenes to be an error.
REFERENCE WORKS:
Industriously consulted (and warmly recommended for reading):
Baynham&Bosworth 2000
Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction
A.B. Bosworth and E.J. Baynham (eds.) (Oxford)
Bosworth 2002
The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare and Propaganda under the Successors
A.B. Bosworth (Oxford)
Bosworth 1988
Conquest and Empire: the Reign of Alexander the Great
A.B. Bosworth (Cambridge)
Brosius 1996
Women in ancient Persia (559-331BC)
Maria Brosius (Oxford)
Carney 2000
Women and Monarchy in Macedonia
Elizabeth Carney (University of Oklahoma Press)
Carney 2006
Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great
Elizabeth Carney (Routledge)
Harrison 1927
Themis: Social Origins of Greek Religion
Jane E. Harrison (Meridian 1962)
Heckel 1992
The Marshals of Alexander’s Empire
Waldemar Heckel (Routledge)
Heckel 2006
Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great
Waldemar Heckel (Blackwell)
Küçükeren 2005
Karia: an Anatolian Civilisation in the Aegean
Canan Küçükeren (Istanbul)
Kuhrt 2007
The Persian Empire
Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge)
Lane Fox 1973
Alexander the Great
Robin Lane Fox (Penguin 1986)
Newton 1862
A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassos
Charles T. Newton (London)
Ogden 2011
Alexander the Great Myth, Genesis and Sexuality
Daniel Ogden (University of Exeter Press)
Renault 1975
The Nature of Alexander
Mary Renault (Penguin 1984)
Wiesehöfer 1998
Ancient Persia
Josef Wiesehöfer (I.B. Tauris, New York 2001)
also, the classical Greek texts:
Arrian (I & II)
Anabasis Alexandrou & Indikè
(Loeb Classical Library, Harvard, reprint 2000)
Diodoros ‘Siculus’
Library of History VIII, IX & X
(Loeb id., reprint 2003)
Herodotos
The Histories
(Penguin 1987)
Plutarch
The Age of Alexander
(Penguin 1986)
Plutarch
Eumenes (in Lives VIII)
(Loeb id., reprint 1989)
Pseudo-Kallisthenes
Life and Deeds of Alexander the Great
(Penguin 1991)
Xenofon (V & VI)
Cyropaedia
(Loeb id., reprint 2001)
and academic essays on:
Alexander and Persian Women,
by professor Elizabeth Carney; American Journal of Philology, 1966
Women and ‘Dunasteia’ in Caria,
by professor Elizabeth Carney; American Journal of Philology, 2005
Anahita and Alexander,
by professor William Hanaway; Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1982
The earliest goddesses of Egypt,
by professor Fekri Hassan, in: Ancient Goddesses, British Museum Press, 1998
Xerxes, Atossa and the Persepolis Archive,
by professor Wouter F.M. Henkelman; NINO Istanbul 2010
The Eye of the King,
by professor Shapur Shahbazi; American Journal of Ancient History, 1997
plus the Internet webpages:
http://www.alexander-sources.org : texts of classical authors on Alexander
www.achemenet.com : (basically) by professor Pierre Briant
www.cais-soas.com : the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies
www.livius.org : (basically) by professor Jona Lendering
www.pothos.org : ‘All about Alexander the Great’
www.makedonia-alexandros.blogspot.com : by Argyraspid, a knowledgeable Alexander follower
BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX
A:
Abdastart (Fenician name meaning “Servant of Astarté”; 376–358 BC king of Sidon who headed a rebellion against Persia. Artaxerxes III crushed the uprising in 345. Fenicia was then put under the control of the satrap Mazaios/Mazday, who issued his own coins in Sidon in the period 342–337)
Abdalonymos (named king of Sidon by Hefaistion in 332 BC; died 312 BC at the Gaza battle of Ptolemy and Seleukos against Antigonos One Eye) VII
Abu Muhammad bin Yusuf, “Nizami Ganjavi” (1141–1209 AD Persian writer, author of the Sikandar-Nama) 142–146
Abulites (satrap who surrenders Susa to Alexander in 331 BC and is then reappointed; but in 325, accused of corruption and eliminated) VII
Achaemenids (dynastic name of the leading family in the region of Fars/Persis, that headed the Persian tribes. Its name derives from a legendary forefather of Cyrus and Darius, called in Old-Persian ‘Hakhâmaniš’
he Persians are vassals to the Medes with whom they share most of their cultural and linguistic characteristics. Hakhâmanish is believed to have united the tribes in the region of Fars around the year 700 BC. Darius the Great proclaims him as the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty. All the kings of its empire, which lasted from 550 to 330 BC, are his descendants) 1, 3, 8, 17, 24, 25, 26, 32, 36, 38, 41, 43, 46, 48, 59, 65, 73, 75, 78, 90, 110, 112, 113, 114, 128, 137, 145
Acheh (on northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia; home to an “Alexander-derived” Muslim dynasty; see: Iskandar Muda) 146
Achilles (the Trojan War hero in Homer and mythical ancestor of the royal house of Molossia – hence Alexander’s nickname “Little Achilles”. When he visited Troy in 334 BC, Alexander exchanged his own armour for a purported ‘shield of Achilles’. It accompanied him on the whole campaign, and saved his life in 325 when Peukestas covered him with it against the attacking Mallians. Alexander justifies his love for Roxane by quoting Achilles on Briseis: a Trojan woman Achilles had captured at Lyrnessos, and fell in love with. He planned to marry her upon their return to Greece: “Every sane and decent man loves his own wife and cares for her, as in my heart I loved Briseis, though I won her by the spear,” says Achilles in Iliad IX, 416–20)
Actium (on the west coast of Greece; in 31 BC, site of the decisive naval battle against Mark Anthony and Cleopatra VII that made possible Augustus’ rise to sole imperial power) 132
Ada I, Queen of Karia (c. 380–323 BC; officially adopted Alexander as son and heir in 334 BC. For her role in Karia’s history, see chapters 1 and 4) VII, 3, 30–33, 35, 39, 78, 81–84, 87, 159
Ada II, princess of Karia (c. 365–325 BC, Pixodaro’s daughter, so Ada’s niece; in 337, offered in marriage to a Makedonian prince; later, wife of the Persian satrap Orontobates) VI, 2, 6, 82, 159
Adea (born 336 BC, Cynnane’s daughter; married in 321 to co-King Arridaios; ally of Kassander. In 317 BC at Euía
Aelianus, Claudius (175–235 AD; Roman writer who preserved many fragments of other historians by quoting them in his Varia Historia) 7, 59, 158, 159, 160
Afrodite (successor deity to the Great Goddess; divinity of sexual love, like the Roman Venus) 7, 29, 54, 55, 60, 61, 78, 83, 84, 88
Ahura Mazda (“Lord of Wisdom”, Persia’s main god; see also: Zoroaster) 55–57
Aigai (today: Vergina; former ceremonial capital of Makedon) 87, 90
Aiolia (satrapy in Asia Minor, bordering on the Hellespont) 151
Aischylos (525–456 BC, Greek classic playwright) 38, 110
Akkad (city of Ancient Mesopotamia, to the north of Babylon; c 2350 BC, birthplace of Sargon, conqueror of the first multi-ethnic empire) 51
Alexander I (king of Makedon 497–454 BC, initially as a vassal to Persia, but after the Marathon battle he attacks and routs the Persian army in its withdrawal. In 500 BC, he was the first Makedonian ever to participate in the Olympic Games, as the Greek judges accepted his claim of descent from Perdikkas of Argos, the legendary conqueror of Makedon. Alexander’s mother, queen Eurydike, is the first historical royal carrying this name
Alexander II (king of Makedon 370– 368, murdered during a ritual dance; his mother, also called Eurydike, finally obtained the help of the Athenian general Ifíkrates to secure the throne for her second son, Perdikkas
Alexander III the Great (356–323 BC; king of Makedon from 336 BC. He never called himself “the Great”, a title that first appears c. 220 BC in the Roman author Plautus, and is later adopted by Curtius and Plutarch). For specific themes/episodes on Alexander and the following, see under:
– Ada I of Karia (his adoptive mother)
– Ada II of Karia (his first marriage proposal)
– Achilles (his preferred hero)
– Amazons (his curiosity about)
– Ammon (his visit to Egypt’s Ammon oracle)
– Aristoteles (teacher of Alexander & friends at a school in Mieza)
– Arrian (his biography & quotes of Alexander)
– Bagoas (his Persian eunuch lover)
– Barsine (his concubine, mother of his son Herakles)
– Barsine/Stateira (the daughter of Darius III he married in Susa)
– Carthago (his planned campaign against)
– Cyrus the Great (whose tomb Alexander had restored)
– Darius III (the Persian High King he routed)
– Drypetis (the daughter of Darius he married out to Hefaistion)
– Hefaistion (his lover, friend, advisor and prime minister)
– Kallixeina (the courtisan his mother hired for him)
– Kampaspe (the hetaira from Larissa in Thessaly he gave to Apelles)
– Kassander (the son of Antipater who opposed
– Kleitos “the Black” (a Makedonian general he killed in Samarkand)
– Kleofis (the Indian queen he restored to the throne in Massaga)
– Kleopatra (his full sister and ‘charity manager’ in Greece)
– Koran (where the prophet Muhammad speaks about Alexander)
– Olympias (his mother, whose advice he followed more often than not)
– Opis (the place of the open mutiny of his Makedonians)
– Parmenion (his old general he had killed as a preemptive measure)
– Persepolis (the Persian capital where he burned down the palaces)
– Philip II (his father he both learned from and conflicted with)
– Religious freedom (which he decreed after Cyrus’ example)
– Roman reverence for Alexander’s magic
– Roxane (his Baktrian wife he decided nót to make his queen)
– Satraps (appointments of/elimination of)
– Sisygambis (the Persian queen-mother whom he adored)
– Stateira/Barsine (her granddaughter whom he married in Susa)
– Syrian prophetess (who saved him from an assassination attempt)
– Testament (his Last Will faked by Ptolemy)
– Timokleia in Thebes (the Greek woman he pardoned and set free)
– Tomb of Alexander (its location still being a mystery today)
– Tyre (the Fenician harbour city he took after a half-year siege)
– Uxians (the Persian tribe he pardoned at Sisygambis’ plea)
Alexander IV (323–310 BC; his son by Roxane; killed in 310 BC by Kassander) 95, 98
Alexander (b. 301 BC, a son of Lysimachos by Amastris) 106
Alexander of Molossia (b. 362 BC, younger brother of Olympias and sometime lover of Philip, who made him king of Molossia in 342 and married him to his daughter Kleopatra in 336. Shortly afterwards, the Molossian Alexander went to war in Italy and was killed c. 331 in ambush in the Italian region Pandosia) 90, 91, 92
Alexander Severus (222–235 AD Roman emperor, who idolised Alexander) 147
‘Alexander Sarcophagus’ (see: Sarcophagus)
Alexander Tomb in Alexandria (In 320 BC, Ptolemy had buried Alexander’s mummy first at Memphis –in a sarcophagus borrowed from an earlier pharaoh–, and then, provisionally, in the Alabaster Tomb at Alexandria. Half a century later, the body <“soma”> was relocated in a cold grotto under the magnificent mausoleum that would become –surrounded by tombs of Ptolemaic rulers– thé landmark <“sema”> of the city. Venerated sanctuary first, profitable tourist attraction later, the Soma remained visi(ta) ble for six centuries, until a disastrous earthquake/tsunami destroyed and inundated Alexandria’s seafront in 365 AD. Comment by Libanius in 384 and by St. John Chrysostom c. 400 AD proves that the (salvaged) mummy was then still shown to visitors; after that, its trace is lost. However, an Alexander Tomb reappears under the Islamic rulers. In his Description of Africa of 1526, Leo Africanus testifies to the existence in Alexandria of “a chapel with a tomb much honored by the Mahometans, since it
is asserted that within it is the corpse of Alexander the Great, grand prophet and king, as may be read in the Koran”. This chapel contained the sarcophagus which later, rediscovered by Napoleon’s Egyptologists but impounded by their British captors, ended up in the British Museum. There it was finally identified as made for pharaoh Nectanebo II, and probably reused for Alexander in Memphis, before his removal to Alexandria) 129
Alexandra in Judea (c. 35 BC, mother of the Hasmonean high priest in Jerusalem and self-proclaimed queen, enemy of king Herod who had Rome’s backing. Cleopatra VII helped her and tried in vain to have Herod indicted for attacking her) 132
Alexandria (city founded by Alexander on April 7th, 331 BC in the Nile Delta between the island of Pharos <“following a dream mentioned by Homer”> and Lake Mareotis. Under the Ptolemies, this became the capital of Egypt and site of the most important Library of the Ancient World) VII, 127, 128, 129, 140, 147, 155, 157
Alinda (today: Karpuzlu in S-W Turkey; in 334 BC, principal fortress of the – then exiled– queen Ada of Karia, on the Ionian coast) 31, 82
Alketas (355–320 BC, Makedonian general and brother of Perdikkas, on whose orders he had Cynnane killed. After the demise of Perdikkas in Egypt, Alketas was condemned to death by the Triparadeisos assembly, and committed suicide when Antigonos One-Eye was going to capture him) 93, 94, 120
Amanikhabale (Kentake = Queen-Mother of Meroe in Kush/Nubia, reigned c. 50–40 BC contemporary with Julius Caesar)
Amanirenas (Kentake of Meroe, reigned c. 50–40 BC contemporary with Julius Caesar and Augustus. Warlike, one-eyed sovereign who in 23 BC personally led her army to beat back the Romans and occupy Assuan, with its Isis temples of Philae. In 20 BC she sent her ambassador to the island of Samos to sign a peace treaty with Rome) 3, 62
All Alexander's Women Page 18
