All Alexander's Women
Page 20
) 17, 30, 37, 41, 42, 46, 55, 56, 59, 68, 69–71, 73, 80, 109–110, 113
Artaxerxes III “Ochus” (a half-brother of Sisygambis. Ochus derives from the Old Persian *Vahush meaning: “The Good One”; Babylonian version: *Umasu. About 361 BC, Ochus –son of a concubine– led a campaign against Egypt, then in rebellion under Tachos, and obtained that pharaoh’s surrender. As Artaxerxes III, Ochus acceded to the throne in February 358 BC and remained in power until his death in 338 BC. He began his reign with the mass murder of 80 of his half-brothers.
Artaxerxes IV (son of Ochus, whose vizier Bagoas poisoned him in 336; this allowed Darius III to ascend the throne; he in turn poisoned Bagoas) IX, X
Artazostre (daughter of Darius the Great by his favourite wife Irtashduna/Artystone. Her Old Persian name means “Taking delight in Arta”. In the Persepolis archive, clay tablet PF a5 identifies her as Sunki Pakri, royal daughter, and states she has received rations for 4 days to travel out to her husband general Mardonius as he returns from Xerxes’ campaign in 492 BC to recover Thrace and Macedonia as Persian provinces; her travels confirm the freedom of movement of Persian women) 1
Artemis (Greek goddess assimilated in Persia to Anahita and in Rome to Diana. The great Temple of Artemis in Efesos was one of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity. It had been built with funds donated by king Croesus of Lydia, but burned down on the same day Alexander was born. The “Artemis of Efesos” is a Karian fertility deity with multiple breasts, derived from the Mother Goddess) VI, 54, 55, 78
Artemisia I (queen of Karia c. 480 BC, succesful admiral for Xerxes at Salamis naval battle, where she recovered from the sea the corpse of Ariamenes, eldest brother of the Persian king. As token of esteem, Xerxes put her in charge of some of his sons, whom she took to Efesos to be educated by the Karian eunuch Hermotimos. Evidently, this ‘familiar’ relationship with the Achaemenids gave the Karian rulers access to inside information on the workings of the Persian empire) 3, 32, 77, 78, 79, 80
Artemisia II (queen of Karia 377–350 BC, finished building the “Mausoleum” for her deceased husband Maussolo; also, she turned the tables on an invasion force from Rhodes) 3, 81
Artim (a wetnurse to Xerxes’ daughter Ratahshah. In 486 BC, the ascension year of Xerxes, a clay tablet –found in 1892 at Bit Sahiran near Babylon– registers a payment for landlease to “Artim, the wetnurse of Ratahsah, daughter of the king”) 74
Artobazanes, see: Ariamenes (eldest son of Darius I, and naval commander at the Salamis battle in 480 BC for his brother king Xerxes) 79, 80
Artonis (daughter of Artabazos; sister of Barsine; and wife to Eumenes at the Susa Weddings) 2, 159
Artystone (=Irtashduna, see ibidem) 68
Asander (Makedonian general, relative of Antigonos One-Eye; protected queen Ada in Karia, 334 BC, on Alexander’s orders; then succeeded her as satrap in 323 BC, appointed by Perdikkas) 83
Aspasia (concubine of Artaxerxes II, then lover of his son Darius) 73
Assuan (Egyptian frontier city on the first Nile cataract, with a famous Isis temple on the nearby Philae island) 61, 62, 112, 127
Assyrian queen (Sammur-Amat, see id.) 3, 39, 65
Astarté (since the Bronze Age, successor deity of the Great Goddess in the Levant and Mesopotamia, later identified with Babylonian goddess Ishtar/Inanna) 54, 61
Astyages (king of Medes c. 560 BC, toppled by his grandson Cyrus the Great; Astyages’ widowed daughter Amytis was then taken in marriage by Cyrus) 44, 45, 65, 67
Athena (Greek deity, also a successor to the Great Goddess. Robert Graves, in his White Goddess, notes that Athena’s name may in part reflect the ancient roots of her divinity, because AN or ANNA is Sumerian for “Heaven”, e.g. Inanna, or Nin-Anna, “Lady of Heaven”. Thus, the Greek Athena would in origin be Athe-anna, like the Roman goddess Diana would be Di-anna. The operative root is Anna, which denotes life-giving divinity, as held by the Great Goddess. Athena was venerated at an ancient temple on the Akropolis, where Perikles later had the Parthenon built) 54, 55, 84
Athenaios of Naukratis in Egypt (c.140–200 AD, Greek writer who quotes from many other authors in his Deipnosofistai=“Gastronomer’s table-talk”) 159, 160
Athens (Greek capital city where Arrian was “archon”, mayor, in 148–149 AD) VI, 1, 2, 5, 9, 15, 30, 61, 86, 87, 92, 102, 113, 114, 123, 135, 139, 156, 157
Atossa (Old Persian *Utauθa=Hutaosā, possibly meaning “well granting”. The name Atossa, traditional in the Achaemenid clan, was already carried by a sister of Cambyses I. The most famous bearer of this name was c. 550–515 BC the eldest daughter of Cyrus the Great and Kassandane. This Atossa was married c 533 to her brother Cambyses II who became king three years later. After his death, she passed to her other brother Bardiya a.k.a. Gaumâta/Smerdis, a former rebel and shortlived king. Some months later, Darius I killed Bardiya in a palace coup and made Atossa his main consort and queen. A prominent motive may have been Darius’ wish to legitimize the accession of his own collateral Achaemenid line by joining with a member of Cyrus’ family. Atossa was a well educated intellectual woman, and the invention of an adapted alphabet for all imperial correspondence is credited to her. She had four sons by Darius. Xerxes was the eldest; the others were Hystaspes, leader of Baktrian troops in Xerxes’ army, Masistes, one of Xerxes’ commanding generals, and Achaemenes, admiral of the Egyptian fleet. Because of her lineage and by her intelligence, Atossa exercised great influence on her husband and c. 487 won his support for the succession of Xerxes. When Darius named Xerxes his heir, Atossa’s status as the successor’s mother further increased her vast power. The smooth transition to Xerxes’ rule after Darius’ death must have been due in part to Atossa’s great authority. During her son’s reign she held the high status of queen-mother. Her reputation is reflected in Aischylos’ Persae: Darius, called up from Hades by the chorus, explicitly approves of her influence over her son (lines 832ff.). Herodotos states in VII.3: “Atossa was all-powerful”. She was said to worship the goddess Anahita) 3, 38, 45, 59, 65, 66, 67, 72, 73, 74, 163
Atossa the Younger (a daughter of Artaxerxes II; in exchange for a promise to make her queen, Atossa supported a rebellion of her half-brother Artaxerxes III Ochus to seize the throne in 359 BC. But she was foiled: he had her murdered, and married her daughter instead) 73
Atropates (Zoroastrian satrap of Media; in 324 BC, after one of his daughters was married in Susa to Perdikkas, he offered Alexander a gift of one hundred ‘Amazons’) 2, 12, 13, 27, 159
Attalid dynasty (282–144 BC; a general of Lysimachos, Filetairos, took control of Pergamon; his descendant Attalos I proclaimed himself independent king there in 241 BC) 127, 128
Attalos (Makedonian noble, uncle and ward of Philip’s last bride; hostile to Alexander, who ordered his death in 336 BC) 90, 91, 97
Audata (in 358, Illyrian ‘war bride’ for Philip, whom she bears his first daughter, Kunnanè/Cynnane) 16, 88, 89, 90, 119
Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD, nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, so first Roman emperor; visited the Alexander Tomb in 30 BC after defeating Cleopatra VII and downgrading Egypt to ‘imperial province’) 35, 62, 129, 130, 131, 132
Ausfeld (German historian, Leipzig; Der griechische Alexanderroman published in 1907) 123
‘Auspicious Amazon’; (a much embroidered equivalent, in the Oriental Alexander Romances, of the mythical Amazon Thalestris in Western literature; see Thalestris) 10, 142, 159, 160
Avesta (Zoroastrian ‘bible’, composed over a span of many centuries; its oral version was canonised c. 650 BC, but no written version appeared until much later dates. Tradition holds that the founding father of the Sassanid empire, Ardasher I, c. 230 AD ordered the first written text of this sacred book to be composed. However, none of the early copies of the Avesta survive; the oldest extant text dates from the year 1288 AD. Academic consensus agrees that the Avesta was only transmitted in oral versions until the 3rd or 4th century AD
. This means that no book of the kind existed in the Achaemenid empire conquered by Alexander. Even so, the Persian historian Tabari proclaimed in the 10th century AD that “one of the most depraved acts ever committed” was Alexander’s order to burn the Avesta. This accusation of religious intolerance is still sustained nowadays by certain fanatics) 55, 113, 144
Axe Tower/Snake Tower (fortification at the highest point of the royal stronghold on Halikarnassos’ harbor island; over its entrance it had sculpted the double axe, a national icon of Karia derived from the Great Goddess cult. Another of her icons, the ‘snake motif’, is sculpted over the entrance of a lower, round tower which is considered the oldest edification on these grounds) 84
Ayn Manâwîr (near Khargeh Oasis; site of a Persian qanat irrigation system) 137
B:
Babylon (ancient commercial city and political center on the river Eufrates. After his victory of 331 BC at Gaugamela, Alexander celebrates a triumphal entry in Babylon and decides to make this the capital of his new empire. His tetradrachma coins issued here carry the mark MTR for metropolis=capital. Also, he puts the Persian governor Mazday in charge of Babylon, probably on advice of Sysigambis. The special relation of the Babylonians with Alexander is confirmed in the Babylon Astronomical Diary which uses (II.330.3–15) for Alexander the triumphal title of Shar Kirshati, “King of the entire World”, instead of Shar Matati, “King of the Lands”, that was used for the Persian High Kings) VII, VIII, 15, 20, 23, 42, 43, 47, 54, 65, 69, 71, 73, 74, 83, 95, 105, 107, 113, 120, 125, 128, 130, 138, 143, 151, 157
Babyloniaka (chronicle of legends and history written by Berosus, see id.) 56, 157
Bagoas (Egyptian eunuch, henchman and grand vizier of Ochus, killed by Darius III in 336 BC) X
Bagoas (Persian eunuch, bedmate of Alexander) 8
Baktra (Alexander’s HQ in 327 BC; city, present-day Balkh in northern Afghanistan) VIII, 56
Baktria (satrapy of Artabazos under Alexander; present-day Afghanistan) VIII, 20, 21, 23, 27, 43, 45, 54, 151
Bardiya (brother, and in 522 BC would-be successor, to Cambyses II) 66, 67
Barsine (name of several princesses in the Achaemenid dynasty; a Greek rendering of the Old Persian Brzina derived from *Brz=“high”, sic Tavernier 2010; thus, evidently, a pet name meaning “My sweetie highness”) 17, 159
Barsine <1> (c. 358–309 BC, Persian princess. Through Apame she was a great-granddaughter of Artaxerxes II, so grand-niece of Sisygambis. As daughter of Artabazos she went in exile with him (352–343 BC) at Pella, and was presented to Alexander at some point. She was married first, c. 342, to her Rhodian mother’s brother Mentor, whom she bore a daughter before he died in 340; then to his brother Memnon, whom se bore a son. Her daughter was given in marriage to Nearchos at the Susa weddings. Captured in Damascus by Parmenion, she became –333 BC– Alexander’s concubine, and accompanied him on the Eastern campaign. After the birth in Baktria of their son Herakles in 327 BC, she returned to Pergamon, both were called to Greece and later killed by Polyperchon in 309 BC. The Parian Marble registers “when Hieromemnon was archon of Athens” –that is, 310/309– the death of “another son of Alexander, by the daughter of Artabazos”) VI, VII, X, 2, 3, 8, 17–21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 39, 41, 95, 159
Barsine <2> (340–323 BC, imperial princess of Persia, daughter of Darius III and his queen Stateira; eldest granddaughter of Sisygambis. When still a baby, this Barsine was promised in marriage to the satrap of Syria, Mazday, probably in exchange for his promise to support Darius’ claim to the throne. Once king, however, Darius reneges on this promise, and in his negotiations with Alexander offers him Barsine as a bride. Finally, in 324 at the Susa weddings Alexander indeed marries her –which probably is the stately occasion on which her name was changed to Stateira–, to make her the ranking queen of the empire and mother of the official heir
Berosus (Chaldean: Bel-re’ushunu; born c. 330 BC; priest of Bel, astronomer, and temple chief in Babylon; emigrated to Kos, Asian Minor, and c. 285 BC wrote his Babyloniaka chronicle of legends and history in three books; only a few fragments remain, relative to the 6th–3rd century BC) 56, 157
Bessos (c. 380–329 BC, a distant relative of Darius III. Satrap of Baktria and Sogdia; murderer and would-be successor of Darius) VII, IX, 19, 43, 44
Bodrum (city in S-W Turkey; former Halikarnassos, see id.) 84
Bosworth, A. B. (b. 1943; professor of Ancient History at the Western University in Australia, and a top expert on Alexander’s era) 22, 129, 162
Briseis (a Trojan princess Achilles had captured at Lyrnessos, and fell in love with. When Agamemnon took her away, Achilles refused to fight at Troy –instead he attacked Trojan allies elsewhere– until she was given back to him. They planned to marry: “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, 341–343) 21
Brosius, Maria (professor of Ancient History at the universities of Newcastle and Oxford; author of Women in Ancient Persia) 38, 45, 72–74, 134, 162
C:
Cádiz (Fenician colony in Spain where Caesar saw Alexander’s statue) 129
Caesar, Julius (100–44 BC, founder of the roman Empire, openly admired Alexander; in his new ‘Forum Iulianum’ in Rome, he had a big equestrian statue of Alexander set up, and together with Cleopatra VII he paid a visit to the Alexandrian Tomb) 61, 128, 129, 131, 132, 135
Caesarion (47–30 BC; son of Caesar and Cleopatra VII) 131, 132
Caligula (12–41 AD; mad Roman emperor, had Alexander’s armor robbed from the Tomb, so he could put it on for special occasions)
Cambyses II (r. 530–522 BC, Old Persian: “Kambujia”; son of Cyrus the Great; conquered Egypt in 525. Greek tales from Egyptian sources are very hostile to Cambyses who is said to have married (sic Herodotos) “his two full sisters”
canal Nile-Red Sea (first dug under pharaoh Senusset III c. 1850 BC through the Wadi Tumilat/‘Bitter Lakes’ depression, natural outlet to the Red Sea from the eastern arm of the prehistoric Nile delta. Re-excavated by Hatshepsut and other pharaohs, widened on the order of Darius I, it was in full use in Alexander’s days and in the early Roman Empire: both Trajan and Hadrian signed orders for its maintenance) 130, 137
Candace (Roman transcription for the Nubian Kentake <=queen mother> in Meroé; see: Kentake. In the ‘Romance’ sources, probably inspired by the real Kleofis episode in India, Alexander visits a fictional Nubian warrior queen called Candace, and has a love affair with her) 36, 61
Cappadocia (central Asia Minor, conquered after Alexander’s death by Perdikkas and Eumenes. Four centuries later the general/writer Arrian was appointed by his friend the Roman emperor Hadrian as the governor of this region. In this period 131–137 Arrian opposed and defeated an invasion by the Alans, a tribe of Scythian origin) 93, 130, 140, 156
Caracalla (188–217 AD, Roman emperor who visited the Alexander Tomb in 215 AD; he tried to imitate Alexander) 147
Caria (= Karia, see id.) 163
Carmania (in S-E Persia; Alexander held a thanksgiving Festival there after crossing the Gadrosia desert) 152
Carney, Elizabeth Donelly (b. 1947; professor of History at Clemson University in South Carolina, US; expert on Olympias and Alexander; her biographical notes on Olympias, quoted on pages 97–100; also, see Reference Works: pages 162–163) 19, 24, 25, 29, 41, 92, 96, 132, 134, 160, 162, 163
Carthago (North African city at the location of present-day Tunez. Former colony of Fenicia since 7th century BC, and merchant empire. Alexander was planning to
subdue this rival power, and had ordered Krateros to build a fleet of warships for this purpose. The naval construction had already begun when Alexander died, but Perdikkas repealed this plan. Carthago went on to become Rome’s main rival) VIII, 104, 129, 130
Chaironea (site of the battle in 338 BC that gave Philip control over Greece. Alexander led the left wing and broke through the Arthenian and Theban lines, so deciding victory. Philip’s allies at Chaironea were then united in the ‘League of Corinth’. Chaironea also is the birthplace of Plutarch) VI, 9, 141, 155
Chandragupta Maurya (321–289 BC; Indian king who in 305 ‘bought’ Alexander’s Indian conquests from Seleukos for 500 war elephants) 107, 125, 128
Chares of Mytilene (367–313 BC; chamberlain of Alexander and author of a book about his court) 21, 26, 101, 140, 141, 154
chiliarch (literally, “commander of a thousand”: highest military rank in Makedon. Exclusively in the case of Hefaistion, Alexander equalled it to the Persian “Hazârapatis” politico-military office of grand vizier or prime minister) VIII, 120, 140
Chorasmia (land on Oxus river; today Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan; conquered by Alexander) 152
Chrysostomos, Saint John (347–407 AD; patriarch of Constantinople, preached against “Alexander superstitions”)
Cilicia (=Kilikia, see id.) 3, 42, 69, 130, 138
Cleopatra VII (69–30 BC, descendant of Ptolemy and pharaoh of Egypt by decision of Julius Caesar, whose only son she bore in 47 BC; later, she became the mother of three children for Mark Anthony. In regional conflicts, she used to side with the women, as shown by documents in the cases of Aba in Olba, and of Alexandra in Judea. For both political and emotional reasons, queen Zenobia of Palmyra later claimed descent from Cleopatra) 3, 35, 60, 61, 62, 75, 129, 131–132, 135
Cleophis (Roman transliteration of the Sanscrit name ‘Kripa’ or Kleofis, Indian queen reinstated by Alexander in 326 BC. The author Orosius, in 3.19.1, calls her “Cleophylis”, thus increasing the similitude with the name of Cleopatra. Experts deduce that Roman writers like Curtius, Justin and Orosius invented this paralel to exploit the ‘depraved Oriental queen’ image built up by Augustus’ propaganda machine against Cleopatra. See: Kleofis) 34–35