Roxane (Alexander the Great)

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Alexander the Great and Roxane by Pietro Antonio Rotari , 1756. Hermitage, Saint Petersburg.

Roxane (* around 345 BC ; † 310 BC in Amphipolis ; also called Roxana and written Rhoxane or Roksana , Persian روشنک Roschanak ) was a Bactrian (present-day Balkh , Afghanistan) princess and the first wife of Alexander the Great . She was the daughter of the Bactrian nobleman and satrap Oxyartes . Her name means "dawn" or "the radiant one". After the early death of the great Macedonian king (323 BC), she gave birth to his son Alexander IV. Aigos , was involved in the diadoch fights and finally killed together with her son on the orders of Kassander .

Life

Parentage and marriage to Alexander the great

Roxane's father was the Bactrian tribal prince Oxyartes , who brought them to the rock castle of Ariamazes , which is considered impregnable, when Alexander the great was approaching . Oxyartes himself was not present at the castle when it could be captured by Alexander. Roxane was therefore captured by the conqueror, who, according to Arrian, immediately fell in love with her when she saw her; after all, she was named after the wife of the Persian great king Dareios III. the most beautiful woman in Asia. Soon after, he married Roxane. According to the tradition of Curtius Rufus, however, Alexander only became aware of Roxane after taking the castle of Sisimithres , on the occasion of a festive banquet of Oxyartes, where she performed as a dancer with thirty other virgins, after which their splendid wedding took place according to the local rite.

The wedding of Alexander the Great to Princess Roxane. Around 1517 designed by Sodoma and painted by Francesco Primaticcio in the Villa Farnesina, Rome.

According to the chronological interpretation of Siegfried Lauffer , the castles of Ariamazes and Sisimithres were conquered according to the tradition of Arrian in the spring of 327 BC. BC, according to the tradition of Curtius Rufus but that of Ariamazes 328 BC. Before the tragedy of Kleitos and that of Sismithres in the winter of 328/327 BC. Accordingly, the time of Roxane's wedding was in the spring of 327 BC. To date. AB Bosworth, on the other hand, thinks that Roxane's marriage to Alexander after Arrian took place in the spring of 328 BC. And according to Curtius Rufus in the autumn of 328 BC. Chr. Fall.

Through his marriage to Roxane, Alexander also aimed at strengthening relations between Macedonians and Orientals. The ancient authors, however, unanimously place the erotic motif of marriage over the political in the foreground. The Macedonians were much less pleasantly touched by the decision of their king than his Asian followers, since many a high-ranking Macedonian would have liked to see his daughter as Alexander's bride.

After the marriage of Roxanes, her father received 326 BC The rule over the satrapy Paropamisaden and was loyal to Alexander until his death. Roxane himself accompanied her husband on his further campaign to India , where she 326/325 BC. Chr. Gave birth to a son who died soon, later through the Drosian desert and finally back to Mesopotamia . Although Alexander at the mass wedding of Susa in 324 BC In polygamy two more women - the king's daughters Stateira and Parysatis - married, Roxane remained his wife. She was the only wife present who was on his deathbed when he was born in June 323 BC. Died in Babylon . According to a rumor, she is said to have dissuaded him from the suicidal plan allegedly devised by him to throw himself into the Euphrates in order to appear to the people as god after his death because of his disappearance.

Role in the Diadochian era and death

At the time of Alexander's death, Roxane was heavily pregnant. The suggestion of Perdiccas , put forward during a kind of Macedonian army meeting in Babylon, to make a provisional settlement for the time being and, as soon as Roxane had her child, to recognize this as king in the event that it would be a son, met with rejection, as many national Macedonian-minded people saw a "Persian" in Roxane. Some of the soldiers, especially the infantry leader Meleager , voted for Alexander's insane half-brother Philip III. Arrhidaios as the new ruler. The conflict turned out to be almost a fight. Ultimately, the two warring sides agreed that Perdiccas should manage the business and that both Philip III. Arrhidaios as well as the son of Alexander expected by Roxane would have to be considered as kings. Soon after, however, Perdiccas succeeded in having his adversary Meleager killed. A little later, shortly after the Babylonian Empire , Roxane gave birth to a son, Alexander IV. Aigos , who was the legitimate heir of the Alexander Empire in the eyes of those generals who advocated a dynastic succession . Officially, Philip III. and Alexander IV. kings of equal rank (but incapable of governing); however, the diadochi wielded true power.

Very soon after Alexander's death, Roxane had her rival Stateira and her sister Drypetis , Hephaistion's widow , murdered with the approval of Perdiccas . After the birth of her son Alexander IV, she was initially in the entourage of Perdiccas, who was now imperial administrator, until his assassination in 320 BC. On the Nile . Then it came into the power of the new imperial regent Antipater , who initially gave it to the strategist of Asia, Antigonos Monophthalmos . After a deterioration in his relationship with Antigonus, Antipatros led Roxane, their young son and Philip III. Arrhidaios and his wife Eurydice to Macedonia .

After Antipater in 319 BC Roxane no longer felt safe in Macedonia under his poorly assertive successor as imperial administrator, Polyperchon . So she went to Epirus with her young son , where she joined her mother-in-law Olympias . Together with this she supported in the second Diadoch war Polyperchon against Antipater's son Kassander , King Philip III. Arrhidaios and his wife Eurydice. After major military setbacks, Polyperchon set up a new army with the help of King Aiakides, who ruled Epirus , with which he in 317 BC. BC invaded Macedonia and was accompanied by Olympias, Roxane and their son.

Initially, Olympias achieved a victory over her opponent Philip III through her authority. Arrhidaios and Eurydice who succumbed to their vengeance. But then she was enclosed with Roxane and Alexander IV by the rushing Kassander in Pydna and after a long siege in the spring of 316 BC. Forced to give up, whereupon Kassander immediately gave the order to kill the Olympias. In addition, Kassander placed the child king Alexander IV and his mother Roxane under house arrest in Amphipolis . According to Diodorus , he was already planning to have the son and widow of Alexander the great killed.

In the third war of the Diadochs, Antigonus Monophthalmos acted as patron of the Macedonian royal family and probably left in the fall of 314 BC. Announced from the army assembly in front of Tire that Kassander would be declared an enemy of the Reich if he did not fulfill several conditions, including the release of Roxane and her son. Both remained interned in Amphipolis. Shortly before Alexander IV reached the age of consent, Kassander let him and Roxane in 310/309 BC. Eliminate quietly and secretly; Glaukias, who was responsible for guarding the royal prisoners, carried out the murder order.

Roxane in literature and fine arts

According to the legend of the Pseudo-Callisthenes ( Alexander novel ), written in late antiquity , Roxane was a daughter of the Persian king Dareios III, who passed her hand on to his opponent Alexander while he was dying. In the prose novel for Alexander by the Persian author Darab Nama (Tarsusi) (12th century), Roxane is described as a Muslim princess who converted Alexander to Islam . The Venetian traveler Marco Polo visited the city ​​of Baktra , which was cremated by the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan , on his way to China in 1273 and saw the remains of the palace in which the wedding of Alexander and Roxane is said to have taken place. In Alexander. The utopian novel by the German writer Klaus Mann , Roxane is portrayed as an Amazon queen .

The contemporary painter Aëtion created a portrait of the wedding of Roxane and Alexander, kept in Olympia , which was described in detail from his own experience by the Greek satirist Lukian of Samosata , who lived in the second century AD , and during whose time it was in Italy.

Alexander and Roxane are the subject of numerous other poems and works of art, including:

Cinematic reception

In the feature film Alexander the Great (1956) (director: Robert Rossen ) the role of Roxane was portrayed by Teresa del Río , in the feature film Alexander (2004) (director: Oliver Stone ) by Rosario Dawson .

literature

Web links

Commons : Roxana  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roxana. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Oxyartes. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ RHOXANE ii, Alexander's wife. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Roxana. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Oxyartes. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ RHOXANE ii, Alexander's wife. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Anette Auberle, Duden Lexicon of Given Names , p. 322.
  8. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 4, 19, 5f.
  9. ^ Curtius Rufus 8, 4, 23; similar to Plutarch , Alexander 47, 7.
  10. ^ Siegfried Lauffer, Alexander the Great , pp. 133f.
  11. ^ AB Bosworth: A Missing Year in the History of Alexander the Great. In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies. Vol. 101, 1981, pp. 17-39, here pp. 36-37.
  12. ^ Curtius Rufus 8, 4, 30.
  13. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis 6, 15, 3; Curtius Rufus 9, 8, 10.
  14. ↑ Metz Epitome 70.
  15. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis 7, 4, 4; Diodorus 17, 107, 6; Plutarch, Alexander 70, 3; Justin 12:10 , 9f.
  16. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis 7, 27, 3; Metzer Epitome 101f .; Pseudo-Callisthenes 3, 32, 4-7.
  17. ^ Curtius Rufus 10, 6, 9 (Roxane six months pregnant); Justinus 12, 15, 9 and 13, 2, 5 (eight months pregnant).
  18. ^ Curtius Rufus 10, 6, 1-10, 4; Justin 13,2,4-4,25; Diodorus 18, 2, 1-3, 4; Arrian, FGrH No. 156, F 1, 1-3 and F 1, 9; u. a; on this Siegfried Lauffer, Alexander the Great , pp. 189–192 and Werner Huss , Egypt in the Hellenistic Period 332–30 BC. Chr. , CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47154-4 , p. 81ff.
  19. ↑ Plutarch Alexander 77, 4.
  20. ↑ Diodorus 18:39, 7; Arrian, historia successorum Alexandri , fragment 1, 38; 1.42; 1, 44f.
  21. ↑ Diodor 18, 57, 2; Plutarch, Eumenes 13 and Pyrrhus 4.
  22. ↑ Diodorus 19:11 , 2.
  23. ↑ Diodor 19, 35f. and 19, 49ff .; Justin 14, 6, 1-12.
  24. ↑ Diodorus 19, 52, 4; Justin 14, 6, 13.
  25. ↑ Diodor 19, 61, 1ff.
  26. ↑ Diodorus 19, 105, 2; Justin 15, 2, 5; Pausanias 9, 7, 2; Marble Parium , FGrH No. 239, FB 18.
  27. ↑ Pseudo-Callisthenes 2, 20, 4-6.
  28. ↑ Alexander Demandt, Alexander the Great. Life and legend , pp. 238 and 285f.
  29. ↑ Lukian, Herodotus or Aëtion 4-6; see. Adults 7.
personal data
SURNAME Roxane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roxana; Rhoxanes; Roksana; Rouschanak; روشنک
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first wife of Alexander the great
DATE OF BIRTH around 345 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 310 BC Chr.