Roxana
Roxana (in
Bactrian Roshanak, lit. "
Star"), the
Bactrian wife of
Alexander the Great, was born earlier than the year
341 BC, although the precise date remains uncertain. She was the daughter of a nobleman named
Oxyartes of
Balkh in
Bactria (then eastern
Persia, now northern
Afghanistan). She married Alexander in
327 BC after he captured her when the fortress of
Sogdian Rock surrendered to him. Balkh was the last of the Persian Empire's provinces to fall to Alexander. The marriage was an attempt to reconcile the Bactrian
satrapies to Alexander's rule, although ancient sources describe Alexander's professed love for her. Roxana accompanied him on his campaign in
India in
326 BC. She bore him a posthumous son called
Alexander IV Aegus, after Alexander's sudden death at
Babylon in
323 BC. With the king's death, Roxana and her son became victims of the political intrigues of the collapse of the Alexandrian empire. Roxana murdered Alexander's other widow,
Stateira, and Stateira's sister
Drypteis (Pl. Alex. 77.4). Roxana and her son were protected by Alexander's mother,
Olympias, in
Macedon, but her assassination in
316 BC allowed
Cassander to seek kingship. Since Alexander IV Aegus was the legitimate heir to the Alexandrian empire, Cassander murdered him along with Roxana c.
309 BC.
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RoshanakRoxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724) - Daniel Defoe
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Livius.org: Roxane by Jona Lendering
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Wiki Classical Dictionary: Roxane*
Roxana from Charles Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867)
