The Nature of Alexander

Postscript

AFTER MUCH WRANGLING, INTRIGUE, and intervals of actual fighting, it was agreed among the generals that it was unthinkable the throne should pass to anyone not of Alexander’s blood. The feeble-minded Arridaeus was brought out to rule under Perdiccas’ regency, pending the birth of Roxane’s child.

In Curtius’ account, confused references are made in the debate to a child of Barsine. That Darius’ daughter is referred to seems probable in Plutarch. The most persuasive evidence for this is the action of Roxane. Unlike Alexander when he lost Hephaestion, she proceeded at once to practical matters. She sent off by fast courier a letter to the Princess, forged in Alexander’s name, summoning her immediately to Babylon. It must have been by using the royal post relay, which raced day and night, that the news of the death was outrun. If it met her on the road, she did not turn back, still expecting to be met with honour. She arrived with Drypetis her sister, Hephaestion’s widow. Roxane had both of them killed, and their bodies thrown in a well. It was precisely what Olympias would have done in her position; when the two queens met, they must have found much in common.

Plutarch says that Perdiccas was her accomplice in the deed; but this is most unlikely in view of the fact that the sex of her own child was still unknown. Faced, however, with the fait accompli, and only a single child of Alexander now in prospect, he most probably helped to cover up for her.

The son, Alexander IV, was thirteen years old when Cassander murdered him together with Roxane. No shred of information about his character or appearance has survived.

Olympias had been lynched four years before: Cassander’s soldiers, who had themselves voted for her death, could not bring themselves after all to kill the mother of Alexander. Cassander handed her over to the numerous relatives of those she herself had killed. She met her fate, of which the details are mercifully lacking, with unflinching courage.

She had outlived her son seven years. Sisygambis, the Queen Mother of Persia, survived the news of his death five days. On receiving it she bade her family and friends farewell, turned her face to the wall and died by fasting.