#Statiera's pregnancy

[jeannereames]

So I know you were the historical consultant for the Netflix "Alexander: Making of a God." I just read a post that said this, and wondered if you can comment on it?

"Btw, not the documentary commented by professors in history and archeaology, saying Stateira, wife of Darius III, died giving birth to Alexander's son (and that Alexander rubbed it in Darius' face) because Plutarch - who was born 369 years after Alexander's death - said so. Other sources invalidate this theory (like the age of the child, being 4 to 7 years old when Stateira died, meaning he was already born when Alexander first met her). And other sources say Alexander only met her once, when he took Darius' camp and that was it.

However her daughter Strateira II (who might have been Barsine or her sister) did marry him but had no children with him.

He had 1 known son from Roxana, that's all. That's in part why his empire was so easily taken apart by his diadochi.

So I don't know why, except for drama) they went for that version nor why the professor corroborate it when it's the least likely."

Yes, this quoted bit suffers from some mix-ups. I’ve not seen the full post, although I have read a few others with similar misunderstandings. Most of these seem to arise from reading (bad) online potted entries about Statiera and/or Alexander. At least go for Heckel’s Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great or The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Anyway, apologies if the below sounds overly critical. It’s obviously not personal. I’m just cutting through the confusion.

We’re told about Statiera’s death only by Plutarch, Justin, and Curtius, and all probably owe to the lost source Kleitarchos. Even if Plutarch isn’t (technically) part of the vulgate while Diodoros is (who doesn’t mention it), Plutarch still used some of the same sources. (Diodoros no doubt left it out as part of his typical telescoping.) Yet all three disagree on the cause of her death, even if they do agree it wasn’t long before Gaugamela and Alexander gave her a sumptuous funeral. But the timing means, if she were pregnant, it couldn’t have been Darius’s child. I’ve discussed Statiera’s possible pregnancy before, so won’t again here, but it boils down to: if not Darius, it had to be Alexander. He wouldn’t have let anybody else touch the Queen of Persia.

In any case, ALL our surviving sources are late. The OP doesn’t seem aware the other source alluded to (Curtius) dates to the same period as Plutarch: late Julio-Claudians/early Flavians.* I checked Wikipedia, which gives a date for Plutarch’s birth (46 CE); I assume that’s where the OP got it, as it lines up with their estimate of “369.” But we don’t know his birth year except during the reign of Claudius after the acquisition of Britain and that he died early in Hadrian’s reign (see Lamberton 2001, 1). Anyway, Curtius probably lived a little before him, and Justin somewhat after.

Ergo, none of these sources are any closer to Alexander’s day, and trying to say one is less reliable than the other based on their dating only underscores the OP’s unfamiliarity with them.

Justin and Plutarch suggest Statiera died from complications related to pregnancy. Plutarch (30.1) says she died giving birth, while Justin (11.12.6) calls it a miscarriage. Only Curtius (4.10.18-19) says she died of, essentially, exhaustion. That’s the “other sources” the OP mentions, not realizing it’s just one. Only in Curtius do we hear about a young son of Darius named Ochus. The OP seems to have conflated that child with the baby born before Gaugamela. Looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Statiera, it mistakenly calls the baby that killed her a boy, but in fact, Plutarch doesn’t say (ἀποθανούσης ἐν ὠδῖσι). Again, a good example of why Wikipedia is unreliable as a resource.

In any case, these are two different children, and there may not have been a son. Either Curtius made him up or Alexander quietly did away with him not long after their capture, as the child disappears from Curtius after and is never mentioned by other sources, which might not be a surprise. But I’m a bit more inclined to think Curtius simply invented him as part of his “Good Alexander” pre-Gaugamela narrative arc. Ochus is used as a comparative to his father (3.12.26). The son is unafraid of Alexander and lets him pick him up while the father lost his nerve and fled the battle. See what Curtius did there?

In addition, Barsine/Statiera, not just Roxana, was pregnant at ATG’s death, which is why Roxana offed her. And there’s the supposed bastard, Herakles, from Barsine, Memnon’s widow. So, the OP is missing a couple (possible) kids who Alexander also fathered.

They seems to assume drama is the reason for the choice to make Statiera his lover. This, I’d like to address, as I happen to know why they did do it, and it’s something I support.

They were very, very interested in the fact Persian women had authority, and wanted to portray them as strong, even as advisors to their husbands (which they were). That becomes Statiera’s role with Alexander, too. This is part of their larger goal NOT to portray the Persians as just fall-guys for Alexander. Because they couldn’t show all the women—both for reasons of cost as well as to avoid confusing viewers with too many unfamiliar names/people—they settled on Statiera as representative, axing Barsine as his mistress, and Sisygambus as well. Statiera’s pregnancy, which is present in the sources, added context, not just “drama.” Historically speaking, it suggests the Chivalrous Alexander trope in both Plutarch and Curtius is more mythos than Realpolitik. Although see my earlier post on Statiera’s pregnancy, linked above. I don’t necessarily assume Alexander raped her.

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* If an earlier date for Curtius is correct, then he was active under the later Julio-Claudians and may have written his history during the reign of Claudius—the same emperor under whom Plutarch was born. The Lives are later works, so probably date to the Flavians, or even Trajan. For more on Curtius, see Elizabeth Baynham (1988) and for Plutarch, Robert Lamberton has a more recent study (2001) than Hamilton’s classic commentary (1969).

[jeannereames]

When exactly was Alexander IV born? Do you think his conception was precipited by Hephaestion's death? Also, I remember once reading that Drypetis (Hephaestion's wife) was pregnant when killed, do you know anything about this?

We do not know how far along Roxane was when Alexander died, but she became pregnant certainly after Hephaistion’s death.

Hephaistion died in October, likely the second half of October. Alexander died c. June 10th. I say “c.” as there is some doubt as to whether he died that morning, or simply fell into paralysis so that they couldn’t tell he was still alive, explaining why his body may not have begun to decompose for two days in the Babylonian summer heat…he wasn’t dead yet.

That’s eight months after Hephaistion died. Roxane did not give birth immediately after his death, although we don’t know exactly when she did.

To the second question, you may have confused Drypetis with Statiera, Alexander’s wife (and Drypetis’ sister) who was supposedly pregnant too—why Roxane had her murdered with help from Perdikkas. How soon after ATG’s death this occurred isn’t specified, but likely quite quickly, as when the officers and troops convened in Babylon just the day after his “death” and then the day after that (it was quite a mess) to choose a successor, only Roxane’s unborn child is mentioned. That hints that Statiera (and baby) were already dead.

Or the reports that she’d been pregnant in the first place and killed were made later in the Successor Wars to throw shade on Roxane and Perdikkas. Given the viciousness of the Successor Wars, that’s not outside the range of possibility. The theories of Alexander’s poisoning also almost certainly owed to Successor-Era rumors against Antipatros.

In any case, regencies and empire partition were decided within a week of Alexander’s death. Statiera was nowhere mentioned in any of this. I expect she was…

1) never pregnant at all, and her murder by Roxane with Perdikkas’ help an attempt to slander Perdikkas’s party. It painted Roxane as a vicious barbarian, even echoing Olympias’s murder of Kleopatra, Philip’s last wife, and her infant daughter not long after Philip’s death. As the regent of Alexander IV, Perdikkas was allied with Olympias.

Or, 2) Statiera was killed inside 48 hours of Alexander, so there would have been no suggestion that they wait to see if she produced a son.

As for Drypetis, Beth Carney has suggested Statiera and Parysatis were the ones killed (if they were killed at all). Parysatis was Alexander’s third wife, also married in June of 324, granddaughter of Artaxerxes III Ochus, giving him a wife from both royal lines. Statiera had higher status as the daughter of the immediate former king, but if Roxane really did decide to kill ATG’s other wife because she was pregnant—or could claim to be—she would aim for them both, in case Parysatis was pregnant too. Killing Drypetis served no concrete purpose.

As for Drypetis being pregnant—highly unlikely. If Drypetis had been, given Alexander’s state of mind after Hephaistion’s death, I’d fully expect her pregnancy to have been made much of, and so noted in our sources. It’s the same reason I don’t think he had any issue (that he knew of). Again, eight months passed between the deaths of the two men. Sure, it’s possible she was just barely pregnant when Hephaistion fell ill, and so would have been only in her final month or so at Alexander’s death, but I find it more likely she never had time to get pregnant in the first place. She was married to Hephaistion in June, and he was dead by October. That’s only 3-4 months.

Note that Alexander didn’t get one (or both) of his wives pregnant until after. And not because he was sexually faithful to Hephaistion (or otherwise disinterested in women). Rather, I find it probable that Hephaistion’s death reminded Alexander of his own mortality, and he decided he’d better get a wiggle on. I doubt he was emotionally up to it in the first few months, but he had at least Roxane and possibly Statiera knocked up—and far enough along to realize they were pregnant—by his death.

I’ll also note the Metz Epitome states that Roxane had been pregnant once already but miscarried in India. Given her youth at her marriage (14-16), that’s no great surprise. In addition, Darius’s wife, Statiera’s mother, supposedly died in childbirth just before the Battle of Gaugamela, well over nine months after she was captured by Alexander. The babe was almost surely Alexander’s. If I remain skeptical that Herakles was ATG’s, largely because he’s never mentioned until post-mortem, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Herakles was his child by Barsine.

In short, he did his duty with women well before Hephaistion’s death. We have evidence of at least two prior pregnancies, and possibly three with a live birth (Herakles).

[jeannereames]

The general consensus is that Darius' wife, Staitera I died in childbirth. But the timeline and circumstances change from historian to the next. Robin Lane Fox asserts that she died bearing Darius' son not long after Issus, whereas Peter Green claims that she died right before gaugamela (aka 2 years after her capture). He also follows up with a weirdly matter-of-fact assumption that Alexander must have raped her and that she died birthing his child. Which view is more plausible?

Statiera, Wife of Darius

This comes from testimony in Plutarch. Below is a titbit preview of my Chapter 11 (“Changes and Challenges at Alexander’s Court”) in the forthcoming (new) Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great:

If he had acquired Darius’s tent, servants, and family following Issus, these were spoils of war, the charming story of his meeting with the royal family notwithstanding (Plutarch Alexander 21.4-5; Curtius 3.12.13-26; Arrian Anabasis 2.12.3-8; Diodorus 7.37.4-38.2). Stripped of moralizing and omens (Baynham 1998:117), the tale of his use of Darius’s dining table as a footstool while seated on the throne may best represent his attitude (Diodorus 17.66.3-7; Curtius 5.3.13-15). And whatever Plutarch says of his respect for Darius’ wife (Alexander 22.3), she died not long before the Battle of Gaugamela, supposedly in childbirth—also related by Plutarch without apparent irony (30.1). Given the timing, the babe could not have been Darius’.

Robin Lane Fox rejects Plutarch’s timing of the birth because he subscribes to Plutarch’s (et al.) assertion that ATG didn’t touch the women (Barsine excepted)…never mind that Plutarch himself reports a pregnancy that seems to contradict his own assertion. The anecdotes about Alexander and the royal women are part of a “Chivalrous Alexander” trope that, in turn, belongs to a larger moral arc.

Plutarch and Curtius, and to a lesser degree Diodoros, want to show how power and Asian luxury (and wine) debauched Alexander, turning him from a model of moral rectitude into a hubristic, tyrannical Asian-style king. Justin is even more unforgiving, while Arrian attempts to contradict it all. (Mostly.) We must remember our primary sources all have themes of their own; they aren’t just reporting events or copy-and-pasting their (now lost) sources. Chivalrous Alexander early in his career contrasts Alexander post-court Persianizing mid-330, who adopted a harem, a eunuch, and married multiple barbarian women (although Plutarch tries to redeem the match with Roxana by making it love-at-first-sight).

In any case, this led Lane Fox (and whoever wrote the Wiki article about Statiera) to decide the baby had to be Darius’s and the timing of the delivery and death earlier than Plutarch places it. Yet Plutarch states clearly she died “soon” after Darius’s second peace overture to Alexander, while ATG was preparing to cross the Euphrates (Alexander, 29)—following his departure from Egypt.

Darius basically suggested, “Hey, keep what you already have, marry one of my daughters, take 10,000 talents, and we’ll call it even, the Euphrates our new boundary.” This offer results in the famous exchange: “I’d take that if I were Alexander,” from Parmenion, and ATG’s reply, “So would I, if I were Parmenion.” That exchange is totally invented, btw, although the letter from Darius almost certainly isn’t.

That was spring of 331…a year and a half after the Battle of Issos. So…um. Oops? Even if Darius had got her pregnant literally on the night before the battle in early November of 333, she would have had that puppy by late summer of 332…while Alexander was besieging Gaza or had just entered Egypt. Yet she died c. spring/summer of 331. Justin and Curtius confirm the timing of her death, although they differ on the causes, but Justin also connects it to pregnancy (11.12.6).

The tale of the escaped eunuch reporting to Darius how nice Alexander had been to his poor wife (30.2-7) is total bunk—part of the Chivalrous Alexander trope, which, in turn, feeds Plutarch’s argument that Alexander “deserved” to be King of Asia…something he went on at length about in his “On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander” (De Fortuna Alexandri).* He even has Darius name Alexander his true successor (!! 30.7). Plutarch relates this story right in the middle of—situationally—admitting-via-math that the baby couldn’t be Darius’s. That’s pretty funny, or at least ironic, when you think about it. (Curtius tells a similar tale [4.10.18-34], also stating Alexander should be his successor--and both likely stem from Kleitarchos' original.)

Anyway, Peter Green is not the only one to note the problem with an 18+ month pregnancy. Yet as Green regards Alexander as a ruthless, pragmatic conqueror, he assumed post-battle rape.

I think the truth probably less violent. As suggested in my quoted bit above, the anecdotes of Alexander’s actions following the Battle of Issos have been heavily doctored to fit whatever that author’s thematic agenda. That doesn’t make the stories wholly untrue, but they cannot be taken at face value.

That said, Alexander does seem to have treated women better than usual custom (something the Chivalrous Alexander trope may have then inflated). Consistent testimony suggests, for instance, that the queen mother, Sisygambus’s affection for him was real, and he had friendly relations with Ada of Karia, as well. Ergo, I don’t think we should assume he barged into the tent and forced himself on Darius’s wife. It seems out of character.

Yet…we have a gestational math problem. If Plutarch doesn’t say the babe was Alexander’s, whose else could it be? I suppose one could argue she got pregnant by some other Persian in Alexander’s train, or even one of Alexander’s other officers…but that’s constructing a house of cards from no evidence in order to exonerate ATG. She was the highest-ranking “war prize”; she couldn’t go to anyone but the king.

As for when he took her to his bed, I doubt it immediate. After the battle, while at Marathus in Phoenicia (before Tyre), he received the first letter from Darius trying to cut a deal, to which he responded in effect: if you want your family back, come surrender to me and I’ll give them to you (Arrian, Anabasis2.14.1-9). Below is the last bit (8-9):

“Approach me therefore as the lord of all Asia. If you are afraid of suffering harm at my hands by coming in person, send some of your friends to receive proper assurances. Come to me to ask and receive your mother, your wife, your children and anything else you wish. Whatever you can persuade me to give shall be yours.

In future whenever you communicate with me, send to me as king of Asia; do not write to me as an equal, but state your demands to the master of all your possessions. If not, I shall deal with you as a wrongdoer. If you wish to lay claim to the title of king, then stand your ground and fight for it; do not take to flight, as I shall pursue you wherever you may be."

We can question if Arrian reproduced the actual letter, but perhaps he did; a copy or dozen were likely floating around. Did he tweak it? Hard to say; it’s the only version we have. In any case, after that exchange, it would have been clear to Statiera (and Sisygambus) that they wouldn’t be ransomed unless Darius surrendered—which he would hardly do.

Did Statiera decide to make the best of a bad situation, perhaps to secure the safety of her children? She’d proven fertile with three living children, Darius’s half-sister (Sisygambus was not her mother), of pure aristocratic Persian ancestry. If not as good a marriage match as her daughter (Statiera II), she was still of royal blood.

Perhaps she (or her mother-in-law) cut a deal with Alexander and he took her to bed. If he did get her pregnant, and she had a son, Alexander could (as “King of Asia”) divorce her from Darius by decree and marry her, or at the very least, he’d have a useful bastard. (Even if the babe were born out of wedlock, Macedonia had a long history of royal polygamy and legitimacy seemed more tied to being claimed by the king than to marriage contracts.)

It’s even possible—if the tale of Barsine and Herakles is true (something I personally doubt)—that Barsine was already pregnant, and Alexander switched out the women in his bed. Greek men were uber-reluctant to have sex with pregnant women. Again, I’m highly dubious of the claims that Herakles was ATG’s son (as I’ve explained HERE), but I’ll toss out the possibility anyway.

Even if Alexander didn’t take her as a mistress or rape her immediately after Issos (as Green implies), we should note that Statiera probably acted in what she believed to be the best interests of her family. That’s a far cry from saying she wanted to have sex with her conqueror. It can be counted at least as coercion-by-circumstance, if not violent rape. Maybe she actually liked him (as her mother-in-law seemed to), but I don’t want to romanticize what was, no doubt, a difficult decision—and lessen the trauma on her part.

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*This treatise (both halves, but especially the first) is a gag-worthy collection of Conquest Elevates the Benighted Asian Barbarians with a side-helping of Slavery Is Good for the Uncivilized that will make you ready to loose your lunch. It’s a great example of the sort of moralizing pap Plutarch spreads a bit thinner in his Lives. And yes, this sort of Roman-era philosophy, along with earlier works including Aristotle, directly fed the justification of Early Modern colonialism and slavery. Plutarch was popular reading in Europe post-Renaissance. I recommend Benjamin Isaac’s The Invention of Racism in Antiquity (2006); it’s long, but quite thorough.