Roxana

For other uses, see Roxana (disambiguation).

Alexander the Great and Roxana

Roxana (Avestan: Raoxshna or Roshanak, "luminous beauty"; Persian: رخسانه‎ Rokhsāna; Pashto: روښانه Rox̌āna), sometimes Roxanne and Roxane, was a Bactrian princess and a wife of Alexander the Great. She was born earlier than the year 343 BC, though the precise date remains uncertain.

Life

Roxana was the daughter of a Bactrian named Oxyartes of Balkh in Bactria (around modern-day Balkh province of Afghanistan), and married Alexander at the age of 16 after he visited the fortress of Sogdian Rock. Balkh was the last of the Persian Empire's provinces to fall to Alexander. Ancient sources describe Alexander's professed love for Roxana. She accompanied him on his campaign in Pakistan and northern India in 326 BC.

After Alexander's sudden death at Babylon in 323 BC, she bore him a posthumous son called Alexander IV Aegus. Also, after Alexander's death, Roxana murdered Alexander's other widow, Stateira II, as well as either Stateira's sister Drypteis or Parysatis II (Alexander's third wife).

Roxana and her son were protected by Alexander's mother, Olympias, in Macedonia, but her assassination in 316 BC allowed Cassander to seek kingship. Since Alexander IV Aegus was the legitimate heir to the Alexandrian empire, Cassander ordered him and Roxana assassinated about 310 BC.

Historical Novels

• Roxana is one of the main characters in The Romance of Ricardo and Roxana by Marshall Monroe Kirkman, 1909, reprinted 2010, ISBN 978-1-160-01995-8.
• Roxana appears as one of the characters in A Conspiracy of Women by Aubrey Menen, 1965.
• Roxana appears as one of the minor characters in The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, 1972, ISBN 0-394-48191-7. Renault uses the spelling Roxane.
• Roxana appears as one of the characters in Funeral Games by Mary Renault, 1981, ISBN 0-394-52068-8. Renault uses the spelling Roxane.
• Roxana appears as one of the characters in Alexander: The Ends of the Earth by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7434-3438-6.
• Roxana is the main character in Roxana Romance by A. J. Cave, 2008, Hardcover ISBN 978-0-9802061-0-4, eBook ISBN 978-0-9802061-1-1.

See also

• Balkh
• Alexander IV Aegus
• Alexandre et Roxane, opera by Mozart

External links

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Roxana". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Livius.org: Roxane by Jona Lendering
• Wiki Classical Dictionary: Roxane, daughter of Oxyartes
• Roxana from Charles Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867)