#amastris

Figure 3.2 Silver didrachm (9.67 g), 300–288 BCE, from Amastris.

Figure 3.3 Silver stater (9.71 g), 300–288 BCE, from Amastris.

The young male with a Phrygian bonnet – Mithras – openly recalled the Persian ancestry of Amastris and was consistent with her choice to adopt the Persian weight as standard. Although the ruler was wife of two Macedonian diadochoi and of a Greek dynast, Amastris chose not to promote the legitimacy of her claim by building primarily on her Greco-Macedonian connection. Her queenship was instead promoted as rooted in her family lineage, in her descent from Oxathres, the brother of Darius, as it is obsessively repeated by the literary sources (Diodoros 20.109.7; Arrian Anab. 7.4.5; Strabo 12.3.10; Memnon BNJ 434 F 1.4.4). Similar to what was done by kings, between the family of origin and the family by marriage, Amastris openly grants prominence to the former.

The reverse of the coin has been interpreted convincingly as Aphrodite. There are several instances of Hellenistic royal women and consorts identified with Aphrodite and often honoured with civic cults, starting with Phila Aphrodite (Athenaios 255c). Scholars have suggested that this association was due to the attribution to the royal women of the goddess’ sexuality and domesticity – valuable qualities for the wife-mother of the king. Nevertheless, in the Seleukid environment, Aphrodite with less domestic features appeared also in association with queens; in particular, Panagiotis Iossif and Catharine Lorber (2007) have related the military victory of Nikephoros to the goddess, exploring the association of at least two Seleukid queens, Stratonike and Laodike III, with the militarily victorious Aphrodite. Not accidentally, in the Iranian East, Aphrodite had been related to the Iranian deity Anahita, also goddess of fertility, waters, and sea conveyance, who additionally had bellicose features and gave aid against the enemy. Most important, Anahita was the divinity responsible for the investiture of kings, as she enthroned the Achaimenid kings, and was thus closely connected with royalty and legitimacy. Therefore, the crown-bearing Nike and the polos associated with Aphrodite/Anahita on Amastris’ coins portrayed the militant goddess of victory, responsible for enthroning monarchs. This image likely aimed to induce the people of the satrapy to identify the victorious goddess with the successful queen, who clearly was making a statement of the legitimacy of her rule.

Additionally, the astral iconography of the staters portrays the veiled enthroned Aphrodite while sustaining Eros who offered Helios the wreath. The presence of and interaction between Helios, Aphrodite, and Eros long ago induced Imhoof-Blumer (1883: 229) to suggest the interpretation of the goddess as Aphrodite Ourania. In fact, Anahita, as well as the Asia Minor Aphrodite, was also ascribed the celestial features of Ourania, as wife of Helios. By suggesting the identification between Amastris and the goddess, the coin might ultimately present the queen as offering herself as the astral wife of the celestial god Helios, symbol of male kingship itself."

Amastris

Amastris (c. 340/39-285 BCE) was a niece of the Persian king Darius III (r. 336-330 BCE) through her father Oxyathres. She was married in succession to Alexander's general Craterus, the tyrant Dionysius of Heraclea, and finally to Lysimachus of Thrace. She founded an eponymous city in Paphlagonia and was the first queen to issue coins in her own name. Amastris was the mother of four children, was supposedly divorced so that Lysimachus could marry Arsinoe II, and was allegedly murdered by her sons for interfering in their affairs. Despite their divorce, Lysimachus still avenged her death by killing her sons. Scholars have mostly ignored Amastris and left the few known details of her life as contradictory as the ancient sources present them. Yet, the little-known queen is arguably the first true Hellenistic queen as she embodies the entanglement of Persian and Greco-Macedonian traditions.

The Last Achaemenid Princess

As the daughter of prince Oxyathres, the brother of the last Persian king Darius III Codomannus, Amastris was in effect the last surviving Achaemenid princess. Although her mother is unknown, the only woman associated with her father is an Egyptian concubine called Timosa. After the Battle of Issus (333 BCE), Alexander the Great found Amastris among the other royal and noble women. During the grand wedding ceremony at Susa almost a decade later (324 BCE), when the Macedonian high commanders were married to Persian and Median women, Alexander gave Amastris to his general Craterus – the only companion besides Hephaestion to wed a Persian princess. Historians maintain that Craterus, famously devoted to Macedonian tradition, repudiated Amastris in order to marry Phila, the daughter of the Macedonian regent Antipater. As Macedonian royalty and nobility practiced polygamy, Craterus did not have to separate from one wife to marry another. Craterus, at any rate, would soon fall in battle (321 BCE).

What you said about not having a unified sense of Greek ethnicity is completely in tune with what I learned as well, but I can’t conciliate this with how the Ptolemies handled ethnicity since the very beginning, right after Alexander’s death (so the very period you answered about). I’m not gonna pretend I’m a specialist in Ptolemaic Egypt but I never read about a specific Egyptian Greek / Alexandria / Naukratis sense of separate identity for this time period, or even remnants of identities of mainland Greek polities, it’s always dealt as this sorta unified sense of “Greeks” versus Egyptians. Suggesting that this idea of greekness existed since Alexander’s day as well. I’m kinda troubled with that. Thanks so much for the attention!

Macedonian-Persian Marriages after Susa

So let me immediately say that I am not much of a Hellenistic historian. But I do teach a class that deals with race and ethnicity in antiquity, so I’d like to recommend my colleague Denise McCoskey’s Race: Antiquity and It’s Legacy. She has a fair bit in there on Ptolemaic Egypt, in fact, and among the things she points out is the problem with the evidence.

She includes not only literary evidence, but other textual evidence including things like tax records, epigraphy, and archaeological evidence…all of which muddy the waters. Outside of the Ptolemies themselves (and there’s some question about them, especially by the end), there was quite a lot of mixing between Greeks and Egyptians. These “mixed ethnicity” individuals might use a Greek name or an Egyptian name, depending on context, and they might hold relatively high office. So, we actually can’t assume someone is Greek due to use of a Greek name.

This was especially true in Alexandria, but other places in Egypt as well. And it contrasts with what’s being presented in at least some of the literature of the period.

What I love about archaeology and epigraphy is that both continually swoop in and mess up our literary textual history. LOL

I was just reading a really good chapter, “Alexander the Great and the Macedonian and Persian Elite: The Mass-marriages in Susa in Context,” by Krzysztof Nawotka for Legacy of the East and Legacy of Alexander (2023), ed. by Nawotka and Wojciechowska. He takes on the perception, oft repeated, that the Macedonians en masse rejected their Persian brides soon after Alexander’s death. For a long time, accepted perception was that the others divorced very quickly, except for Seleukos and his wife Apama (mother of Antiochus I). But we don’t actually have evidence for that, and a bit of evidence to the contrary.

It’s only Krateros who we know for sure divorced his wife in order to marry Phila (Antipatros’s daughter)…which was a political alliance, not necessarily Krateros’s rejection of a high princess of Achaemenid blood (e.g., Darius’s own niece). In fact, it seems that she agreed to the divorce, and may have come out of it better than poor Phila, who was stuck marrying that dweeb Demetrios Poliorketes. 😂 Amastris married the petty tyrant Dionysios of Herakleia, wound up fabulously wealthy, then later married Lysimachos, and had a city named after her. Next to Apama, Seleukos’s wife, she had one of the most distinguished political careers for the Persian elite women…married to three Macedonian/Greek men in succession. Similarly, it would seem that Eumenes stayed married to his wife Artonis, (despite assumption, there’s no record that he divorced her and remarried); she was given his remains after his death following the Battle of Gabiene. Also, with Peukestis’s role, there’s a VERY high likelihood that he, also, kept his wife.

We might speculate that Perdikkas and Ptolemy put aside their wives as both happily played political marriage games, but we’re not actually told as much—unlike with Krateros. I could see Kleopatra demanding that she be sole wife as part of her marriage proposal to Perdikkas. And quite possibly Antipatros demanded the same on behalf of Eurydike, as it seems Krateros divorced his wife in order to marry Phila. Yet Ptolemy certainly kept Laïs around, possibly as a wife. Then Berenike…so why not just keep on Artakama too? It might have been politically advantageous, at least early in his reign, when nobody knew precisely how things would fall out.

Yet the plain fact is…we just don’t know about c. 80+ of the 92 weddings held in Susa.

Anyway, I’ve been among those who assumed/argued the prior position myself—for widespread divorce. But Nowotka’s chapter made me stop and rethink. This presumption that the ancient Greeks were always of the attitude “We’re Greeks and you’re not…and we don’t want your women either, we want PURE Greek children” isn’t nearly as strong as we’ve assumed from literature. I’ve come around in the last 10 years to thinking the Greeks were less ethnocentric, at least at certain times in their history, than we’ve popularly thought. That’s not to say they didn’t care about ethnicity—they manifestly did—but it was only one of several factors.

What DOES seem to be true is that class mattered more. So elite Persian women married to elite Greek men served a purpose. But I do note that Alexander kept in Persia the native women who’d married Macedonian soldiers, and any children, when those men went back to Macedonia. Arrian says he did so for fear that they wouldn’t be welcome, whereas he would provide for them in Persia. (What became of them after his death is, alas, anybody’s guess. Maybe Seleukos continued with the precedent. I’m not sure that we know.)

Amastris

Amastris (c. 340/39-285 av. J.-C.) était une nièce du roi perse Darius III (r. de 336 à 330 av. J.-C.) par son père Oxyathres. Elle fut mariée successivement à Cratère, général d'Alexandre, au tyran Denys d'Héraclée, et enfin à Lysimaque de Thrace. Elle fonda une ville éponyme en Paphlagonie et fut la première reine à émettre des pièces de monnaie à son nom. Amastris, mère de quatre enfants, aurait divorcé pour que Lysimaque puisse épouser Arsinoé II et aurait été assassinée par ses fils pour s'être mêlée de leurs affaires. Malgré leur divorce, Lysimaque vengea sa mort en tuant ses fils. Les chercheurs ont pour la plupart ignoré Amastris et laissé les quelques détails connus de sa vie aussi contradictoires que les sources anciennes les présentent. Pourtant, cette reine peu connue est sans doute la première véritable reine hellénistique, car elle incarne l'enchevêtrement des traditions perses et gréco-macédoniennes.

My turtle ladies Amastris and Latoreia!

I am still debating if I want to change their weapons or if they’ll keep the ones they have (katana for Amastris and kusarigama for Latoreia).

— Riemer A. Faber, "Introduction: Distinctives of Hellenistic Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy" / Monica D’Agostini, "Can Powerful Women be Popular? Amastris: Shaping a Persian Wife into a Famous Hellenistic Queen" in Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy in the Hellenistic World

"Amastris is the first Hellenistic ruler to employ the title Basilissa outside religious contexts, and the first to publicize it on coins. Building on her ancestry, Amastris claimed the title for herself on her issues, picturing Helios himself as the only male entity. She attributed to the Basilissa the new features of her queenship, and, borrowing from the new contemporary Hellenistic monarchic examples, she created a whole new idea of female regality wherein the Basilissa could and did formally exert political, military, economic, and administrative authority.

The memory of the fame of Amastris and of her great Basileia was celebrated and broadcasted by Lysimachos, as preserved by Memnon (BNJ 434 F 1.5.4): “When Lysimachos had returned to his own realm he held Amastris in praise. He admired both her ways and how her kingdom was strengthened in size, greatness and power. While he exalted Herakleia, he included in his praises both Tios and Amastris which she had founded and named after herself.”

According to Lysimachos’ tribute to Amastris, the ruler’s greatness and positive fame was not linked to her domestic skills, her motherly attitude, her behaviour as loving wife, or her piety toward the gods. The praise for the royal woman, the Basilissa, was that she enriched and enlarged her kingdom and ruled it powerfully. Thus, the queen is celebrated in the literary tradition, and her iconography is preserved by Lysimachos on the coins of her city after her death – but with the addition of an eight-rayed star on the obverse, interpreted as evidence of her probable divinization. On this matter, the narrative of Amastris’ death offered the ideal background for her divinization: it cannot be interpreted as coincidence that the Basilissa died at sea, on board a ship, as if she were reconnecting herself to her divine avatar Aphrodite/Anahita, goddess of water and sea and of naval transportation. The peculiar and symbolic way Amastris was killed yielded likely material for a popular narrative, circulated and promoted by Lysimachos himself, while he was taking control of the Basileia and entrusting it directly to his wife and Basilissa Arsinoë. The fame of the Basilissa Amastris transcended her Basileia and her life."

AMASTRIS:

AMASTRIS (c. 340/39-285 BCE) was a niece of the Persian king Darius III (r. 336-330 BCE) through her father Oxyathres. She was married in succession to Alexander’s general Craterus, the tyrant Dionysius of Heraclea, and finally to Lysimachus of Thrace. She founded an eponymous city in Paphlagonia and was the first queen to issue coins in her own name. 

Amastris was the mother of four children, was supposedly divorced so that Lysimachus could marry Arsinoe II, and was allegedly murdered by her sons for interfering in their affairs. Despite their divorce, Lysimachus still avenged her death by killing her sons. Scholars have mostly ignored Amastris and left the few known details of her life as contradictory as the ancient sources present them. Yet, the little-known queen is arguably the first true Hellenistic queen as she embodies the entanglement of Persian and Greco-Macedonian traditions.

As the daughter of prince Oxyathres, the brother of the last Persian king Darius III Codomannus, Amastris was in effect the last surviving Achaemenid princess. Although her mother is unknown, the only woman associated with her father is an Egyptian concubine called Timosa. After the Battle of Issus (333 BCE), Alexander the Great found Amastris among the other royal and noble women left by Darius at Damascus. During the grand wedding ceremony at Susa almost a decade later (324 BCE), when the Macedonian high commanders were married to Persian and Median women, Alexander gave Amastris to his general Craterus – the only companion besides Hephaestion to wed a Persian princess. Historians maintain that Craterus, famously devoted to Macedonian tradition, repudiated Amastris in order to marry Phila, the daughter of the Macedonian regent Antipater. As Macedonian royalty and nobility practiced polygamy, Craterus did not have to separate from one wife to marry another. Craterus, at any rate, would soon fall in battle (321 BCE).