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.
