The Susa weddings were arranged by Alexander the Great in 324 BCE, shortly after he conquered the Achaemenid Empire. In an attempt to wed Greek culture with Persian culture, he and his officers held a large gathering at Susa and took Persian noblewomen in matrimony. The collective weddings involved 80 couples and blended various Greek and Persian traditions. Celebrating his own Persian wife, Alexander intended for these new unions to help him begin identifying himself as a son of Persia and thereby legitimize his claim as the heir of the Persian kings of the Achaemenid dynasty. It was also expected that any children produced from these marriages would, as the progeny of both Ancient Greece and Ancient Persia, serve as a symbol of the two civilizations coming together under Alexander's Macedonian Empire.
Purpose
Bonding the Greek and Persian civilizations
Alexander intended to symbolically unite the
Persian people and
Ancient Greeks cultures, by taking a Persian wife himself and celebrating a mass wedding with Persian ceremony along with his officers, for whom he arranged marriages with noble Persian wives.
[ pothos.org - Drypetis, daughter of Darius and wife of Hephaestion ] The union was not merely symbolic, as their prospective offspring were intended to be the children of both civilizations.
Political significance
By marrying the daughters of Darius and Artaxerxes, Alexander was both identifying himself with the Persians and also making his own position more secure. He could now claim to be the son and rightful heir of both previous Persian kings. He also wanted to honour Hephaestion by making him his brother-in-law.
Arrangement of the spouses
Alexander was already married to
Roxana, the daughter of a
chief, but Macedonian and Persian customs allowed several wives. Alexander himself married
Stateira II (sometimes called Barsine, but not to be confused with
Barsine, wife of Memnon), the eldest daughter of Darius, and, according to Aristobulus, another wife in addition,
Parysatis II, the youngest daughter of
Artaxerxes III.
To
Hephaestion he gave
Drypetis; she too was the daughter of Darius, his own wife's sister, for he wanted Hephaestion's children to be his own nephews and nieces (This can also be linked to Alexander and Hephaestion's close relationship). To Seleucus he gave
Apama, the daughter of
Spitamenes the
Sogdia warlord, and likewise to the other Companions the daughters of the most notable Medes and Persians, eighty in all. Ptolemy I Soter married
Artakama, daughter of Artabazus of Phrygia.
Order of precedence
The weddings were solemnized in the Persian fashion: chairs were placed for the bridegrooms in order of precedence; after the toasts the brides entered and sat down each by her groom, who
Hand-kissing. The king was the first to be married, for all the weddings were celebrated in the same manner, and in this ceremony, he showed even more than his customary approachability and comradeship.
Aftermath
Traditionally, historians suggested that the Macedonians thought poorly of the Susa marriages, seemingly evidenced by many officers divorcing their Persian wives after Alexander's death. However, Branko F. van Oppen de Ruiter explains that this affirmation is unfounded and that not a single ancient source makes such claim.
Similarly, historian A. B. Bosworth stated that there exists no evidence of the Macedonians strongly opposing the unions. Historian Elizabeth Baynham further pointed out that officers like Seleucus,
Nearchus, and
Eumenes maintained their marriages, even using their new family connections for political benefit. The fate of other wives remains simply unknown, and some divorcees like
Craterus and Amastris parted amicably out of mutual political considerations.
See also
Works cited
