Roxana - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ROXANA, or Roxane, daughter of the Bactrian king Oxyartes, and wife of Alexander the Great. After the latter's death she gave birth at Babylon to a son (Alexander IV.), who was accepted by the generals as joint-king with Arrhidaeus. Having crossed over to Macedonia, and thrown in her lot with Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, she was imprisoned by Cassander in the fortress of Amphipolis and put to death (3 10 or 309 B.C.). The marriage of Alexander and Roxana was the subject of a famous painting by Action.

See Plutarch, Alexander, 47, 77; Arrian, Anab. iv. 18, vii. 27; Diod. Sic. xviii. 3, 38, xix. i t, 52, 105; Strabo xi. p. 517, xvii. P. 794.