Barsine

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title: "Barsine" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mistresses-of-alexander-the-great", "phrygia", "iranian-people-of-greek-descent", "people-who-died-under-the-regency-of-cassander", "4th-century-bc-women", "360s-bc-births", "309-bc-deaths", "women-from-the-achaemenid-empire", "4th-century-bc-iranian-people"] description: "4th-century BC Persian/Greek noblewoman" topic_path: "geography/iran" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsine" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary 4th-century BC Persian/Greek noblewoman ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Barsine
alt
birth_name
birth_date	363 BC
death_date	309 BC
known_for	Mistress of Alexander the Great
spouse(s)
children	Unnamed daughter (wife of Nearchus)

| | father | Artabazos II | ::

| name = Barsine | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 363 BC | birth_place = | death_date = 309 BC | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = Mistress of Alexander the Great | spouse(s) = | children = Unnamed daughter (wife of Nearchus)

Heracles of Macedon | father = Artabazos II | West Asia | width = 260px | float = | border = | caption = Barsine was half-Rhodian Greek by her mother, and half-Persian by her father, the satrap Artabazos II. | alt = | relief = yes | AlternativeMap = | overlay_image = | label = Rhodes | label_size = | position = bottom | background = | mark = | marksize = | link = | lat_deg = 36.166667 | lon_deg = 27.933333 ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Claire_Bloom_Richard_Burton_Alexander_the_Great.jpg" caption="[[Claire Bloom]] as Barsine, and [[Richard Burton]] as [[Alexander the Great]], in [[Alexander the Great (1956 film)]]."] ::

Barsine (; c. 363–309 BC) was the daughter of a Persian father, Artabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and a Greek Rhodian mother, the sister of mercenaries Mentor of Rhodes and Memnon of Rhodes. Barsine became the wife of her uncle Mentor, and after his death married her second uncle, Memnon.

In 334 BC, the year of Alexander's invasion of Asia, she and her children were sent by Memnon to the king Darius III as hostages for his fidelity; and in the ensuing year, when Damascus was betrayed to the Macedonians, she fell into the hands of Alexander, by whom it is said that she became the mother of Heracles.

Twelve years after Alexander's death in 323 BC, Barsine's son-in-law Nearchus unsuccessfully advocated for Heracles' claim to the throne, who was then seventeen, having been born about five years after Barsine and Alexander supposedly met in Damascus in 333 BC. From a comparison of the accounts of Diodorus and Justin, it appears that he was brought up at Pergamum under his mother's care, and that she shared his fate when in 309 BC Polyperchon was induced by Cassander to murder him. Barsine is sometimes confused with Stateira II, wife of Alexander, who also may have been called "Barsine".

Notes

References

• Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, , Boston, (1867)

References

1. (2000). "Women and Monarchy in Macedonia". University of Oklahoma Press.
2. {{cite Plutarch. Alexander. 21
3. {{cite Plutarch. Eumenes. 1. 3
4. Worthington, Ian. (2014). "By the spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the rise and fall of the Macedonian empire". Oxford University Press.
5. Curtius Rufus]], ''Historiae Alexandri Magni'', [http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/quintecurce/trois.htm iii. 13], [http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/quintecurce/dix.htm x. 6]; Justin, ''Epitome of Pompeius Trogus'', {{usurped

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