DEV>Oxyartes, father of Roxana

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This image represents the Sogdian nobleman Oxyartes, sending his wife and daughters, one of whom is Roxana, to the fortress known today as the Sogdian Rock, somewhere near Samarkand in the Pamir mountains, to take refuge during the Greek siege led by Alexander. The defenders of the Sogdian Rock, led by Arimazes, told Alexander that they would only surrender if he found men with wings to reach the fortress, which was located at the top of a mountain, so Alexander managed to find a group of climbers among his army to climb the mountain and surprise the defenders. Then he let the defenders know that he had found men with wings, and they finally surrendered (see my post about Roxana for more details). It was in the Sogdian Rock that Alexander first saw Roxana taking part in a dance. She was one of Oxyartes’ daughters, regarded by the Greeks as the most beautiful woman they had seen in Asia. Alexander was captivated by her beauty at first sight and decided to marry her despite the strong opposition of his fellow Greeks, who considered Roxana a barbarian. Oxyartes was a Sogdian local nobleman, but he was not among the big fish of the Persian Empire, so Roxana was a semi-nomadic girl of the provinces with no political significance at all, compared with Stateira, the one that would eventually become Alexander’s second wife, who was no other than the daughter of the last Persian king of kings, a member of the Achaemenids. So, Alexander married the fierce Roxana not only for deep, crazy love, but also to put an end to the guerrilla war in Central Asia, which had lasted longer than expected. The Greeks had found fierce resistance between the steppes and the western Himalayas, fighting nomad horse archers.

Alexander later appointed Oxyartes as the satrap (governor) of Paropamisadae, a province in northern India. Oxyartes outlived Alexander and kept his satrapy during the wars of the successors, until his death. Shortly after Oxyartes’ death, Alexander’s successor in Asia, Seleucus, surrendered Paropamisadae to the rising Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya.

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