Parysatis II

Parysatis, daughter of Artaxerxes III Ochus (the last vigorous Achaemenid king, murdered by his vizier Bagoas in 338 BC) and therefore a full Achaemenid princess of the senior Ochus line, was given in marriage to Alexander as his third formal wife at the Susa mass-marriages in February 324 BC — a distinct political gesture from the Stateira marriage: where Stateira represented the Darius III line, Parysatis represented the Artaxerxes III Ochus line that Darius III himself had displaced (Arr. *Anab.* 7.4.4–7; Plut. *Alex.* 70.3). Arrian 7.4.4 names her explicitly alongside Stateira as Alexander's two royal brides at the ceremony. Diodorus 17.107.6 confirms both brides. She appears nowhere else in the primary sources after the marriage ceremony, and her fate after Alexander's death in 323 is not recorded — probably another victim of the Roxane purges that killed her sister-queens, though the sources there name only Stateira and Drypetis explicitly.

Associated Places