Sisygambis
Sisygambis
Sisygambis, mother of Darius III, was captured along with the Persian royal court — Darius's wife Stateira, his daughters, and the infant prince Ochus — at the battle of Issus in November 333 BC when the royal baggage-camp fell to the Macedonian right wing (Arr. *Anab.* 2.11.9–12.8; Plut. *Alex.* 21.1–4; Diod. 17.37–38; Curt. 3.11.24–12.26). Alexander's treatment of the royal women — sending word that Darius survived, declining to enter their tent until morning, addressing Sisygambis as 'mother' thereafter — became the central moral exemplum of the biographical tradition and was already deployed propagandistically by Callisthenes. She was installed at Susa with the rest of the royal family under Macedonian protection and was taught Greek at Alexander's direction (Plut. *Alex.* 21.7). Plutarch *Alex.* 21.4 and Curtius 3.12.15–17 preserve a famous error: on her first audience she mistook Hephaestion for Alexander because of his height and bearing, and was embarrassed when corrected; Alexander replied that she was not wrong, 'for he too is Alexander.' She lived at Susa for the twelve years from Issus to Alexander's death in 323. On receiving news of Alexander's death, Sisygambis refused all food and died five days later — a final act of loyalty that even the Macedonian sources record without irony (Diod. 17.118.3; Justin 13.1.5–6).
