Barsine

Who was Barsine?

Barsine was daughter of Artabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and wife of Mentor of Rhodes and after his death, Mentor's brother, 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 argued that she became the mother of Heracles. On Alexander's death, 323 BC, a claim to the throne on this boy's behalf was unsuccessfully urged by Nearchus. 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 Polyperchon was induced by Cassander to murder him.