Campaspe, also known as Pancaste, may have been the mistress of Alexander, if so one of the first women with whom Alexander was intimate. She was thought to be a prominent citizen of Larisa in Thessaly; Aelian surmised that she initiated the young Alexander in love.
One story tells that Campaspe was painted by Apelles, who enjoyed the reputation in Antiquity for being the greatest of painters. The episode occasioned an apocryphal exchange that was reported in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (35.79β97): seeing the beauty of the nude portrait, Alexander saw that the artist appreciated Campaspe (and loved her) more than he. And so Alexander kept the portrait but presented Campaspe to Apelles. Modern historian Robin Lane Fox says "so Alexander gave him Campaspe as a present, the most generous gift of any patron and one which would remain a model for patronage and painters on through the Renaissance".
The story is memorable, but may have been invented: Campaspe does not appear in the five major sources we have for the life of Alexander. Robin Lane Fox traces her legend back to the Roman authors Pliny the Elder, Lucian of Samosata and Aelian's Varia Historia.
Campaspe became a generic poetical pseudonym for a man's mistress.
Barsine was a noble Persian, daughter of Artabazus, and wife of Memnon. After Memnon's death, several ancient historians have written of a love affair between her and Alexander. Plutarch writes, "At any rate Alexander, so it seems, thought it more worthy of a king to subdue his own passions than to conquer his enemies, and so he never came near these women, nor did he associate with any other before his marriage, with the exception only of Barsine. This woman, the widow of Memnon, the Greek mercenary commander, was captured at Damascus. She had received a Greek education, was of a gentle disposition, and could claim royal descent, since her father was Artabazus who had married one of the Persian kings daughters. These qualities made Alexander the more willing he was encouraged by Parmenio, so Aristobulus tells us to form an attachment to a woman of such beauty and noble lineage."[11] In addition Justin writes, "As he afterwards contemplated the wealth and display of Darius, he was seized with admiration of such magnificence. Hence it was that he first began to indulge in luxurious and splendid banquets, and fell in love with his captive Barsine for her beauty, by whom he had afterwards a son that he called Heracles."
The story may be true, but if so, it raises some difficult questions. The boy would have been Alexander's only child born during his lifetime (Roxane's son was born posthumously). Even if Alexander had ignored him, which seems highly unlikely, the Macedonian Army and the successors would certainly have known of him, and would almost certainly have drawn him into the succession struggles which ensued upon Alexander's death. Yet we first hear of the boy twelve years after Alexander's death, when a boy was produced as a claimant to the throne. Especially since Alexander's own half brother Philip III Arrhidaeus (Philip II's illegitimate and physically and mentally disabled son) was Alexander's original successor. Alexander's illegitimate son would have had more rights to the throne than his illegitimate half-brother. Heracles played a brief part in the succession battles, and then disappeared. It seems more likely that the romance with Barsine was invented by the boy's backers to validate his parentage
Ancient historians, as well as modern ones, have also written on Alexander's marriage to Roxana. Robin Lane Fox writes, "Roxane was said by contemporaries to be the most beautiful lady in all Asia. She deserved her Iranian name of Roshanak, meaning 'little star', (probably rokhshana or roshna which means light and illuminating). Marriage to a local noble's family made sound political sense. But contemporaries implied that Alexander, aged 28, also lost his heart. A wedding-feast for the two of them was arranged high on one of the Sogdian rocks. Alexander and his bride shared a loaf of bread, a custom still observed in Turkestan. Characteristically, Alexander sliced it with his sword." Ulrich Wilcken writes, "The fairest prize that fell to him was Roxane, the daughter of Oxyartes, in the first bloom of youth, and in the judgment of Alexander's companions, next to Stateira the wife of Darius, the most beautiful woman that they had seen in Asia. Alexander fell passionately in love with her and determined to raise her to the position of his consort."
Roxana accompanied Alexander all the way to India, and bore him a child also named Alexander (Alexander IV), 6 months after Alexander the Great died.
Ancient sources tell of another favorite, Bagoas; an eunuch "exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate." Plutarch recounts an episode (also mentioned by Dicaearchus) during some festivities on the way back from India) in which his men clamor for him to kiss the young man: "We are told, too, that he was once viewing some contests in singing and dancing, being well heated with wine, and that his favourite, Bagoas, won the prize for song and dance, and then, all in his festal array, passed through the theatre and took his seat by Alexander's side; at sight of which the Macedonians clapped their hands and loudly bade the king kiss the victor, until at last he threw his arms about him and kissed him tenderly."
The modern historian Robin Lane Fox, claims that both direct and indirect evidence suggest a "sexual element, this time of pure physical desire" between the two, but as for the consummation of that passion he comments that "[l]ater gossip presumed that Bagoas was Alexander's lover. This is uncertain." Whatever Alexander's relationship with Bagoas, it was no impediment to relations with his queen: 6 months after Alexander's death Roxana gave birth to his son and heir, Alexander IV.