The Persian Boy

The book describes the major incidents of Alexander's later career, such as his conquest of Bactria, the controversy over Alexander's adoption of Persian customs like proskynesis, his abortive invasion of India, his marriage to Roxana, his crossing of the Gedrosian Desert, the death of Hephaistion and his own final illness and death.

Bagoas was a historical figure, identified by the Roman historian Curtius as "a 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 described Alexander's troops, seeing their leader sitting with the boy, as "clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him." From these and a few other fragments, Renault creates an imaginative portrait of a lover and confidant to Alexander. In a review of The Persian Boy, historian Jeanne Reames wrote:

That Alexander may have been attracted to a eunuch is possible enough, and there is certainly testimony that he kept Bagoas with him at least some of the time. But there is no evidence that Bagoas was as important to, much less as influential over, Alexander as Renault paints. She gives to Bagoas a role which history suggests was filled by Hephaistion.^[2]

Curtius' history of Alexander presents Bagoas as a vindictive schemer who revenges himself on a Persian noble named Orsines who failed to give him gifts by lying to Alexander about him, eventually succeeding in having him tried and executed. Renault, who accuses Curtius of "muddled sensationalism" in an author's note, points to other sources who suggest that Orxines (as she calls him) was in fact a "murderous" character, and portrays him in the novel as fully deserving his fate. The claim by Curtius that Orsines did not plunder the royal tombs but that these sepulchres were devoid in the first place of rich offerings is an absurd one, as Renault points out, and totally unacceptable in the light of our knowledge of Persian culture.

Renault also points out that the incident in which the army clamoured for Alexander to kiss Bagoas took place very soon after the crossing of the Gedrosian desert, when all those present were survivors of that harrowing incident. Renault argues that Bagoas must have earned the admiration and affection of the army by his courage and fortitude, and his help to others, during the desert crossing.

Bagoas plays a reduced but still significant role in Funeral Games, the final book of Renault's Alexander trilogy. Devoted to the memory of the dead ruler, the now older eunuch is won over to aiding in the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt by assisting in organising the diversion of Alexander's body to the recently established city of Alexandria.