Why does it seem implausible that ATG would've had an affair with Cleophis? 1.) It was socially acceptable for Macedonian kings to practice polygamy (Carney). 2.) ATG had an affair with Thaelestris simply because she was royalty (like Cleophis) and asked nicely. 3.) He had a keen interest in getting to know other cultures. & 4.) He married Stateira II after Roxy. - Though I admire Rufus, I'm with Justin on this one.
Alexander's Purported Affairs (Kleophais, et al.)
This isn’t about whether he would/could have slept with these women—of course he could—but whether these events even occurred, or these women existed. THAT’S the problem/question.
You bring up Thaelestris, Queen of the Amazons. But the Thaelestris episode never happened. There’s a funny story of Onesikritos reading his history of Alexander for King Lysimachos of Thrace, many years after ATG died. Lysimachos, of course, was one of Alexander’s close friends/advisors. When Onesikritos got to the story of the Amazons, Lysimachos broke up laughing and asked, “Where was I when this happened?” (Plut. Alex. 46, for a breakdown of the episode and why he and others dismiss it. Onesikritos was recognized even in antiquity as full of shit; he lied about a lot of things, including his own importance in the campaign.)
There was no incident with the Amazons. It’s fiction. And it’s stories like that one which caused earlier generations of historians to distrust the vulgate altogether. If we can hardly jettison all the vulgate, or accept all of Arrian (or Plutarch), episodes like Alexander’s dalliance with the Amazon queen are pretty easy to tag as fabrication—recognized as such even in antiquity.
The incident with Kleophis is, perhaps, less clearly fiction. There was probably such a person. The problem with the story is the mismatch between the atrocious things Alexander did to her people, and her (supposed) behavior towards him afterwards. Not only did he kill her son, albeit in combat, but when the warriors and people of the city of Masaga surrendered, he promised to let them leave…then surrounded and butchered them all once they’d done so. As they were screaming in protest, he said he’d only promised they could leave peacefully, not that he’d let them live afterwards. It’s one of the most inhumane, deceptive things in his entire campaign, made perhaps worse when compared to his earlier treatment of suppliants. If we see glimpses of that brutality from Alexander after Thebes, Granikos (Greek mercenaries), Tyre, the Branchidai...treatment of Porus after the Battle of the Hydaspes aside, Alexander’s march through Pakistan and India was over-the-top horrific.
So I could see Kleophis admitting him to her bed if she thought it necessary to placate him so the rest of the Assakani could live, and he’d go away. But this tale of her having his kid and (months after he’d left) naming it after him, or naming a new son (whoever was the father) after him? That reads like Roman colonial narrative. “Yes, master, thank you for conquering us!” I just don’t find it credible.