According to
Plutarch,[6] Bagoas won a dancing contest after the Macedonian crossing of the
Gedrosian Desert. The Macedonian troops, with whom Bagoas was very popular, demanded that king Alexander should kiss Bagoas, and he did so.[5]
The Serpent's Oath (2021) by A.R. Valeson portrays a historical fiction romance between King Henry VIII's Master Secretary, Thomas Cromwell and the eunuch, Arthamaeus, inspired by the courtier Bagoas.
He makes an even briefer appearance in Les Conquêtes d'Alexandre by Roger Peyrefitte. Peyrefitte, unlike Mary Renault, has Bagoas riding to battle by the side of Darius.
He is also a major character in
Jo Graham's novel Stealing Fire, part of her Numinous World series. Graham's Bagoas is basically the same as Mary Renault's, except that he is more willing to find a new lover after the death of Alexander the Great.
In the Red Dwarf episode "Marooned,"
Arnold Rimmer confesses that he did past-life regression, and that he discovered he was "Alexander the Great's chief eunuch"; many believe Bagoas to be the eunuch in question, though Rob Grant and Doug Naylor didn't seem to know of Bagoas' existence at the time.
^Rufus 1714, p. 331,
Book VI, Chapter V: "Bagoas, an Eunuch, who was in the flower of his Youth, and had been familiarly us'd by Darius formerly, and was now by Alexander..."
"Bagoas Pleads on Behalf of Nabarzanes," illuminated parchment by the Master of the Jardin de vertueuse consolation, in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum