<...>
“Tradition says that Alexander and his mother were close throughout their lives, and implies that he and his father were competitive and less close. In this case, tradition probably is correct.”
<...>
“Whatever the nature of personal dealings between Philip and Olympias, their public relationship and Olympias’ status were dramatically affected by Philip’s last marriage [to a niece of Attalos, who at the wedding banquet openly questioned Alexander’s legitimacy as heir to the throne]. Alexander went in exile, taking his mother with him. <...> The public quarrel between royal father and royal son was quickly settled, and Alexander returned to court. <…> It seems likely that Olympias’ return was a necessary part of the formal reconciliation, and that she must have been present by the time of her daughter’s marriage.”
<…>
“Alexander’s absence from 334 on meant that for the rest of his reign the only members of the dynasty in residence in Macedonia were women, and of these, his mother remained the most prominent. Indeed, as the years passed Olympias came to stand for the dynasty, both in formal matters and in the minds of many of the people.”
<…>
“Olympias’ role between 334 and 323 encompassed much more than that of a devoted and doting mother. There can be no doubt that she played a public role in the affairs of state, both external and internal. What is much less clear is to what degree her role was authorized by her son and to what degree she used the opportunity of her son’s absence for her own aggrandizement.
<…>
Olympias was assumed by Athenian politicians to have had a role in Macedonian public policy (Hyp. Eux.19-20) and possibly Molossian too (Hyp. Eux. 25). <…> The evidence certainly suggests that both Olympias and her daughter exercised considerable public power in Epirus and Macedonia, and to some degree in the entire Greek peninsula. It seems likely that at least some of the time they shared this power. Extant evidence confirms only concerted efforts by mother and daughter, and offers not a single example of conflict.”
<…>
“After Alexander’s departure, our literary tradition refers to an apparently voluminous correspondence between Alexander and Olympias.<…> The sources indicate that Olympias tried to influence her son’s policy by means of epistolary attacks on various figures at Alexander’s court. Unfortunately, the authenticity of any of the correspondence preserved in the sources is doubtful. <…> In some sense, all the men she is supposed to have accused <…> did prove dangerous to the stability of her son’s rule.”
<…>
Plutarch implies it was actually Antipater’s complaints about Olympias, rather than hers about him, that wore away at Alexander. If, as it appears, Olympias had claimed for many years that Antipater was exceeding his powers and could not be trusted, and Alexander ultimately came to interpret Antipater’s actions, rightly or wrongly, in the same fashion, it is difficult to see how Olympias’ influence can be denied.”
<…>
“Olympias’ struggles with Antipater, and perhaps those with others, may also mean that Macedonian nobles, ever desirous to limit the power of the monarchy, found it safer to attack the mother of the king, than the king.”
<…>
“From the moment Olympias heard of her son’s death and the birth of Alexander IV, she must have known that the chances of her grandson surviving long enough to be more than a figurehead were slender indeed; and that if she took an active role as Alexander IV’s advocate, she lost what little security her relatively remote base in Epirus and her cousin’s protection offered. Diodoros (XVIII.58.3-4; XIX.35.6) makes it clear that she was quite conscious of the danger of becoming her grandson’s supporter, yet she did so. She risked her life, and lost it, in an attempt to ensure her grandson’s survival and ultimate rule.”
<…>
“Olympias’ abrupt departure for Macedonia and acceptance of Polyperchon’s offer [to take over responsibility for her grandson, and to act in his name] in fall 317, require more explanation than those who paint Olympias as a politically incompetent harpy tend to recognize. The immediate cause was either the knowledge that Adea Eurydice was now allied with her old enemy and Antipater’s son, Cassander, and had made him Regent; or the realization or suspicion that something like that was imminent.”
<…>
“Olympias came back to Macedonia with her grandson, her nephew Aeacides, and some Epirote forces as well as some of Polyperchon’s. Judging by subsequent events, apparently the Macedonians did not perceive her as an invader. Adea Eurydice and her husband met the invaders at Euía on the Epirote-Macedonian border. Duris (ap. Ath. 560 ff) called the encounter the first war between women and claimed that Olympias went to battle to the beat of a drum, like a Bacchant, and that Adea Eurydice was equipped as a Macedonian soldier. There may not have been a real battle, as the Macedonian army immediately went over to Olympias and the royal husband and wife were soon captured. After treating the royal pair cruelly, Olympias caused the deaths of both. She also killed one of Cassander’s brothers, desecrated the tomb of another, Iolaus, and brought about the deaths of one hundred supporters of Cassander.”
<…>
“Even if the murder of these people constituted a political misjudgement, the more important point is that Olympias, her forces and her allies failed not because of alleged or real political blunders, but because of military blunders. There were a series of military blunders. Polyperchon certainly bears some responsibility, but so must Olympias, who either believed that she had the military skills sufficient to handle the situation, or put her trust in men and in plans that she should not have.
When in spring 316 Olympias surrendered to Cassander on a promise of personal safety, her fate was sealed. It proved difficult to find someone to kill Olympias (confirming that her failures were primarily military, not political), but Cassander was finally able to do so.”
• 6 •
THE SUSA WEDDINGS & QUEEN AMASTRIS
The Successor Wars saw the early demise of one of Alexander’s key projects: the fusion of the leading Eastern and Western families at the grand ceremony of the Susa Weddings. Arrian explains in Anabasis VII, 4:
“In Susa also he celebrated both his own wedding and those of his Companions. He himself married Barsine, the eldest daughter of Darius, <…> and to the rest of his Companions he gave the choicest daughters of the Persians and Medes, to the number of eighty.
The weddings were celebrated after the Persian manner, seats being placed in a row for the bridegrooms; and after the banquet the brides came in and seated themselves, each one near her own husband. The bridegrooms took them by the right hand and kissed them; the king being the first to begin, for the weddings of all were conducted in the same way.
This appeared the most popular thing which Alexander ever did, and it proved his affection for his Companions. Each man took his own bride and led her away; and on all without exception, Alexander bestowed dowries.”
Chares the chamberlain detailed the festivities in the tenth book of his Stories about Alexander:
“When he overcame Darius, he concluded marriages of himself and of his friends besides, constructing ninety-two bridal chambers in the same place. The structure was large enough for a hundred couches, and in it every couch was adorned with nuptial coverings, and was made of silver worth twenty minae; but his own couch had supports of gold.
He also included in his invitation to the banquet all his personal friends and placed them on couches opposite himself and the other bridegrooms. The rest of his forces, both land and naval, he entertained in the courtyard with the foreign embassies and visitors.
Moreover, the structure was decorated sumptuously and magnificently with expensive draperies and fine linens, and underfoot with purple and crimson rugs interwoven with gold. To keep the pavilion firmly in place there were columns thirty feet high, gilded and silvered and studded with jewels. The entire enclosure was surrounded with rich curtains having animal patterns in
terwoven in gold, their rods being overlaid with gold and silver. The perimeter of the courtyard measured four stadia. The call to dinner was sounded on the trumpet, not only at the time of the nuptial banquets, but always when on other occasions he chanced to be making libation, so that the entire army knew what was going on.
The nuptials lasted for five days, and very many persons, foreigners as well as Greeks, contributed their services. For example, the jugglers from India were especially noteworthy; also Scymnos of Tarantos, Filistides of Syracuse, and Herakleitos of Mitylene; after them the rhapsode Alexis of Tarantos gave a recital.
There appeared also the harp virtuosi Kratinos of Methymna, Aristonymos of Athens, Athenodoros of Teos; there were songs with harp-accompaniment by Herakleitos of Tarantos and Aristokrates of Thebes. There was present also the harper Fasimelos. The singers to flute-accompaniment who appeared were Dionysios of Herakleia and Hyperbolos of Cyzikos; there came on also flute-virtuosi, who first played the Pythian melody, and after that, accompaniments for the bands of singers and dancers; they were Timotheus, Frynichos, Kafisias, Difantos, and Evios of Chalcis. Plays were acted by the tragedians Thessalos, Athenodoros, and Aristokritos, and by the comedians Lycon, Formion, and Ariston.
And from that day forth the people who had previously been called ‘Dionysos-flatterers’ were called ‘Alexander-flatterers’, because of the extravagant presents in which Alexander took such delight.”
However epic the weddings, Alexander’s grand scheme came to nothing. Immediately after his death the Makedonian husbands repudiated all the Persian brides of Susa, with only one exception, Apame. She was a daughter of the Baktrian leader Spitamenes, who had continued the war against Alexander for some time after the death of Darius. (Typical of Alexander, having taken care of the daughter of a distinguished enemy, and finally marrying her with all honours to one of his generals.) She was given to Seleukos.
The marriage lasted: he may have loved her really. And of course Apame was very useful to him. She gave him good connections with the Persian nobility that supported him efficiently in the Successor Wars. She died a queen, and mother of a durable dynasty.
AMASTRIS
Only one other Susa bride also became a queen: Sisygambis’ granddaughter (through her younger son Oxyatres) Amastris. This imperial princess lived up to her famous name, which in Old Persian means ‘woman of strength’, for Amastris certainly was a ‘woman of power’ in her era. Three times in her life she was on the verge of becoming the queen of the whole Empire.
First in 338 BC when, only a baby, for political reasons she was promised in marriage to the High King Artaxerxes III (but he died shortly afterwards). Then in 324 BC, when Alexander married her in Susa to general Krateros, who was sent to replace Antipater as the Regent of Greece. (If he had not fallen on the battlefield, Krateros surely would have become Alexander’s successor, so Amastris could have been his queen. Instead, she ended up as the wife of king Dionysios and –after his death– widow queen of Herakleia.)
The third key moment was 302 BC, when Amastris married king Lysimachos, a serious contender in the fight for Alexander’s legacy. After the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC, Lysimachos and his queen Amastris were, for a short time, the arbiters of the Successor Wars.
Evidently, Amastris had no say over her first two marriages. They were arranged by her father Oxyatres –surely on the advice of Sisygambis– to strengthen his position at court. Her second wedding, in Susa, also responded to a personal and political interest of Alexander. He wanted Krateros to be part of a new core Royal Family of his empire, now built up around the queen-mother Sisygambis, her three granddaughters and their husbands.
To wit: the High King Alexander, who was planning his next military expedition towards the East to widen the empire; his ‘prime minister’ and brother-in-law Hefaistion, who remained at the centre in the old Median capital of Ekbatana to run day to day government; and his top general and also in-law Krateros, who was to be sent to the West. The strategic tasks for Krateros were to reinforce Makedon’s hold over Greece (replacing old Antipater) and to subdue Carthago, so as to widen the empire in the Mediterranean.
The alleged supreme command that Perdikkas later claimed to have received from Alexander after Hefaistion’s death –Perdikkas spread the story that Alexander, on his deathbed, had given him his signet ring– was only a military command in the central army under Alexander. Perdikkas never got the viceroy status that was given to Hefaistion and Krateros, as their marriage to Sisygambis’ granddaughters emphasized.
But Krateros, however capable a general and however much admired by the whole army, did not see himself as a political leader. So he let Antipater convince him to drop Alexander’s orders, as if voided by the king’s death, and to limit himself to shore up Antipater’s regency. In a classical move, Antipater ensured Krateros’ loyalty by giving him one of his daughters for wife, polygamy being accepted in Makedon.
Everybody bowed to this new grand design – but for the imperial princess Amastris. She refused to play second fiddle to Krateros’ new wife, and by extension, to Antipater. There was not much status in being one of the wives (in practical terms, just a Persian concubine) of Krateros, however powerful he might become. So even the lesser status of being the –sole– wife of a local dynast looked more attractive. This explains Amastris’ unexpected reappearance in 322 BC as queen of Herakleia Pontos, a little kingdom on the Black Sea coast. Some sources say that “Krateros himself gave her away at the wedding”.
The king of Herakleia, Dionysios, was known as a friend of Alexander’s sister Kleopatra. She had successfully pleaded with Alexander to protect him from his exiled enemies who had found, or bought, favour at the court in Babylon. So the election of Dionysios for Amastris’ new husband was less haphazard than it seemed. Her father Oxyatres, casting around for a suitable (re)marriage for his daughter, may have gone through ‘family channels’ and asked Kleopatra for advice.
It did well for Amastris: Dionysios never let her down. They were married for 17 years, in which she gave him two sons and a daughter; and after his death she became Dowager Queen of Herakleia. The local historian of this city, Memnon of Herakleia, would later write:
“The greatest good fortune came to Dionysios from his second marriage. He married Amastris, the daughter of Oxathres. So she and Stateira/Barsine were cousins, and also they had been brought up together, which gave them a special affection for each other. Amastris went to live with Dionysius. When he was about to die, he left Amastris in charge of the government.”
Four years later, she was still seen as so influential that another would-be successor to Alexander, general Lysimachos, who had established himself as king of Thrace, proposed to her. She accepted, and they had a son whom they called Alexander for all the obvious propaganda reasons. Memnon comments:
“Lysimachos made Amastris his wife. To start with, he was very much in love with her, and soon sent for her to join him at Sardès, where he showed her equal affection. But later he took [for wife] Arsinoe, [the daughter] of Ptolemy Filadelfos, and this caused Amastris to part from him. After leaving him, she took control of Herakleia; she revived the city by her presence, and created the new city of Amastris.”
The geographer Strabo too tells about the city of Amastris on the Black Sea coast. There, many coins have been found bearing her portrait with the inscription “Amastris Queen”. The fact that Amastris coined her own money meant that she was the real ruler of the kingdom, not just a caretaker for her young but power-hungry sons. Memnon relates the sad end of the story:
“Her sons Klearchos and Oxathres caused their mother, who had not particularly interfered in their affairs, to be drowned in the sea on board a ship. Lysimachos still felt some glow of his former passion for her, and he killed the two matricides. He was full of praise for Amastris; he marvelled at her character and the way she ruled, how she had built up her realm in size and importance and strength.”
And a sizeable, important and str
ong kingdom in the North of Asia Minor was exactly what Lysimachos was looking for, when he asked for Amastris’ hand. He was facing Antigonos in the final stages of the Succession Wars, and needed a crucial power-base at the back of Antigonos’ dominions in Asia Minor. By marrying Amastris, he could use her kingdom as headquarters on the Black Sea coast, well protected by Amastris’ capable navy.
Already allied to and militarily backed by Kassander, he now also acted to obtain the cooperation of Antigonos’ other two rivals: Ptolemy and Seleukos. But as Ptolemy only provided some (not very decisive) naval support, the key to the plan was the eventual assistance of Seleukos. Because of the scarcity of contemporary sources, it is not clearly established how this success was reached.
Lysimachos and Seleukos had not seen each other in twenty years, since the dark days of Alexander’s death in Babylon. Now they had to communicate by messenger over a distance of several thousand kilometers. How could Lysimachos convince Seleukos to trust him to such a high degree as to accept the deadly gamble of a joint attack against Antigonos?
For a possible explanation of their surprisingly rapid understanding and confidence, we may remember who, and what, their respective wives were. Memnon stresses that Amastris and her cousin Stateira/Barsine had been brought up together in Susa (that is, in the household of Sisygambis), “which gave them a special affection for each other”. They had starred in the mass-wedding at Susa; and another famous ‘Susa bride’ was Apame, the wife of Seleukos.
The historians say that Seleukos held his Persian wife in high regard, as she was able to ensure him of the loyalty of the Persian nobility that supported his long struggle for power in Babylon. On the other hand Memnon affirms that Lysimachos “was always full of praise for Amastris; he marvelled at her character and the way she ruled”. So both queens were respected political advisors, and had a common (Susa) background. It does not seem too far-fetched to suppose that Amastris and Apame were instrumental in helping Lysimachos and Seleukos reach their decisive agreement.
All Alexander's Women Page 12