Olympias

by Elizabeth Carney

  W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd edn, Leipzig, 1915–24

  TAM

  K. Ninou, Treasures of Ancient Macedonia, Athens, 1980

  TAPA

  Transactions and Proceedings of the American

  Philological Association

  WS

  Wiener Studien

  ZfN

  Zeitschrift für Numismatik

  ZPE

  Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

  Abbreviations of ancient authors and works are those used by the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

  Introduction

  Olympias ( c. 373–316 BCE), daughter of a Molossian king, wife of Philip II of Macedon, and mother of Alexander the Great, lived a remarkable life.

  Though comparatively obscure during her husband’s reign (359–336 BCE), her son’s reign (336–323 BCE) transformed her into a powerful political force in the entire Greek peninsula. After her son’s unexpected death, Olympias tried to guarantee that her grandson Alexander IV, the child king, would live long enough to rule in his own right. She was able to sway the Macedonian home army away from loyalty to a rival branch of the Argead (royal Macedonian) dynasty and over to support for herself and her grandson. In the end, however, the military failure of the forces supporting her led to her capture and execution and, ultimately, that of her grandson as well. Ruthless and tenacious, she was the first woman to play a major role in Greek political history.

  The sources for the life of this extraordinary woman are problematic at best. Ancient writers were not kind to politically active and powerful women. Of course, the ancient world, particularly the ancient Greek world, had views and expectations about women that are very different from our own. Nonetheless, not infrequently, modern writers do little better than their ancient predecessors. Stereotypes that appear in Greek and Roman authors remain potent, particularly when embedded in compelling, if highly colored, narrative. Some of the least plausible tales are told simply because they are fun, guilty pleasures we continue to indulge. A peculiar feature of sexual stereotyping about political women is the insidious “niceness”

  factor. Whereas modern and ancient writers tend to treat even the most brutal actions of male rulers in matter-of-fact terms, often failing to comment at all on the morality of their actions, similar actions by women virtually never pass without moralizing There is an unstated presumption that women should/ought to be/are nicer, kinder than men. That this is an implicit standard makes it more dangerous; made explicit, it sounds as silly as it is.

  One reason that male atrocities comparatively rarely generate comment is the assumption that men commit such crimes out of policy, for rational reasons, out of Realpolitik. Paradoxically, often in the same writer who expects women to be more kindly than men appears the presumption that

  2 Introduction

  personal passion lies behind female brutality. Somehow, women are both more and less “nice” than men. As a consequence of the expectation of personal motivation (typically again sexually stereotypical in nature), the possible policy of the woman is not even addressed. Men take vengeance for a reason; women are simply vengeful.

  Moreover, in her own day Olympias was a controversial figure, a person who produced extreme reactions in those who knew and dealt with her. Even if many more contemporary accounts of her actions and motivations had survived the centuries, difficulty in arriving at a clear and full understanding of her career would persist.

  Sexual prejudice and controversy are not the only factors that make understanding Olympias’ career difficult. Most contemporary authors, typically southern Greeks, were unfamiliar with and hostile to the society and culture of the northern Greek kingdoms of Molossia and Macedonia, inclined to view them as barbaric, irrational and mysterious. Monarchy itself, let alone more exotic phenomena like the polygamy of Macedonian kings or royal women who were politically active, was seen as primitive and mistaken.

  In the years after Olympias’ death and that of her son, accounts of their lives and actions became tools in power struggles of the Macedonian generals (commonly termed the Successors of Alexander) that followed Alexander’s death and led to the fragmentation of his empire. The virtues, vices, and relationships with others of both mother and son were minimized, exaggerated, or distorted to serve short-term propaganda goals. Writers of later antiquity had little ability or inclination to sort out partisan observation from more objective statements. As the number of centuries separating the author from the world of the fourth century grew, the degree of misunderstanding could only increase, even for the writer who genuinely tried to understand a world very different from his own. Yet, with comparatively few exceptions (largely Athenian orators, often hostile to Macedonia), other than fragmentary quotations and paraphrases, it is the work of Greek and Roman writers many centuries removed from the world of Alexander and Olympias that survives, not the once abundant material from contemporary writers.

  These layers of hostility and misunderstanding compound a more essential problem. Nothing survives that one can, with absolute confidence, conclude that Olympias said or wrote herself. Although she may well have produced some remarks attributed to her by our extant sources, one cannot simply assume that she did, and sorting out the genuine from the fabrication or, worse yet, from the elaboration, is no easy task.

  I refer the reader to the Appendix for a more detailed discussion, author by author, of the treatment of Olympias in our major surviving sources, but I offer the following guidelines for my own decisions involving the weighing of contradictory, fragmentary, or obviously hostile evidence. Documentary evidence deserves the most credence. In terms of Greek history, this usually means inscriptions, formal statements or governmental decrees inscribed in stone. Archaeological evidence, where relevant, should have nearly similar

  Introduction 3

  weight. Statements by contemporary writers like the Athenian orator and politician Demosthenes (famously an enemy of Philip, Alexander, and Olympias) can be trusted when they refer to public actions by Olympias, much less so when they ascribe motivation to her. Much the same applies to material about her found in later historical narratives, biographies, and essays. Many such works include letters or parts of letters from the correspondence of Olympias. The general scholarly view has been to treat each letter on its merits, acknowledging that real letters did once exist but that fictional collections were also created. Some letters clearly serve a political or propaganda agenda, but those that do not (or portions that do not) deserve more credence (see further Chapter 3). The most dubious evidence of all is the body of anecdotal material about Olympias. One could simply reject all of it out of hand, but anecdotal material often contains credible information, even when the main thrust of the story is not. For instance, Plutarch’s assertion ( Alex. 2.1) that Philip fell in love with Olympias at first sight, that theirs was a love match, is almost certainly a romantic fiction, but the setting he provides for their first encounter, that they were fellow initiates in the cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace, is likely accurate, for reasons I will discuss later (see Chapter 1).

  Only Olympias knew why she chose to act as she did, but I have begun with the presumption that she had reasons for what she did and then considered what those reasons might have been, just as historians generally do when speculating about the motivation and policy of male historical figures.

  More emotional and irrational factors may also have affected Olympias’

  choices, as they do those of most people (and certainly those of her male contemporaries), but I see no reason to presume, a priori, that they alone, or largely, motivated her.

  When one looks at Olympias’ entire career, several themes recur, some of them interrelated. Many royal women married foreign rulers and never saw their homelands or families again, but Olympias returned to her homeland, resided there for many years, and derived political and military support from it. Even more important than her Molossian identity, though, was her identit
y as an Aeacid and the dynastic ties and pride her famous lineage offered her. I will suggest that her heroic lineage may have shaped her public conduct at critical moments in her life (and perhaps that of other royal women), that epic and tragic images of royal women functioned as models and a script of sorts for how this woman, who believed herself to be the linear descendant of Achilles, Andromache, and Hecuba, shaped her public presentation.

  Epic and tragedy often deal with the rise and fall of dynasties, family curses, heroic deaths, and cycles of vengeance worked out over generations.

  Many of these elements are central in Olympias’ life. More particularly, what may have begun as a personal dispute between Olympias and Antipater, the man her son had left in some sort of administrative charge over Greek and Macedonian affairs, was transformed into a multi-generational vendetta between the Aeacid and Antipatrid clans. Finally, throughout her life, the

  4 Introduction

  position of women in the Hellenic world limited Olympias’ accomplishments, requiring her, like other royal women, to do indirectly what royal men could do directly. In an era where command of troops was critical, no royal woman managed to maintain control over a large body of troops for any significant length of time. The result was the ultimate limitation: male generals or kings murdered not only Olympias but all of Alexander’s sisters and wives.

  Olympias seemed larger than life to her contemporaries and has, over the centuries, continued to seem so. The goal of this biography is to place Olympias in her historical and cultural context and to determine, as much as possible, why she acted as she did. I want to make her life-sized.

  1

  Olympias the Molossian

  Olympias was born the daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Molossia, a region of Epirus. Although almost no material directly dealing with Olympias’

  childhood and life before her betrothal and marriage survives, information about her family and her country is available, enough to indicate how her background continued to influence her throughout her eventful life. Her identity as a Molossian and as a member of the Aeacid (descendants of Aeacus) dynasty endured; her son embraced that same identity to a remarkable degree, considering the patriarchal and patrilineal nature of Macedonian society and the Hellenic world in general.

  Ironically, we know more about the mythic than the historic past of her family. In a sense, it is more important anyway. The development of a heroic genealogy by the Molossian royal house played an early role in the Hellenization of Epirus.1 Tradition had long associated Neoptolemus (alternatively called Pyrrhus), son of Achilles, with rule of Epirus (Pind. Nem.

  4.51–53, 7.38–39). Perhaps as early as the days of Pindar (late sixth, early fifth century BCE),2 but certainly by the time Euripides composed his Andromache (in the 420s), the rulers of Molossia asserted that they were the descendants of Neoptolemus through a son of his by Andromache, widow of Hector ( Andr. 1246–49).3 Euripides may have chosen to popularize this genealogy for reasons of current Athenian political advantage.4 By Olympias’

  day a subsequent addition to the genealogy made Priam, through his son Helenus, an ancestor of the Aeacids as well; in this version the kings also descended from a son of Andromache by Helenus.5 As the fourth century progressed, the name choices of the dynasty indicated growing emphasis on this heroic genealogy. In the reign of Olympias’ father Neoptolemus they became, in effect, the rule.6 The peculiarly Trojan quality of the names of Neoptolemus’ children7 has led some8 to conclude that their mother must have been Chaonian since the ruling house of that Epirote tribe claimed descent from Andromache and Helenus (Just. 17.3.6).

  This Aeacid genealogy gained wide acceptance in the Greek world; clearly it colored the careers of Olympias’ son Alexander and of her great-nephew, Pyrrhus. The memory of the greatest Homeric hero shaped the image both men presented to the ancient world: being a descendant of Achilles helped

  6 Olympias the Molossian

  explain themselves to themselves and to the world.9 While the generally Homeric nature of Macedonian society and monarchy, as well as the influence of Aristotle, also contributed to Alexander’s emulation and imitation of Achilles, Olympias was unquestionably the original source of his fascination with Achilles.10 We know (Plut. Alex. 5.5) that Leonidas, a kinsman of hers who was chosen as Alexander’s earliest tutor, called himself “Phoenix”

  (Achilles’ foster father and tutor), Alexander “Achilles,” and even referred to Philip as “Peleus” (the father of Achilles). Apparently he reinforced the Aeacid point of view,11 in effect transforming Philip himself into an Aeacid.

  A fragment of Theopompus, however, confirms what this story implies.

  Theopompus ( FGrH 115 F 355) notes that Olympias proclaimed Achilles (as well as Helenus, son of Priam) as her ancestor.

  Indeed, although the influence of Achilles (as well as other heroic ancestors) on the character and image of Alexander has been much discussed,12 with good reason, little attention has been paid to the effect of heroic ancestry on the character, image, and actions of Olympias and other royal women. It should be no surprise that an Aeacid woman would stress the claim of descent from Achilles for herself and her children, particularly in the competitive Macedonian court. Olympias’ ancestry distinguished her from Philip’s other wives. Her Aeacid lineage meant more to her than simply a way to get ahead of her rivals at court. Written references to Aeacid genealogy mention heroic males, a natural consequence of the Greek tendency to reckon patrilineally, but, as the “Trojan” name (Polyxena) suggests, female members of the line may have been models as well, at least for the women of the clan. Moments in the life of Olympias, her daughter, and her rivals, as described in extant narratives, resemble scenes from Greek tragedy. Even allowing for considerable fictionalization and embroidery by our sources, it is likely that the

  “tragic queen” aspect of Olympias’ life actually was shaped by the cycle of Trojan stories, as developed in the Homeric poems and in Athenian tragedy, particularly that of Euripides.13 Even otherwise hostile sources treat her death as heroic. Hecuba, Andromache, and Polyxena—her supposed ancestresses—

  may have been her models.14 If her mother or maternal grandmother were indeed the source of the Trojan part of the Aeacid genealogy, then Olympias herself may have identified to a greater degree with her maternal ancestry.

  As my discussion of mythic/Homeric models suggests, it is important to consider what the expectations for royal female behavior were in Molossia, in order to understand the background for Olympias’ actions. More specifically, we need to place the position of royal women in Molossia in the broader context of the position of women generally in the Greek world. That is no longer an easy task.

  A scholarly generation ago, generalizations came more easily. We talked about a black-and-white divide between the world of men and that of women, about parallel polarities: women/private/ oikos versus men/public/ polis. We stressed inequality and difference. To my mind, these generalizations remain extremely valid, but can easily be applied too broadly.15 Prescription should

  Olympias the Molossian 7

  not be mistaken for description.16 Because of the comparative abundance of evidence and the importance of Athenian democracy, scholarship on women focused nearly exclusively on Athens, its middle and upper citizen classes (the minority), and on the fifth century BCE. As a consequence, the most extreme situation of women in the Greek world was often taken as the norm.

  Olympias was no Athenian.

  In terms of the role of women in Molossia and Macedonia, the most obvious point to make is that these were non-urban, more or less tribal monarchies, and that many of the familiar dichotomies just mentioned were products of the polis world, more particularly of democratic Athens.

  The situation of elite women as shown in Homer and as evidenced in the Archaic period much more closely resembled the situation of Molossian and Macedonian female elites17 than it did what Athenian males claimed to be the truth about their wives and daughters. In
Thucydides’ (1.136–137.3) version of a tale about the flight of Themistocles18 (the famous Athenian general exiled for treason) and his appearance as a suppliant at the court of the Molossian king Admetus, the king’s wife Phthia plays a pivotal role by giving advice to Themistocles about how to win her husband’s support.

  Whatever the historicity of this story, let alone this variant, it confirms a southern Greek understanding of the role of Molossian women, royal ones anyway, as Homeric. Phthia’s advice recalls that of Nausicaa ( Od. 6. 304–

  315). Like Penelope or Helen or Arete, she converses with males not related to her, does not seem to be secluded, and takes an active role in events.

  Women in Greek elites often dominated the religious establishment in their regions and might journey considerable distances to panhellenic shrines.19

  Andromacha, wife of Arybbas (almost certainly an Aeacid and probably the uncle of Olympias; see below), traveled to the shrine of Aesclepius at Epidaurus ( IG IV2 1.122 iama 31). Olympias and other royal women made dedications at major shrines and dominated their religious world ( SIG I3

  252N 5ff; Hyp. Eux. 19). I shall discuss Olympias’ religiosity at length later in this book (see Chapter 5), but suffice to say here that she tried to play a dominant role in some aspects of Macedonian religion.

  Olympias would not have expected to cope with the degree of masculine control that women in southern Greece experienced. An assortment of documents from Epirus suggest that women there were less legally and culturally circumscribed than in Athens, other Greek cities, and perhaps even Macedonia.20 In Molossia, women could independently own and alienate property and act as guardians for their minor children. Apparently women, at least once they were adults, had no legal guardians.21 They could receive grants of citizenship and pass that citizenship on to their children.22

  The legal situation of ordinary Molossian women may have a parallel in the situation of royal Molossian women. While no woman is known for a certainty to have acted as regent in Macedonia (see Chapter 3), at least two and perhaps three women (Olympias’ daughter Cleopatra, possibly Olympias herself, and Olympias II) did so in Molossia. In southern Greece, formal