Olympias Read online

  Olympias and other Macedonian royal women were known by different royal names, but my view is that one should assume that women referred to by different names are in fact the same woman only when an ancient source indicates that they were known by more than one name, as in the case of Olympias (see Carney 2000c: 33, n. 133). Dillon (1997: 185, 189; 2002: 30) assumes that the husband of Andromacha is King Arybbas. The most reasonable conclusion is that Andromacha was an earlier wife of Arybbas and that she had a son who could have been Alcetas, but could also have been a child who died young.

  51 For instance, Reuss 1881: 161, referring to the fact that Neoptolemus’ name follows his father’s on the document that lists them as members of the Second Athenian confederacy, assumes that Neoptolemus must have been the older brother whereas he may, in fact, simply have been the more favored.

  52 Arybbas and Neoptolemus, as we have noted, ultimately shared rule (Paus.

  1.11.3) and Pyrrhus briefly shared power with another Aeacid named Neoptolemus (Plut. Pyrrh 5.1). Alcetas, son of Tharyps, was expelled (Diod.

  15.13.1–3). Arybbas was expelled, as was his son Aeacides (Just. 17.3.17), as was his son Pyrrhus (Plut. Pyrrh. 4.1).

  53 Parallels are often made between the two kingdoms and peoples: see Cross 1932: 24; Hatzopoulos 2003: 51–64.

  54 Archaeology offers examples over centuries of similarities in material culture and trade between the two regions. For instance, Hammond 1967: 401 notes considerable similarity in the tumulus burials of northern Epirus and of Vergina in Macedonia in the Iron Age.

  55 Dell 1970: 116.

  56 Cabanes 1980: 347–9, citing the reign of Philip as a turning point.

  57 Greenwalt 1988a.

  58 Though some historians reject the erotic part of the tale, they accept the idea of a Samothracian betrothal. Cole 1984: 17, n. 127, however, implausibly rejects it as a literary cliché based on the need to explain how the supposedly secluded Greek woman could meet a male. As already discussed, women were frequently publicly active in cult areas. Moreover, Plutarch’s account ( Alex 2.1) specifically mentions Arybbas’ consent and so presumed presence.

  59 See Carney 1992a: 170, n. 3 for references to Greek marital practice and to that of Philip.

  Notes 145

  60 Mortensen 1997: 23, ns. 138 and 139, rightly notes that, even in later periods, most of the cult’s visitors came from the northern Aegean, not central Greece, and that though sailors might constitute something of an exception, the Molossian royal family had no connection to any seagoing tradition. See further Chapter 5.

  61 Griffith 1979: 215; Errington 1975b: 49; Mortensen 1997: 6.

  62 Mortensen 1997: 8 notes that Macedonia was clearly better placed to give aid against the Illyrians than the Athenians, later certainly allies of Arybbas.

  63 Hammond 1967: 533; Mortensen 1997: 6. Mortensen puts this effort in the broader context of Philip’s attempts to stabilize the borders of Macedonia, as did earlier his marriage alliances. Whether the Illyrian incursion into Molossia came before or after Philip’s defeat of Illyrian forces is uncertain; see Mortensen 1997: 7.

  64 Satyrus ( ap. Athen. 557c) asserted that Philip’s marriage to Olympias brought him the Molossian kingdom. Literally this cannot have been true since Arybbas remained king for some years yet (see Chapter 2). Reuss 1881: 162 doubts, despite the remark of Satyrus, that her marriage brought with it any Molossian territory. Griffith 1979: 215 suggests that Olympias brought Orestis as part of her dowry. No ancient source confirms this. See Mortensen 1997: 12 for arguments against this suggestion. Ellis 1976: 61–2 suggests that Philip’s primary motivation for the Molossian alliance was to prevent the possibility of the Molossians returning to their traditional Athenian alliance.

  Bosworth 1971b: 104 argues that the marriage was meant to conciliate Upper Macedonia.

  65 Cabanes 1976: 101; Carney 1987a: 41 terms the marriage the initial move in Philip’s “plan” to control Molossia. While Mortensen 1997: 8, n. 37 rightly doubts that there literally was a formal plan, the pattern is similar to the series of actions that led to Philip’s domination of Greece and equally difficult to pinpoint when potential became plan.

  66 Lane Fox 1973: 44; Cole 1984: 16–17. Mortensen 1997: 19–22 argues that Argead patronage began a few years earlier, in the reign of Philip’s brother Perdiccas III, surmising that Philip may have completed his brother’s projects.

  See further discussion in Chapter 5. For our purposes, the relevant point is that this was a shrine recently developed under Argead patronage.

  67 Mortensen 1997: 23. Apart from the difficulty for Molossians to reach the island sanctuary, one must also note that it focused on providing safety for those who traveled by sea (not much of a Molossian problem) and that it was, even much later, largely patronized by peoples of the northern Aegean.

  68 Contra Mortensen 1997: 89.

  69 Mortensen 1997: 24.

  70 Cole 1984: 21, 39–40. Mortensen 1997: 24, n. 147 argues that FGrH 70 F 120

  does not demonstrate that the festival was held before Hellenistic times, but, of course, this does not mean that it was not. See Clinton 2003: 50–78, especially 67–8.

  71 Cleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great and widow of Alexander of Molossia, acted as her own marriage broker and also worked in concert with her mother; Cynnane, half-sister of Alexander the Great and widow of his cousin Amyntas, expressed the desire not to remarry (which Alexander apparently rejected) and gave her life in an attempt to bring about the marriage of her daughter Adea Eurydice to Philip Arrhidaeus. Hellenistic examples of royal widows brokering or attempting to broker marriage alliances can also be found. See Carney 2000c: 21, 123–7, 129–31).

  72 Mortensen 1997: 15.

  73 As we shall see in Chapter 2, Philip already had several wives and may already

  146 Notes

  have had two children, one of them male. Mortensen 1997: 15 believes that Arybbas would have negotiated from a position of greater strength than the guardians of Philip’s other wives. This could be true, but the order and circumstances of all Philip’s marriages are so controversial (see Chapter 2 and Carney 2000c: 52–7) that certainty or even probability is difficult.

  74 IG IV2 1.122 iama 31; see discussion above, especially in n. 8 and in Dillon 1997: 185, 189 and 2002: 30.

  75 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the factors that affected the status of a royal wife when her husband had many wives.

  76 See general discussion and references in Carney 2000c: 18–23.

  77 See Blundell 1995: 119–28.

  78 As Mortensen 1997: 30, n. 189 observed, Plutarch seems to regard these as nicknames or epithets, not genuine name-changes. Pomeroy 1984: 10 seems to agree, whereas Heckel 1981b: 82 understands them as actual changes in name.

  Plutarch’s terminology, paronomia, seems to support the views of Pomeroy and Mortensen rather than that of Heckel.

  79 Heckel 1981b: 79, followed by Mortensen 1997: 25–35.

  80 Carney 1991a; 2000c: 32–4

  81 Heckel 1981b: 80–2 connects it to Aeacid claims of descent from Achilles via Neoptolemus, pointing out that Polyxena was connected to Neoptolemus in myth (Eur. Tro. 260 ff., Hec. 218ff., 521ff.). Mortensen 1997: 25, noting that the mythic connection was a grim one (Neoptolemus murdered Polyxena) suggests that the name choice may reflect the heroic character of Polyxena in Euripides’ Hecuba and that it may have been a common name in the Chaonian dynasty.

  82 Mortensen 1997: 26–9 prefers to connect the name to a possible puberty rite in honor of Aphrodite. See further discussion on this issue in Chapter 5.

  83 Milns 1968: 17. Heckel 1981b: 82–4 connects the name choice to her betrothal/initiation at Samothrace, making the rites a kind of proteleia (sacrifices offered before marriage) for her wedding. Pomeroy 1984: 10 believes that the name could have been taken on either occasion. See further discussion in Chapter 5.

  84 Heckel 1981b: 85 (followed by Pomeroy 1984: 10; Mortensen 1997: 29) argues that it was not a
“maiden name” since it was the last one listed by Plutarch, that it is unlikely that one young woman would have had three separate names in so brief a period, that it had no precedent within the Aeacid house (though it was known in the Argead house), and that it can be connected to a known event. Heckel suggested that she was remembered as “Olympias”

  because she died so soon after assuming this final name, before it became common usage.

  85 Pomeroy 1984: 10.

  86 No physical description of Olympias survives and all ancient images of her date from many centuries after her life and are highly idealized (see Chapter 6). One could take it as suggestive that her son was fair skinned, with a somewhat ruddy tone (Plut. Alex. 4.2) and supposedly not particularly tall (Arr. 2.

  12. 6).

  87 Mortensen 1997: 36 argues that Olympias would not have expected so distant a marriage because there is little reason to think earlier Aeacid brides had traveled so far.

  88 Mortensen 1997: 36 speculates that the children of Neoptolemus would not have liked their uncle Arybbas because he had “semi-usurped their father’s throne.” Moreover, we do not know if Olympias was close to her sister and brother (though subsequent events might imply that she was: see Chapter 2 for her dealings with her brother and Chapter 4 for the extraordinary loyalty her

  Notes 147

  sister’s son Aeacides demonstrated to her) or whether her mother was still alive. On mother–daughter ties, see discussion in Chapter 2.

  2 Olympias, wife of Philip II

  1 On Philip’s reign, see Ellis 1976 and Cawkwell 1978. On general Macedonian history in this period, see Hammond and Griffith 1979 and Errington 1990.

  2 On the developing nature of Macedonian monarchy and institutions, see Borza 1992.

  3 See recent discussion and references in Heckel 2003: 205–6. Carney 1981: 227–8 rejects the term “Page.”

  4 My description of Macedonian monarchy is in accord with the currently dominant view, but until comparatively recently scholars understood Macedonian monarchy in more constitutional terms and some continue to do so. See Borza 1990: 231–48 for discussion and references on this controversy and for his conclusions.

  5 Borza 1990: 166–71.

  6 See Greenwalt 1989: 22–28; Carney 2000c: 23.

  7 On this passage, see the discussion of Tronson 1984: 116–26. He argues that the list is chronological, that the “kata polemon” (in connection with a war) observation is Athenaeus’ not Satyrus’, that this is a list of wives not concubines. See Carney 2000c: 52–6 for a lengthier exposition of arguments given here; see also Ogden 1999: 17–20, who reaches similar conclusions. My translation of the Satyrus passage is nearly identical to that in Carney 2000c: 53.

  8 Athenaeus wrote in the late second century CE and used the setting of a symposium to collect excerpts from a long list of earlier ancient authors on a variety of subjects. In many cases, these excerpts are all that remains of the authors’ works. See further Baldwin 1976: 21–42; Hawley 1993: 73–91; Braund and Wilkins 2000. Satyrus the Peripatetic was active in the third century BCE and wrote a series of lives of famous men, now preserved only by citations from late Ancient authors like Athenaeus. Extant fragments imply that he was prone to gossip, sensationalism, and moralizing: see Tronson 1984: 117–18; Hawley 1993: 73–91.

  9 Carney 2000c: 54, n. 9.

  10 Tronson 1984: 121, followed by Carney 2000c: 55.

  11 Carney 2000c: 55–6.

  12 Some scholars assume that, since Nicesipolis was Pheraean, Philip could not have married her before 353 or 352 (so Ehrhardt 1967: 296–7; Griffith 1979: 677; Ellis 1981: 112, n. 16; Green 1982: 143). Tronson 1984: 122; Sawada 1993: 38, n. 98; Carney 2000c: 60–1 find an earlier date more likely. Martin 1982: 68–9 considers it possible.

  13 Whether Olympias or Nicesipolis was his fifth wife, virtually all agree that Meda came next. Since the only known reference to Meda is the Satyrus passage, estimated dates for the marriage vary from 342 to 339. See references in Carney 2000c: 68, n. 69.

  14 Apart from his own marriage to Cleopatra, Philip arranged the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra, tried to arrange the marriage of Arrhidaeus (see below), and probably arranged the marriage of his daughter Cynnane to his nephew Amyntas (the date of this marriage can only be estimated; see Carney 2000c: 69–70, 132).

  15 See discussions and references to the marriage of each wife in Carney 2000c: 57–68.

  16 For instance, Heckel 2003: 199, citing the statements of Satyrus in Athenaeus

  148 Notes

  (13.557e) and Plutarch ( Alex. 9.4). However, Plutarch makes a similar claim about Philip’s marriage to Olympias; in her case, we know enough about her family to realize that it is unlikely to have been true but the mystery of Attalus and Cleopatra’s origins (see below) obscures the issue for the last marriage. See below for the argument that Philip married Cleopatra because Attalus was already important.

  17 Carney 1991b.

  18 See discussion in Ogden 1999: xiv–xix, xxvi–xxx, 3–5, 17–29.

  19 See general discussion and references in Greenwalt 1989: 36–38; Carney 1991b: 154–72; Carney 2000c: 26–7; Mortensen 1999: 802.

  20 On the absence of a clear pattern of succession, see Greenwalt 1989 contra Hatzopoulos 1986. Both Goody 1966: 25 and Stafford 1983: 173 point out that, world-wide, well-defined methods of choosing heirs to the throne are rare.

  Stafford links this truth to the importance of women in succession politics since struggles for the throne tend to enhance the importance of a mother to her son.

  21 See discussion of factors affecting the status of wives in Ellis 1976: 213, 254, n. 96; Prestianni-Giallombardo 1976–7: 96; Greenwalt 1989: 25–6; Carney 1992a: 171–2; Mortensen 1999: 798–801; Carney 2000c: 25–7. Greenwalt 1989: 39–40 places greater emphasis on ethnicity as a factor than most other scholars.

  22 See Demand 1994: 17 for discussion and references. Speaking of Greek marriage in general, she says, “In order to establish her position in her new family the bride had to produce a child, preferably a son. Only the birth of a child gave her full status as a gyne, woman-wife.” See also Carney 1992a: 170, ns. 2 and 3.

  23 Mortensen 1999: 803 observes that the king’s sexual favor advantaged a wife in the production of heirs and so wives may have competed for his sexual favor.

  This, however, would only signify before the birth of children, particularly male children, and, of course, granted the vagaries of human fertility, even an unfavored wife might produce a son as the result of one sexual encounter with her husband whereas a wife the king found more attractive might, even after many such encounters, remain childless. The sexual favor of the king could also have been a factor in the status of childless wives. On fertility in polygamy, see further references in Carney 2000c: 25.

  24 Two possible examples: Ptolemy’s preference for the children of Berenice over the children of Eurydice or Lysimachus’ developing preference for the children of Arsinoe over those of Nicaea. Even here one must consider that a preference for the children of a younger, more recent wife, means that a king bypasses for a longer period the awkwardness that Philip and other rulers experienced when their heirs neared or reached adulthood (see discussion in Lund 1994: 196–8; Fredricksmeyer 1990: 300–15; Carney 2000c: 174–5).

  25 See Clignet 1970: 34, 41, 51 for discussion of similar situations in other cultures.

  26 See Mortensen 1999: 801–5 and Clignet 1970: 30–1, 45, 52–3, who says that tensions in polygynous marriages decline when each wife is separately housed, the senior wife has distinctive privileges, and the duties and rights of each wife are clearly defined. My own view (see below) is that only the first of these factors was present at Philip’s court and thus there were tensions, but that they were not equally present among all wives (see further below). Mortensen’s view (1999: 806–7) that tensions were generally modest and that the troubles generated by Philip’s last marriage have distorted our understanding of Macedonian polygamy is attractive (although I s
ee a greater degree of competition than she): the main problem was not polygamy in itself but the events surrounding Philip’s last wedding.

  Notes 149

  27 Heckel 1992: 213 suggests that Phila, who was apparently childless, nonetheless might have been able to use her influence on behalf of her birth family.

  28 Contra Mortensen 1999: 803, who thinks that Olympias’ status was very high immediately, that she was perhaps pre-eminent from the start. Her conclusions derive from the degree of importance she places on family as a factor affecting the status of wives as well as from her understanding of the importance of the Molossian alliance. She believes that wives who had very young children did not have much advantage because so many children died. As noted, I consider the production of children the major factor, even children who were still infants.

  29 See Carney 2000c: 40–6 for discussion and references on the career of Eurydice. She was almost certainly dead by 346, and may well have died much earlier.

  30 Since the date of his mother’s marriage, as with all of Philip’s marriages, is uncertain, so is the date of his birth. The only certainty is that Philip planned that he marry Pixodarus’ daughter in (roughly) spring 336 (see below for discussion) and this probably means that he was at least twenty; see further discussion in Carney 2000c: 62, ns. 47 and 48 and Ogden 1999: 39.

  31 Carney 2001.

  32 Mortensen 1999: 804 doubts that there would have been much tension between Philinna and Olympias when their sons were quite young, perhaps because she considers that high infant mortality would have meant that the issue was not serious until they were older. My own view is the reverse: these two had an early advantage as the mothers of the king’s only sons. Later, when Arrhidaeus’ problems were evident, tensions may have decreased, but early on they must have seemed near rivals for the succession.

  33 See Carney 2000c: 61–2. As discussed, Philip’s marriages generally had a political aspect and the Satyrus passage makes that explicit in terms of his two Thessalian marriages. No political gain accrues when a king marries a prostitute or a woman of obscure social standing.