Macedonia had a large population and rich timber and mineral resources but the only Macedonian king who had begun to take advantage of this potential, Archelaus, was assassinated, and Macedonia once more sank into instability. The result of this chaotic history was a personal monarchy of a nearly Homeric sort, one with little ceremony. The king was chief administrative, religious, and military leader. He was always escorted, as were Homeric leaders, by Hetairoi (Companions), who accompanied him at court and in battle. They were part of a warrior elite who fought on horseback; until the reign of Philip they were virtually the only Macedonian military force. The king’s Companions hunted, drank, and sometimes had sexual relations with the king. The intimate relationship between king and elite began early. By Philip’s day and quite possibly sooner, the custom had developed of sending the sons of great families to court (though often termed
“Pages” the members of this group are more accurately called “Royal Youths”) where they served the king as personal attendants and bodyguards.3
Although the distinction between the ruler and the rest of the elite was not great, the rule of the Argead clan was the only fixed element in a country where virtually every other political aspect of life was unstable.4 Even the royal residence was changeable: Archelaus had created a new capital at Pella, close to the coast but Aegae, the old capital on the slopes above the
Olympias, wife of Philip II 21
coastal plain, was still where the Argeads were buried and where they spent considerable time.5
Although some earlier Argead kings had probably practiced polygamy, Philip did so on an unprecedented scale.6 In the end, he married seven women.
Most of these marriages were clearly part of his initial move to stabilize the kingdom and secure its borders. Much of what we know about Philip’s marriages and the children they produced comes from a famous passage7 in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai (13.557b–e) that contains a fragment of Satyrus’
life of Philip II.8 The passage makes a generalization about the connection between Philip’s marriages and his wars (this initial statement is that of Athenaeus, not Satyrus), the quotation (or paraphrase) from Satyrus then begins with the list (in apparent chronological order) of his wives and the children he had by each, and concludes with material about events toward the end of Philip’s reign. Since this fragment is crucial to understanding the circumstance in which Olympias found herself, I offer a translation of the entire passage:
Philip of the Macedonians did not lead women into war, as did Darius (the one deposed by Alexander), who, throughout the whole campaign, led around three hundred concubines, as Dicaearchus records in the third book of his History of Greece. But Philip always married in connection to a war. Anyway, in the twenty-two years in which he reigned, as Satyrus says in his Life of him, Philip, having married Audata an Illyrian woman, had by her a daughter Cynnane and he also married Phila the sister of Derdas and Machatas. Wishing to govern the Thessalian nation as well, he begot children by two Thessalian women, of whom one was a Pheraean, Nicesipolis, who bore to him Thessalonice, the other the Larissan Philinna by whom he fathered Arrhidaeus. And, in addition, he also gained the kingdom of the Molossians, having married Olympias, by whom he had Alexander and Cleopatra. And when he conquered Thrace, Cothelas the king of the Thracians came over to him, bringing his daughter Meda and many gifts. Having married her also, he brought her in beside Olympias. In addition to all of these, having conceived a passion for her, he married Cleopatra, the sister of Hippostratus as well as the niece of Attalus. And, having brought her in beside Olympias, he troubled every aspect of his life, for right away, during the actual wedding festivities, Attalus said, “Now, at any rate, genuine not bastard kings will be born.” And Alexander, having heard this, threw the cup which he held in his hands at Attalus and thereupon he threw his cup at Alexander. And after these things, Olympias went into exile among the Molossians and Alexander among the Illyrians and Cleopatra bore a daughter to Philip called Europa.
Scholars continue to debate many aspects of this passage. The phrase I have translated “in connection to a war” is vague and could refer to a marriage
22 Olympias, wife of Philip II made at the end of a war, but also to one before or during a war. It is therefore not really possible to date Philip’s marriages by his wars9 and the rest of the passage, in fact, fails to connect Philip’s marriages to wars, although it often connects them to political aims.10 Satyrus intended the list that follows to be in chronological order, but he may not have known the exact order of some of the earlier marriages, which could be why his language is vaguer in those sections.11
Despite all this uncertainty, several things relevant to Olympias’ situation seem either certain or very likely. Olympias’ name appears fifth on the list; it is probable that she was Philip’s fifth bride; if she was not, then she was his fourth and the fifth marriage came soon thereafter.12 What this means is that Philip married at least four women and more likely five within a two-year period. Even if his fifth marriage was not to Olympias but Nicesipolis, as is sometimes suggested, a long gap would still exist between that marriage and his last two. Since his early marriages produced five children fairly quickly but did not continue to do so, one must also note a long gap in the production of children. After the birth of Thessalonice, none of his wives bore any children until Philip’s last wife, Cleopatra, produced a baby girl on the eve of his murder. Philip’s marriage alliances came in three stages: the initial period in which he quickly married five women, primarily to stabilize Macedonia and its borders; a long intermediate period (probably from 357 until 342 or even 33913) in which he made no new marriage alliances; and a third period (339–336), shortly before his planned invasion of Asia, in which he involved himself in a number of marriages (his own and those of other family members), primarily to stabilize the dynasty before his departure to the east.14
Olympias’ co-wives were, like herself, products of political alliances, some with external powers, some with internal. All contributed to the unprecedented internal and external stability that characterized the reign of Philip.
Audata, an Illyrian possibly related to the king Bardylis, likely married Philip as part of a settlement after his defeat of Bardylis. Philip’s two Thessalian marriages speak to the importance of Thessaly (a region bordering Philip’s own with excellent cavalry and a culture comparatively similar to that of Macedonia) to the growth of Philip’s military machine. Phila, apparently a member of the Upper Macedonian house of Elimeia, was clearly married as part of Philip’s successful efforts to incorporate the mountainous regions of Macedonia into royal control in a thoroughgoing way. The marriage of Meda, the daughter of a Getic king, connects to stabilizing the Thracian border after Philip’s conquests in that region.15 Though some scholars continue to believe that Philip’s last marriage to Cleopatra, niece of Attalus, was a love match,16 this too was a political marriage intended to conciliate a powerful faction and stabilize Macedonia prior to Philip’s departure for Asia (see below for further discussion).
When a man is polygamous, particularly when he is a ruler, the relative status of his wives inevitably becomes an issue. Some polygamous ancient
Olympias, wife of Philip II 23
monarchs, like Egyptian pharaohs, chose an official chief wife or queen whose unique status was indicated by a title, but even the king, in Philip’s day, did not use a title, and certainly none of his wives did.17 Earlier scholars used to sort through the women on Satyrus’ list, categorizing some as wives and others as mere concubines or worse, but most would now agree that this approach was a mistake, borne out of our own monogamous prejudices, those of southern Greeks, and the innuendos that arose from the rivalries of Philip’s wives and their factions. The list Athenaeus preserves, as we have seen, explicitly refers to marriages.18
While nothing indicates any institutionalized ranking of Philip’s wives, functional ranking of wives tends to develop in polygamous circumstances and certainly this seems t
o have happened at Philip’s court. Several factors contributed to the status of wives.19 First and foremost was the production of a male child treated as heir to the throne, but the production of any male children, the earlier the better, was clearly vital. As in Molossia there was a tendency toward primogeniture, but no really regular pattern of succession.20
Being the mother of a daughter or daughters was less prestigious but still vital: it suggested fruitfulness and thus the possibility of future male children and provided the king with daughters who would be useful in marriage alliances. A childless wife was in a weak position, but was not necessarily without any status at all at court because childbearing, though the preeminent source of status for royal wives, was not the only one. The prestige of a woman’s family certainly mattered since this was the reason that the marriage happened in the first place, and family prestige continued to be significant throughout the duration of the marriage. Prestige could also connect to another factor affecting a royal wife’s place in the court pecking order: her ability to intrigue. A woman’s ability to function as a succession advocate for her son, to scheme, to work against rivals and build alliances, was critical, but a wife with powerful and eminent family members at court would inevitably have an advantage in this area. Although some scholars believe that the ethnicity of a king’s wife could influence her status, my view is that it did not in an absolute way (in the sense of an ethnic prejudice), but it could situationally as it related to a woman’s family and its continuing influence.
Audata, for instance, would have been affected by the current importance of her Illyrian family, but not by the mere fact that she was Illyrian.21 (We will return to this issue in the context of the troubles Olympias and Alexander experienced late in Philip’s reign, troubles some link to Olympias’ ethnicity.) Although I believe that one personal quality, a woman’s ability to scheme, contributed to the achievement of status at court, Philip’s sexual interest in (let alone affection for) a wife probably did not play a significant role in her status. There is no evidence that Philip actually liked any of his wives, though he may have. Ancient sources (Plut. Alex. 2.1, 9.4; Satyr. ap. Athen. 557d) speak of his erotic interest in Olympias and later Cleopatra but, quite apart from the uncertainty of their testimonies, it is unlikely that this erotic interest had any lasting effect on the status of individual wives. Believing that it did
24 Olympias, wife of Philip II derives from the false presumption that ancient marriage, let alone royal marriage, existed for the reasons and on the terms that modern ones do.
The purpose of any wife, certainly a royal one, was to produce children.22
Philip had many lovers, a number of them male. An erotic relationship with the king, as we shall see, definitely led lovers (especially male lovers) to expect reward and prestige, but lovers were not wives. Short term, catching the king’s eye could have given temporary advantage to one wife over another, if both were otherwise in the same circumstance.23 But the only possible way the king’s erotic interest might make a lasting difference in the status of a wife would be when two women had produced male children of similar age and equal ability.24 This did not happen in the reign of Philip II.
Though Philip’s wives competed for status, particularly because no fixed status marked out a chief wife or heir,25 one should not exaggerate or stereotype the degree of this competition. Generally speaking, competition for rank in polygamous marriages tends to decrease and coalitions tend to develop as the number of wives increases.26 If wives’ interests are not antagonistic, then alliances are apt to appear. The mother of royal sons might, for instance, ally with the mother of a royal daughter. Family ties and friendships could play a role. For instance, the Aeacids had traditional ties to Upper Macedonia, so Olympias might easily have established ties to the childless Phila. A childless wife with powerful connections might play the role of peacemaker.27
Both men and women in the Macedonian court were extraordinarily competitive, but women, like men, did not necessarily compete with everyone. We should expect alliances as well as enmities.
Olympias became the dominant woman at court though she probably did not become so immediately.28 Philip’s formidable mother Eurydice may well have survived into the early years of Philip’s reign; if so, she would have been a force to reckon with. Generally royal women had greater influence during their sons’ reigns than their husbands’, primarily because the mother–
son relationship often meant that the mother was an advocate in her son’s accession. Eurydice had proved a formidable succession advocate for her sons and she apparently played a prominent role in cult in Macedonia, probably primarily during the reigns of her sons.29
Apart from Philip’s mother, only one other woman at court could, during most of Philip’s reign, have rivaled Olympias’ prestige in any lasting way.
Philip’s only other son, Arrhidaeus, roughly the same age as Alexander,30
was the son of a Thessalian woman, Philinna. As Arrhidaeus grew older, his mental limitations became apparent: he was probably mildly retarded.31
According to Plutarch ( Alex. 77.5), however, these limitations were either not apparent earlier or did not originally exist. In the light of my discussion of determinants of the status of royal wives, it should be obvious that Philinna would, for some years, have been Olympias’ greatest rival.
Several features of the tradition about her, her son, and Olympias confirm this deduction and imply the existence of a rivalry of some length until, presumably, the clear manifestation of Arrhidaeus’ handicap inevitably gave
Olympias, wife of Philip II 25
the victory to Alexander and Olympias.32 Some sources assert that Philinna was not respectable: Justin (13.2.11) and Ptolemy, son of Agesarchus ( ap.
Athen. 13.578a) claimed that she was either a prostitute or something close to it, and Plutarch ( Alex. 77.5) maintains that she was lower class and without repute. None of these claims is likely to be true,33 but they are the sorts of slander that appear in struggles for the succession between royal sons with different mothers.34 Plutarch also reports ( Alex. 77.5) that Olympias caused Arrhidaeus’ disability by means of pharmaka (drugs or spells). Again, the charge is unlikely to be true, but suggests the existence of hostile propaganda and thus rivalry. Moreover, charges of witchcraft accompany rivalries in polygamous situations in many cultures, and Daniel Ogden has recently suggested that our tradition preserves the remnants of counter-charges of witchcraft by Philip’s rival wives.35 Although the evidence for Philinna is tenuous at best, two passages in Plutarch ( Alex. 2.5, 77.5) explicitly connect Olympias to the use of pharmaka.36
Olympias had certainly established her dominant position by 340, when Philip left the sixteen-year-old Alexander as regent while he was on campaign (Plut. Alex. 9.1); by then the king was clearly treating Olympias’ son as his heir. Alexander’s, and thus Olympias’, dominance was, however, likely established several years before that. Aristotle tutored Alexander for about three years, starting about 343 (Plut. Alex. 7.2–3; Diog. Laert. 5.10; Strabo 13.608). The choice of a distinguished royal tutor and the establishment of a separate “school” for him at Mieza seem to indicate the distinctive treatment given an heir. A letter of Isocrates ( Ep. 5), c. 343, implies that Alexander was, by this year, widely regarded as Philip’s heir. But if Arrhidaeus’ mental limits had become obvious by the time he was ten, as seems likely,37 then Alexander’s position may have been clear as early as 346.38
Shortly after his great victory at Chaeroneia, Philip conceived of a monument, the Philippeum. Among other things, this embodied Olympias’ and Alexander’s victory in the struggle for succession. Constructed within the sacred precinct at Olympia, in a building that looked like a temple, the Philippeum contained gold and ivory (a material previously reserved for images of divinities) statues of Philip, his father Amyntas and his mother Eurydice, Alexander and Olympias (Paus. 5.17.4, 20.9–10). The general significance of this ambiguous structure has been much debated, though it clearl
y hinted at the divinity of not only Philip but his immediate family.
In any event, since the Philippeum includes only one wife for each king (Amyntas had two) and only one son for each, it selects an official royal family and singles out Olympias and her son from the other wives and from Arrhidaeus.39
Ironically, within months of conceiving of this dynastic monument, Philip’s last marriage jeopardized the status that the Philippeum seemed to commemorate. Even in her most secure years, however, as Philip’s wife, Olympias would always have had to be vigilant to slights and mood changes on his part. In the absence of fixed titles and defined positions for chief wife and
26 Olympias, wife of Philip II heir, succession and status were fluid by definition and mother and son would have had to keep a weather eye on the king. The chronic uncertainty of the situation of even the most dominant royal wife inevitably colored her relationships with her husband and her children. In effect, a degree of paranoia was a practical necessity for survival at Philip’s court, but this same instinct to look for plots and hostility could not only preserve a royal mother and her son but could lead them to self-destructive behavior.
We know almost nothing about Olympias’ relationship with her husband, and what little we do know relates to the troubled last two years of Philip’s reign. There is no good evidence for an estrangement between them prior to that period. Granted that Philip continued to make indications that Alexander was his heir, there probably was no estrangement. That Olympias had only two children by Philip, probably born within a year or two of each other, is not evidence of estrangement after Cleopatra’s birth, c. 355.
The fertility of women in polygamous marriages tends to decline for a variety of factors,40 but the more important point is that Olympias is the only wife of Philip generally acknowledged to have had more than one child by the king (see below for the possibility, rejected by most scholars, that his last wife, Cleopatra, had two children). Unless one concludes that he became “estranged” from all his wives shortly after a child was born to each, one must conclude that Olympias’ failure to produce more children is not proof of estrangement. Indeed, as late as 341, Philip had an agent doing shopping for her in Athens, suggesting that no estrangement existed at that time.41
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