Olympias

by Elizabeth Carney

  revenge ( ultio). But revenge for what? Justin (9.7.1, 12) connects it to Philip’s supposed repudiation of Olympias in favor of Cleopatra. Apart from the fact that Justin’s belief in Olympias’ divorce is almost certainly mistaken, his own narrative, by involving Alexander in both the murder of Philip (9.7.1) and the death of Cleopatra (12.6.14), implies that something more than simple sexual jealousy was involved. As we have seen, the entire series of events at the time of Philip’s wedding clearly threatened Alexander’s position as heir and therefore his mother’s status. Attalus and Cleopatra had threatened the position of mother and son and now mother and son punished them for that threat. But, just as Alexander’s elimination of Attalus was intended not only to punish past bad actions but prevent present and future acts, so was that of Cleopatra. Eliminating her and her child meant eliminating one line of descent in the royal family, a line that had already demonstrated its

  Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great 45

  hostility to Alexander and Olympias.12 Cleopatra could have claimed that she was pregnant with a son by Philip. She and her daughter could have become tools or actors in subsequent battles for the throne.

  Olympias’ murder of the pair was a fairly typical piece of post-succession royal politics, remarkable only because the murderer and the victims were all female. Granted the trouble that another royal woman and her child later caused Olympias and her family, one can hardly claim that perceiv-ing Cleopatra and child as a threat was unreasonable or that the murder lacked any motivation other than anger or desire for revenge.13 Olympias was unlikely to underestimate what a determined royal woman could do, particularly one who had already demonstrated some will and ability to do harm.

  Quite apart from her presumed involvement in Attalus’ attempt to cut Alexander out of the succession, Plutarch offers evidence that Cleopatra had indeed done harm. He reports ( Alex. 10.4) that Pausanias’ rape—critical to the murder of Philip—was ordered by Attalus and Cleopatra. Although no other ancient author connects Cleopatra to this ugly incident, Plutarch’s report is credible. While it is possible that Plutarch mentions Cleopatra as well as her uncle only because he thinks of them together, as a dynastic succession unit, that is not likely. The reference follows his account of the Pixodarus incident and precedes his account of the death of Philip, so there is no obvious reason to link Cleopatra to her uncle’s role unless she were indeed involved. Whitehorne14 believes that Olympias and her supporters may have invented Cleopatra’s involvement in the rape in order to “excuse”

  Olympias’ subsequent murder of Cleopatra and her child. Indeed, the tendency for royal sons by different mothers to attempt to bastardize their rivals15 could suggest that Alexander and Olympias might have generated negative stories about Cleopatra even before her murder. However, no trace of a hostile tradition about Cleopatra survives. In fact, the sources portray her quite favorably. Moreover, Plutarch’s remark is so much in passing, so without rhetorical embroidering or moralizing, that it is difficult to attribute it to hostility. If her inclusion in the incident were fabricated to excuse Olympias’ later presumed murder of her, one would expect more to be made of it. Certainly Cleopatra’s pregnancy (if she were indeed pregnant at the time) would not have prevented her involvement in what looks like a clan vendetta.16 (Even the final stages of pregnancy offer no physical limitation on evil thoughts and plots. Plutarch ( Alex. 77.4), for instance, reports that Roxane, in the last month or two of her pregnancy, colluded with Perdiccas to arrange the murders of Stateira and her sister.) It would be a mistake to assume that most victims of dynastic violence were themselves innocents; more often than not they had been plotting too, but failed to move as quickly as their enemies. Cleopatra and her child were doubtless victims of Olympias’ merciless brutality, but only one of them was likely a genuinely innocent victim. Although the deaths of Cleopatra and Europa are the first known Macedonian examples of dynastic murder

  46 Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great of women (or girls), many more followed. In essence, Olympias’ assumption that female royals were fair dynastic game seems to have become the common one.17 In my view, then, Olympias’ murder of mother and daughter was an act of calculation; it may have satisfied a thirst for revenge or fed Olympias’ anger, but it was not simply an act of passionate violence. She was and remained till her death a calculating person.

  We would consider a woman who killed another woman and her infant a brutal murderer. Today, most people still find violence perpetrated by women more shocking than that perpetrated by men. Despite changing patterns of criminality, men continue to commit more violent crimes than women. A female murderer counters societal norms. Similarly, the sex and ages of Olympias’ victims would make the crime more disturbing from our point of view. Granted our understanding of children, especially infants, as innocents and our recognition of the rights of even neonates as individuals, most people would consider the murder of the baby even more upsetting and cruel than the murder of the mother.

  But how would her own culture have judged Olympias’ actions? To some degree, Greeks and Macedonians shared the expectation that women are, or ought to be, less violent than men (generally connected to perceived greater physical weakness of women) and more likely to pity others, but (see the Introduction) they often combined this expectation with the somewhat contradictory one that women were more emotional and irrational than men and prone to bad actions associated with these weaknesses.18

  Several factors indicate that contemporaries were not particularly surprised or bothered by Olympias’ actions. The mere absence of the incident from most accounts is suggestive; it was not an attention grabber. Unlike other acts of violence committed by Alexander or Olympias, the sources do not mention them again, at least in terms of Olympias. Dynastic murders were a dime a dozen before and after these particular deaths,19 and some of those murdered were children (see below). Philip’s mother had been accused, albeit almost certainly unjustly, of dynastic murders.20 One suspects that many thought that Attalus and Cleopatra could hardly have expected anything else once Philip was dead. They had committed themselves to what proved to be the losing side in a dynastic struggle and past reigns demonstrated what happened to those who made such a poor choice.

  In two respects, Olympias and her son may have been perceived as acting comparatively moderately. Apparently, they limited their revenge/justice to those two members of the family; the rest of the clan was probably spared, though Macedonian custom might have justified more widespread retribution.21 The manner of death Olympias chose for Cleopatra, forced suicide by hanging (assuming that Justin’s version is correct), respected the status and gender of the victim: a private and thus modest death appropriate to a woman, particularly a royal woman, as both literary and historical examples demonstrate. Olympias spared Cleopatra public humiliation.22 It is even possible that convention made it more appropriate for a woman to

  Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great 47

  kill another woman rather than for a man to commit the act.23 Presumably Olympias treated Cleopatra in this fashion because she wanted to respect the status of a royal wife, certainly not out of any personal affection or respect for Cleopatra. As we shall see, her enemies would not grant Olympias herself such a private and feminine death.

  The murder of the baby, surely the most repugnant of Olympias’ crimes by our standards, probably mattered less than that of Cleopatra to Olympias’

  contemporaries. Plutarch’s failure to mention it is telling. The murder of a male baby might have attracted more attention, but not, I think, much more. Greeks were hardly indifferent to the death of young children, even female infants, but they were more pragmatic about them, as the practice of child exposure surely indicates.24 Moreover, perhaps because children were understood not as individuals but as extensions of parents and families, they tended to be killed almost automatically when the rest of their kin were.25 A death that would seem not only inhuman but gratuitous to us would make a kind of crue
l sense to them. Significantly, Justin’s version of the murders of mother and child seems to focus on the horror for Cleopatra of having the baby killed in front of her rather than on the fact of infanticide itself, as though the baby’s murder was most poignant because of the mother’s pain.

  Both mythic and historical examples of child murders in the context of dynastic struggle occur. In one version of the aftermath of the fall of Troy, Olympias’ mythic ancestor Neoptolemus killed Hector’s infant son ( Little Iliad 14), whereas in Euripides’ Trojan Women, the child’s death is the consequence of a joint Greek decision, though one urged by Odysseus. At least three young Argeads were murdered by dynastic rivals.26 In the next generation of Olympias’ own dynasty, several child murders occurred or were attempted. The Molossians slaughtered Alcetas (Olympias’ cousin and perhaps nephew) and his children (Paus. 1.11.5). According to Justin (17.3.18), the people plotted to kill Olympias’ great-nephew, Pyrrhus, then aged only two, because of their hatred for his father, but Plutarch ( Pyrrh.

  2.1) recounts that it was supporters of another Aeacid faction (that of Olympias’ grandson) who pursued the infant Pyrrhus.

  Finally, in a world untainted by Judeo-Christian ethics, the concept and practice of revenge were much less problematic, more likely to be considered the enactment of justice. The proverbial Greek injunction to help friends and harm enemies generated a very different moral imperative, one that Olympias observed.27 Feuds passed from generation to generation in Greek aristocratic society, as we shall see in Macedonia and Molossia.28 Attributions of vengeance as motivation are, however, problematic. Many violent acts, like Olympias’ murders, could have been inspired by revenge, but would also have conveyed practical benefits to the perpetrators. I am reluctant, however, to assume that revenge was the prime determinant unless there is some indication that an act was publicly announced as revenge (see Chapter 4).29

  48 Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great By her actions at the very start of Alexander’s reign, Olympias showed herself to be ruthless and savage, but no more so than the rest of the Macedonian elite. Coupled with enduring uncertainty about her role in the death of Philip, this perception meant that Olympias’ contemporaries had reason to fear betraying her. Nothing suggests that those contemporaries saw her as irrational or erratic; indeed, they may even have assumed that she had simply followed her son’s bidding.

  One important aspect of Alexander’s early reign was a non-event: he did not marry and so did not produce any children before his departure for Asia.

  Diodorus (17.16.2) claims that Antipater and Parmenio tried to persuade Alexander to remedy this omission and that he refused. Certainly years passed before he married and many more years before he produced any children. If Parmenio and Antipater really did try to get Alexander to marry, doubtless each hoped he would marry a daughter of theirs. Alexander’s initial postponement of marriage probably sprang from a reluctance to choose one man’s daughter over the other’s and, more generally, from his experiences in Philip’s reign, experiences that led him to view marriages as sources of trouble, factionalism, and complexity.30 Mothers in the Greek world generally had no formal or legal role in the marriages of sons, but we know that Olympias had once involved herself in Alexander’s marriage prospects (see Chapter 2) and she may well have done so again. His long delay in marrying (in addition to the fact that when he did marry, his brides were Asian) gave his mother and, to some degree, his full sister, greater prominence than they would otherwise have had. It is certainly possible that Olympias, pursuing her self-interest, supported the idea of marital delay.31

  My focus is on Olympias, but one cannot consider her life without some reference to her son’s career from the time of his departure for Asia in the spring of 334 until his premature death in Babylon on June 10, 323. The brilliant trajectory of Alexander’s campaign is well known, but a brief summary, with stress on those events most relevant to his mother’s life, is necessary in order to provide a context for Olympias’ career during the same period.32

  Between 334 and 331 Alexander fought and won three major victories against Persian armies. In that same period he began to claim to be legitimate ruler of the Persian Empire and, after a visit to the oracle of Ammon at Siwah in Egypt, came to believe that he was the son of Zeus Ammon. The next year was critical. Darius was killed. Alexander dismissed the Greek allies and his army discovered that they were not going home any time soon. Claiming that he had been part of an assassination plot, Alexander executed Philotas, son of Parmenio, and then had Parmenio himself murdered.

  The elimination of the most powerful member of the Macedonian elite on the campaign was a sign of Alexander’s increasingly absolute rule.

  Combined with his developing “Persianizing” of the monarchy and court, the result was growing resentment among both the elite and ordinary soldiers, resentment that often flared into violence or the threat of it.33 The

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  following years of uncertainty (no one knew how far east Alexander planned to go) and difficult guerrilla warfare were the backdrop for two famous incidents: Alexander’s slaughter (328) of Cleitus, an important Macedonian officer who had saved Alexander’s life in battle, and the conspiracy (327) of Hermolaus (the so-called Pages conspiracy), a plot hatched by Royal Youths, younger than Alexander and his friends, who (among other things) resented Alexander’s changes in Macedonian kingship. In this period, Alexander finally married for the first time, his bride a Bactrian woman named Roxane.

  In 326 he invaded India, fought a hard-won victory against an Indian ruler, but finally had to yield to the demands of his troops to halt his eastern advance. During the period of Alexander’s return from India, he continued to experience difficulties with discipline. Once back in the heart of the empire he had conquered, he eliminated a number of the governors he’d left in charge, married two Persian princesses and arranged mass marriages of his officers and men with Asian women, and coped with another serious outbreak of indiscipline among his Macedonian troops. He issued the Exiles’

  Decree (a decision that generated political turmoil in Greece) and decided to replace Antipater with Craterus. In the last year of his life, he made Babylon his base. At the time of his death, Antipater remained in Macedonia and had yet to yield up his office.

  Uncertainty surrounds nearly every aspect of Olympias’ public life in the period from Alexander’s departure till his death. Her private life is another matter. Mother and son certainly remained in communication. In many respects, they acted as a conventionally devoted and doting mother and son.

  Alexander sent booty home to Olympias ( FGrH 151 F 1; Plut. Alex. 25.4).

  She made an offering at the shrine of Hygieia in Athens, probably for her son’s health (Hyp. Eux. 19), and arranged for splendid offerings at Delphi ( SIG I 252N 5ff., with n.334), probably funded from the plunder Alexander had given her. Ancient sources plausibly insist that they maintained a regular and considerable correspondence (see below for further discussion) and tend to mention their letters when the contents are political, but much of it may have had to do with mundane family affairs.35

  Olympias’ public role, in Macedonia, Molossia, and Greece, was far less conventional and proves much harder to categorize. To what degree did her son authorize her role and to what degree did she take advantage of Alexander’s long absence for her own aggrandizement? Lack of clarity about her physical location, position, power, and authority vis-à-vis both her daughter Cleopatra and Antipater, Alexander’s general, further complicates these questions.

  Though Antipater exercised supreme military control over Macedonia and Greece during Alexander’s absence,36 Olympias exerted considerable public authority as well. Alexander may not have defined their duties and spheres of influence before his departure; Macedonian offices in general—if they existed at all—seem undefined at this period and Olympias probably held no office as such anyway. Alexander’s failure to define the roles of Olympias
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  50 Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great and Antipater would cause problems, ones Alexander chose not to resolve.37

  Granted the military aspect of Antipater’s role, the fact that no woman had ever acted as sole substitute king in Macedonia, and the absence of a clearly defined office of regent, Olympias’ actions were not motivated by a frustrated desire to be regent.38 Her public role had three sources: her personal relationship with her son, a relationship that inevitably led others to see her as, to some degree, Alexander’s agent; her membership in the royal dynasty, in whose axioma (reputation) and religious sanction she shared; her membership in the Aeacid dynasty of Molossia, whose rule she shared and whose traditional alliances may have worked to her benefit. While these three sources of power always mattered, they came to matter more as the years of Alexander’s absence increased.

  Many signs indicate Olympias’ public power, despite the fact that Plutarch ( Alex. 39.7) claimed that Alexander did not allow her to interfere in his affairs or military matters. The second part of Plutarch’s claim, however, may have been correct. Although Olympias certainly did play a military role after Alexander’s death (see Chapter 4), we know of no such activity during her son’s reign. Military matters apart, however, Olympias certainly did

  “interfere” (it is not clear, as we shall see, that Alexander would have understood it as interference) in her son’s affairs. She (and her daughter) not only played a role in the internal politics of their two kingdoms, but also participated in international diplomacy. The prominence of women, particularly elite women, in Greek religion39 has been understood in terms of piety and conventional gender roles, despite the fact that, in the Greek world, international ties were often created, maintained, or, at the very least, interpreted in terms of religious ties.40 Female involvement in international religious activities should therefore be understood as diplomatic activity as well (see further Chapter 5).