Olympias
Page 12
That being the case, I will simply describe the result of this scary historical moment. The Macedonians soon had two kings, not one, and neither was competent. Arrhidaeus (hereafter referred to as Philip Arrhidaeus, since he took his father’s name when he assumed the throne) was king but so, as soon as he was born and his sex was known, was Roxane’s son, Alexander IV.10
Perdiccas, the closest of Alexander’s associates once Hephaestion was dead, and the man to whom the dying king had given his signet ring, acquired greater authority than the other generals. For the moment he functioned as both regent and guardian of the two kings. Constitutional niceties, as usual with the Macedonians, were not observed, primarily because they did not exist. Those present at Babylon generally confirmed officers and governors in the positions they had at the time of Alexander’s death. Then the generals rushed off to muster their troops, find allies and position themselves as best they could. On top of everything else, there were revolts in the empire, most notably in Greece and in the eastern provinces.
Far off in Molossia, Olympias heard the news of her son’s death. She was denied the traditional role of Greek women at the funerary ritual since Alexander’s remains were never returned to his homeland. As the years passed, first one and then another of the generals gained control of her son’s corpse. Alexander was buried, exhumed, and reburied several times over, but
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always in Egypt. Unable to act out her grief in the ordinary manner with a funerary procession and tomb, Olympias may nonetheless have raised the lament, another characteristically female responsibility. If so, apart from celebrating the great deeds of her son and the extent of her own loss, her lament may well have named and blamed those she believed had killed him.
All three topics characterize laments and Olympias came from a place where they were likely still an important part of the culture.
Dirges tend to be most dominant where vendettas are common; the leader of the lament, typically the mother or wife of the dead man, might include the wish that his enemy suffer the same fate, thus generating another cycle of vengeance.11 In the Archaic period, women, especially elite women, had played a dominant role in public funerary ritual, but in southern Greece, by the fifth century BCE, cities began to limit their participation and privatize it, partly because they wanted to limit the power of aristocratic clans and their ancestor cults and partly to control the desire for vengeance often inspired by laments.12 The elite, however, still dominated in Macedonia and Molossia in the fourth century. No similar legislation is known for this period in either kingdom. Moreover, the role of elite women in Macedonia (and probably in Molossia as well) resembled that of elite women in southern Greece in the Archaic period,13 when large public laments occurred and elite women were more valued as items of exchange between aristocratic clans.14
Olympias, I have argued, may have found models for her behavior in epic and tragedy. She may have recalled the words of her supposed divine ancestress Thetis about the premature death of her own son Achilles, also buried far from his homeland: “Not again will I receive him come home to the house of Peleus” ( Il. 18.59–60). She may have thought of the laments and hopes for vengeance of her female Trojan ancestors. A variant of the Armenian Alexander Romance has the dying Alexander write to his mother requesting that she “gather together the women chanters and lament Alexander the pitiful short-lived son of yours.” The narrator then reports that Olympias did organize “great lamentation for the noble spirit of her son Alexander.”15
I would suggest that she first voiced her belief that Antipater and his sons had killed Alexander in public lament for her son, though she may also have employed other means to advance her views. We do know that Olympias blamed Antipater and his sons, but the sources do not clarify when and how she communicated this belief. Although Diodorus (19.11.8) and Plutarch ( Alex. 77.1) refer to her charges of Antipatrid involvement in Alexander’s death in the context of events in 317, Olympias probably immediately suspected Antipater and his sons. If so, she could have used her lament for her son’s death as the first occasion for the broadcasting of her belief in the culpability of the Antipatrids.
Certainly, despite Plutarch’s implausible assertion that no one thought of death by poison until five years later, assassination must have been suspected from the start. Curtius (10.10.14, 18) reports that rumors about Antipater’s role began immediately. Hyperides ( ap. Plut. Mor. 849f) seems to have
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referred to the stories soon after Alexander’s death. Deaths of Macedonian kings, especially ones so comparatively young, generated thoughts of regicide.
The timing of Alexander’s death certainly benefited Antipater and so seemed suggestive. Moreover, Alexander’s seeming invincibility made acceptance of a natural death difficult. Granted the past history of regicide in Macedonia, the assassination of Philip II, the many conspiracies against the life of Alexander, the recent crisis in relations between Alexander and Antipater occasioned by the latter’s refusal to honor the king’s command to give up his position and come to Babylon, and the general tendency in the ancient world to suspect poison in the deaths of the famous, no matter their age and ill health, Plutarch cannot be correct. Olympias’ conviction that the Antipatrids had murdered her son was hardly surprising and seems perfectly reasonable.
After all, the modern medical science that has made most scholars doubt her conviction was not available to her. She was hardly alone in her conviction (Curt. 10.10.14–17; Arr. 7.27.1–2; Just. 12.14.1–9). How easy and logical to blame those she already hated. I see no reason why Olympias would not have been convinced from the start that Antipater caused her son’s death.
Bereaved people, however, often react to loss by trying to understand the death of a loved one in terms that enable them to explain it and (often) enable them to formulate an action in response to this explanation. Accidental or random death often seems less acceptable than death “for a reason.” The reason appears to give meaning to the death that would otherwise be lacking.
Parents of those who die in car accidents find odd comfort in the notion that their child’s death was the result of the unscrupulous actions of automobile manufacturers rather than chance. Those whose sons (and now daughters) die in war often insist that the war must be just and noble, fearing that, if the war is not justifiable, their child’s death is somehow rendered mean-ingless. Alexander’s ironically unwarlike death, not the heroic end he and Olympias would doubtless have preferred, probably made the imposition of “meaning” even more important. Olympias needed to believe that her son was murdered and nothing was easier and more plausible than supposing that those she most hated were responsible.
This supposition, however, did more than satisfy an emotional need. It justified her past views—Antipater really had wanted rule for himself—and laid out an agenda for her future action: vengeance/punishment for those responsible. Her enemies had become her son’s as well.
Though she would remain in her native kingdom until 317, Olympias started to act, probably as a response to the news of her son’s death, fairly soon after she must first have heard of it. Her actions imply that she understood that her situation (and that of her daughter) had changed radically, that Alexander’s demise had robbed them of the guarantee of physical safety that had been theirs while he lived. Not only did they have many Macedonian enemies with whom to contend, but a new Greek revolt from Macedonian control (the Lamian War, begun in the fall of 323) added to the imminent dangers.
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Now Olympias and Cleopatra needed male support, primarily military support. While each might appear in front of an army (see below), neither woman could have hoped actually to command one. Their financial resources may also have limited their ability to acquire military forces of their own.
As we have seen, Alexander had enriched both with plunder, and assorted evidence demonstrates their ability to fun
ction as patrons in command of wealth.16 Their long-term sources of that wealth, particularly after the death of Alexander, are unknown. Both apparently possessed enough riches to allow them to travel great distances, but the circular relationship between monarchy, generalship, plunder, and legitimacy that characterized the period17 suggests that their wealth may now have been more restricted, and this, in itself, prevented them from maintaining extensive numbers of troops.
Cleopatra may have returned briefly to Molossia at the time of her brother’s death, but regardless of whether she and her mother were physically united again, their policy seems to have been. Cleopatra, as we have seen, had previously joined her mother in opposition to Antipater. Thus she may also have shared her mother’s belief in Antipatrid guilt in Alexander’s death.
Although Cleopatra had been quite young at the time of her husband’s death in about 330, neither she nor her brother, in the years since, had displayed any interest in her remarriage. But within a few months of her brother’s death, Cleopatra changed her views and entered what proved to be the brisk post-Alexander elite Macedonian marriage market. Many members of the Macedonian elite, in response to the instability created by Alexander’s death, pursued security via new and sometimes conflicting marital ties.18
While we do not know for certain that Cleopatra’s first projected marriage alliance received her mother’s approval, her second effort definitely did.
Most likely, Olympias was involved in both.
Plutarch ( Eum. 3.5) reveals that Cleopatra had sent Leonnatus letters in Asia inviting him to meet her in Pella and marry her.19 He was a reasonable choice: kin to the royal family, a Somatophulax of Alexander, brave, and hostile to Cleopatra’s and Olympias’ enemy Antipater.20 According to Plutarch, Leonnatus, though claiming that he wanted to leave Asia in order to aid Antipater in the Lamian War, really coveted Macedonia. The implication is that marrying Cleopatra would have assisted him in that goal.
Since he arrived to raise the siege of Lamia in the spring of 322, Cleopatra’s correspondence with him must date to fall 323 or early 322. Though Olympias is not mentioned in connection with this episode, it is usually assumed that she was behind it.21 This is especially likely since Cleopatra’s suggestion was probably offered to counter a similar one Antipater had made to Leonnatus of one of his daughters in marriage (probably in the fall of 323).22 Unfortunately for Cleopatra, Leonnatus raised the siege, but died doing so. Although his early elimination voided this marital initiative, it typifies the policy Olympias and her daughter demonstrably pursued: military aid from one of the Successors obtained through marriage to Cleopatra (who
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was still young enough to bear children with Argead blood) and opposition to the goals and interests of the Antipatrids.
Next (summer or fall 322), Olympias dispatched Cleopatra to Sardis in Asia Minor (the location of much of the Macedonian army, the two kings, and the regent Perdiccas) in order to stymie another of Antipater’s marital initiatives, the marriage of his daughter Nicaea to Perdiccas ( FGrH 156 F 9, 21–6). Since Nicaea and Cleopatra arrived in Sardis about the same time (Diod. 18.23.1), their respective parents must have sent them off at about the same time. Perdiccas had asked for Nicaea soon after Alexander’s death, when he desperately needed Antipater’s support. Now, supposedly, he preferred Cleopatra because of her Argead blood, but could not afford to offend Antipater. He therefore married Nicaea but continued to negotiate with Cleopatra secretly (Diod. 18.23.3, 25.3; Just. 13.6.4–8). The discovery of Perdiccas’ dealings with Cleopatra (winter 322/1) led to a war against him by Antipater, Craterus, Ptolemy, and others. Justin (13.6.12–13) claims that Perdiccas consulted with his friends as to whether to pursue the war in Macedonia or in Egypt, against Ptolemy. Some advised him to choose Macedonia, where Olympias would add significant force to their faction and gain the favor of the Macedonians because of the reputations of Alexander and Philip. In the end, he went to Egypt, experienced a series of political and military defeats, and his own officers assassinated him.23
This second projected marriage alliance had been more ambitious and certainly more risky. The fall of Perdiccas left Cleopatra in Sardis, in what proved to be a deteriorating position. By staying, she kept close to her possible marriage market, but also remained close to danger. Many of Perdiccas’ associates, including his sister, were killed or under sentence of death. Eumenes, who had been Cleopatra’s advocate in her marriage negotiations with Perdiccas, and who was now outlawed, appeared in Sardis.
According to Justin (14.1.7–8), he hoped to use Cleopatra’s influence as Alexander’s sister further to secure the loyalty of his officers. Plutarch ( Eum.
8.4) offers a very different motive for his arrival in Sardis: he wanted to confront Antipater and impress Cleopatra. She, however, fearful to give Antipater any cause for accusations, asked him to leave and he did so. Arrian ( FGrH 156, F 11.40) more plausibly asserted that, rather than fearing Antipater, Cleopatra feared the blame of the Macedonian people if she encouraged civil war. When Antipater arrived, rather than prizing her restraint, he upbraided her for her philia with Perdiccas and Eumenes; she defended herself vehemently in a manner, says Arrian, not customary for women, and made accusations of him in turn (one wonders if she too accused him of complicity in Alexander’s death). Arrian thinks the encounter ended peacefully. In a sense it did: Antipater did not kill her.
After this, Cleopatra remained in Sardis, but ultimately lost her independence. She died many years later when, apparently by then under a kind of house arrest by Antigonus, she tried to break out and escape to Ptolemy and yet another marriage alliance.24 Cleopatra may have continued to
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correspond with her mother until Olympias’ death, but they never saw each other again. However she felt about her daughter’s fate, Olympias would now have to turn to others to pursue her personal and dynastic goals. Though Diodorus (20.37.4) says that because of the fame of her family all the Successors sought to marry Cleopatra since an alliance with the royal house would lead to rule of the whole empire, she never married again. Her attempted marriages, however, demonstrate that what had begun as a struggle between two important individual members of Alexander’s court, Olympias and Antipater, had now become a broader struggle, a bitter enmity between two dynasties.
Olympias did have access to a source of military support in the years after her son’s death other than that potentially offered by various Macedonian generals. Despite or perhaps because of her daughter’s departure, Olympias remained in Molossia, and it was from a Molossian and another Aeacid that she found aid. As usual, our information about events in Molossia is poor.
I have suggested (see Chapter 3) that during the years of Alexander of the Great’s reign, first his sister, then his mother and sister, and finally his mother alone had acted as regent in Molossia and that some time during that period the Epirote Alliance was formed. When Cleopatra forsook Molossia for the last time, she probably left behind a son and daughter, presumably in her mother’s care. No ancient source calls Neoptolemus and his sister Cadmeia the children of Cleopatra and her uncle/husband Alexander, but a number of factors make it likely that they were.25 Cleopatra’s son, of course, would still have been far too young to rule on his own, and now he lacked the powerful support of his famous uncle. Once the Aeacids lost their powerful Argead supporter, a child-king with a female regent was too precarious a situation to be allowed to continue.26 The collateral branch of the royal family returned from exile and Aeacides, son of Olympias’ uncle Arybbas and her sister Troas, became king, perhaps co-king with Cleopatra’s son Neoptolemus.27
When Aeacides began to rule is uncertain, as is the exact circumstance.
These issues are complicated by the fact that in the fall of 323, when the Lamian War began, some Molossians joined the alliance against Antipater (Diod. 18.11.1). One could certainly conclude that Olympias, newly bereaved, eager to do harm to
the man whom she blamed for her son’s death, acting as regent, dispatched Molossian troops to take part in the war against Antipater. Diodorus, however, describes the Molossians involved as “those around Aryptaeus”28 and adds that Aryptaeus treacherously changed sides and went over to the Macedonians. Some believe that “Aryptaeus” was in fact Olympias’ uncle Arybbas and that it was he, not his son, who began to rule after the death of Alexander the Great, this despite Diodorus’ earlier assertion (16.72.1) that Arybbas was already dead ( c. early 340s) after a ten-year rule, and Justin’s assertion (7.6.12) that he grew old in exile.29
Aryptaeus’ change in sides is surprising: it could mean, if Olympias were still regent or influential with “Aryptaeus,” that the Molossians in question
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switched sides when Cleopatra began to negotiate with Leonnatus, who was fighting on the opposite side; or it could be (if Aryptaeus was really Arybbas) that the change came when Arybbas was recognized as king. One can imagine a scenario in which Arybbas got to be king again because Antipater had offered his support in return for Arybbas’ changing sides.30 In any event, Arybbas’ son Aeacides was soon king. One cannot believe that Aeacides assumed the throne with help from Antipater, granted that the rest of his life he supported Olympias (Paus. 1.11.3), at some cost to himself, and opposed the Antipatrids.31 It is far more likely that Olympias invited her nephew to return in order to buttress her now less secure position, especially against Antipater,32 and that Aeacides felt that he was in her debt.33 I have already noted the power of Aeacid dynastic loyalty.34
In any event, by 320, with the murder of Perdiccas and Antipater’s assumption of the regency and personal control of the kings, any hope Olympias had to gain greater power and influence through her daughter had faded.
Her enemy was now supreme. Antipater’s stay in Asia was brief, and when he returned, he brought with him both kings. Perhaps Olympias had hoped from the start that she would be able to become her grandson Alexander IV’s guardian and ensure that he lived long enough to rule in more than name, but so long as he remained in Asia, that could be only a dream.35 Antipater brought the young king much closer to his grandmother, although, naturally, that was hardly his goal.