Then, in the next year, Antipater did Olympias a much greater favor: he died. One can only imagine Olympias’ glee at the news that her long-time enemy was dead, but his death conveyed more benefits to her than the simple fact of it. The dying old general had left the kings and supreme command to Polyperchon rather than to his own son Cassander (Diod. 18.48.4). As we have seen, Olympias believed that Cassander, with his brother and father, had caused her son’s death. That an Antipatrid was no longer regent would have seemed a good thing in itself to Olympias (though Antipater had made his son second-in-command to Polyperchon), but Polyperchon soon made his choice seem good in a more particular way for Olympias. Shortly after he became regent, he invited Olympias to return to Macedonia, take over responsibility for her grandson, and assume some sort of public role (Diod.
18.49.4). She refused Polyperchon’s offer at least once and probably twice (Diod. 18.49.4, 57.2) before finally agreeing.
Let us consider why he made such an offer to her, why she rejected it for a year or two,36 and why she ultimately accepted it, embarking on a path that would lead to her death. By the time of Antipater’s death, after four harrowing years of civil and foreign war full of betrayals and reversals, Macedonians must have felt that they could count on nothing. Indeed, the old general’s death would only have intensified that sentiment. Whatever strengths and weaknesses Antipater had as general or administrator, whatever his popularity with the Macedonian people, he had provided the only order in Macedonia for nearly a generation. He represented continuity with
Olympias on her own, 323–316 69
the past, with the world before Alexander’s conquests. Almost all the other major Macedonian leaders, including Polyperchon, had been gone for fourteen years, seeing and experiencing things that were alien to those Macedonians who had stayed at home. Here was a people whose only political order had been provided by Argead monarchy, but there had been no monarch for all this time and the only male Argeads available were a dimly remembered mentally limited man and a half-Asian four-year-old.
In this situation, Olympias stood for the monarchy, for the Argeads, and she reminded Macedonians of their great dead leaders, that remarkable father and son, of more secure and successful days. As male Argeads became scarce, legitimacy resided in the women of the clan and none could claim greater renown than the mother of the conqueror. She had a great lineage of her own and had long exercised considerable influence throughout the entire peninsula, as Justin’s remarks (see above) indicated. Olympias and the remaining Argeads offered greater legitimacy than any of the regents. As a number of incidents in the early post-Alexander era demonstrated, the mass of Macedonian troops (both those in Asia and those in Macedonia) and probably Macedonian civilians as well remained loyal to the royal house to a much greater degree than did members of the elite, many of whom already saw themselves as kings-in-the-making. In addition, granted prejudice against Asian culture and women, Macedonians probably wanted to see Olympias rather than Alexander IV’s hapless Bactrian mother in charge of the heir.
Until Antipater made his fateful decision, Polyperchon had been a comparatively minor figure in Macedonian affairs, typically functioning as second-in-command to some better-known member of the elite.37 Once he took center stage, he proved to lack the nerve and competence in the field that characterized so many in the Macedonian elite. Because of that, he did not inspire loyalty in his troops and certainly he would demonstrate little of that quality himself. Though responsible for a series of military blunders that led to the collapse of the Argead dynasty, his political skills were stronger than his military ones. Antipater, aged and fatally ill, may have overestimated Polyperchon’s talents, but they did exist. (Moreover, Antipater may have based his decision at least as much on his doubts about his own son as on his confidence in Polyperchon’s strengths.) Polyperchon’s offer to Olympias was a sensible one. Diodorus’ narrative of events after the death of Antipater (18.49.1–4, 54.1–57.4) usually represents Polyperchon as a reasonable and competent leader attempting to cope with a man (Cassander) who was determined from the outset to undermine and overthrow him. According to Diodorus, Polyperchon’s offer to Olympias did not precipitate a rupture with Cassander but rather followed it. In this case, Polyperchon gained no new enemies and, by means of the offer, acquired the support and prestige he had previously lacked.
What exactly Polyperchon was offering to Olympias may never be clear, particularly since neither Justin nor Diodorus ever tells us when or on what terms Olympias finally accepted his invitation. (The narrative of events rather
70 Olympias on her own, 323–316
than an explicit statement in a source indicates that she must finally have accepted.) Still, the terms those authors use to describe Polyperchon’s offer and Olympias’ actions in the period may be meaningful, bearing in mind that I have suggested that Macedonians did not yet think in terms of specific, defined offices (see above). On three different occasions, Diodorus (18.49.4, 57.2, 65.1) associates Olympias with the epimeleia of her grandson. All the people the sources say exercised epimeleia of the kings had personal control and responsibility for them. This responsibility had been shared in the past and Polyperchon, presumably, was offering to do so again since nothing indicates that Olympias would also have been responsible for Philip Arrhidaeus. While those responsible for the safety of the kings had to protect them and so had to have some military power, when men like Antipater or Perdiccas had epimeleia but also commanded a large number of troops, the sources usually employ other terms to indicate these additional responsibilities. Several other terms employed with respect to Olympias and Polyperchon’s offer indicate that he was offering more than simple physical responsibility for her small grandson. On the first occasion, Diodorus mentions, in addition, royal prostasia. The significance of this term has been much debated. My own view is that it was not a specific office but rather undefined prominence and power. Another passage in Diodorus (18.65.1) says that when Olympias returned to Macedonia, she would have her former apodoché (favor) and timé (honor). These two terms may paraphrase what prostasia meant in this circumstance, in which case it was a general term, not an office.38
As we have seen, Olympias did not immediately accept Polyperchon’s offer, even though Cassander’s resistance to Polyperchon continued to grow. She turned for advice to Eumenes. By this time, Polyperchon had rehabilitated him (he had previously been outlawed for supporting Perdiccas), given him supreme command in Asia, granted him money and entrusted to him the best soldiers in the Asian armies, the Silver Shields, Alexander’s invincible veterans (Diod. 18.58.1). Eumenes, the sole non-Macedonian among the Successors, demonstrated atypical loyalty to Olympias and to the royal family in general.
We have already noted his friendly dealings with Cleopatra. When Antigonus, after the death of Antipater, tried to make Eumenes an ally and had him swear an oath of loyalty, Eumenes insisted that the oath he swore include the name of Olympias and those of the kings (Plut. Eum. 12.2). Later, Plutarch says ( Eum. 13.1) that Olympias invited him to take charge of her grandson and protect him because she feared plots against him. She also reinforced his authority, writing to the commanders in Asia to tell them that they should continue to obey Eumenes as the senior general (Diod.
18.62.2).
Diodorus (18.58.3–4) summarizes the content of the letter Olympias sent to Eumenes but also includes his reply. In this passage, Polyperchon’s offer is not specifically mentioned, but Olympias’ letter, in essence, seems to be about it, as well as the wider political situation c. 318. Diodorus says that
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she kept begging Eumenes to give aid to the kings and herself, stating that he was the most trustworthy of their remaining friends, and the most able to alleviate the isolation of the royal house. More specifically, she asked him whether it would be wiser for her to go to Macedonia or to remain in Epirus, and stated that she distrusted those who claimed to be the guardians of the kings but
who actually wanted to bring the monarchy over to themselves.
Eumenes sensibly advised Olympias to bide her time, waiting until the out-come of the war between Polyperchon and Cassander was clear. The content of the letter is a good fit for the other actions of Olympias in this period (i.e., her search for military support), demonstrating as it does that she was aware of the dangers inherent in the move back to Macedonia. The letter also suggests that her faith in Polyperchon was limited, as it was in all the other Successors. Olympias was an experienced dynastic politician and recognized how poor her grandson’s chances were and how comparatively safe she would remain if she remained in Molossia. Eumenes’ advice therefore confirmed her own view of the situation.39
That being the case, one wants to know why, rejecting his advice and her demonstrable previous caution, Olympias agreed to go back to Macedonia in the fall of 317, putting herself, her grandson, her nephew, and the future of the Argead house on the line, albeit with the help of Polyperchon’s forces and her nephew Aeacides’ Molossian forces. Olympias, by this point a woman in her late fifties, an old woman by the standards of the ancient world, must have had a compelling reason to reverse her previous policy and put herself and all she held dear in harm’s way.
Almost certainly her enemies’ actions (or rumor of the imminence of these actions) precipitated her reversal of course. Before we turn to what these actions may have been, let us consider the identity and nature of each of her two chief foes. One of these enemies has already been mentioned, Cassander, eldest son of Antipater. Though of comparable age to Alexander, Cassander had not shared in the great Asian expedition but, late in Alexander’s reign, his father had sent him as his representative to the king at the court in Babylon.40 Apparently Cassander had to negotiate with Alexander about his plans for Antipater’s projected replacement in Macedonia. Cassander resembled his father in his pragmatism and competence but proved capable of much greater brutality and violence than had Antipater. He lacked the glamour of service with Alexander in the Asian campaign and the heroic, Alexander-like style in battle that endeared so many of the Successors to their troops and helped them to build monarchies,41 but he was an able and efficient commander and administrator who had capitalized on his father’s military and political connections throughout the peninsula.
Whether or not the struggle between Olympias and Cassander began as a feud between two dynasties, it certainly developed into one. Diodorus reports (18.57.2) that when Polyperchon took over, Olympias remained in Molossia because of her enmity against Cassander. Since she was convinced of Cassander’s guilt in her son’s death, her quarrel had not ended with
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Antipater’s death. Cassander probably resented Olympias’ accusations about the death of Alexander, but more certainly he wanted his father’s role as the most powerful man in the peninsula, and, by this point, it is likely that he also wanted to be king. Cassander had supposedly disliked Alexander (Paus.
9.7.2) and would ultimately kill the king’s mother, wife, and both of his sons. Pausanias puts these events in the context of a dynastic dispute, noting that Cassander destroyed the whole oikos of Alexander, and proclaimed (9.7.4) that the subsequent collapse of Cassander’s own dynasty was a kind of divine punishment. Whether Cassander initially understood his conflict with Olympias as dynastic is more problematic. At first it may have seemed to him a simple struggle for power between two individuals who wanted control of the same area,42 but years of violence and reprisal transformed the antagonism into something more than that.43
Olympias’ other major adversary was Adea Eurydice,44 the wife of the non-competent king, Philip Arrhidaeus. She was an Argead by birth as well as marriage, but her heritage tended to put her at odds with Alexander’s branch of the royal clan. Adea Eurydice’s mother was Alexander’s half-sister Cynnane,45 Philip’s daughter by the Illyrian Audata. Cynnane had married Philip’s nephew, Amyntas, the son of Perdiccas III. Both of Adea Eurydice’s parents were therefore Argeads. As we have seen (Chapter 3), when Adea Eurydice was probably little more than a baby, Alexander had her father Amyntas killed, either because he actually had plotted against the king or because Alexander found it convenient to claim he had. Cynnane did not marry again. She trained her daughter in the skills of a warrior, something apparently traditional in the Illyrian elite. (Audata must have done the same for Cynnane herself, since Cynnane fought in at least one battle during Philip’s reign.46)
The death of Alexander opened up the possibility that Cynnane could move her branch of the Argeads back into power. Taking with her some military force, she and Adea Eurydice (now a teenager) evaded Antipater’s troops in Macedonia and managed to approach the Macedonian army in Asia. Like Olympias (though a little later), she took the initiative in order to arrange a marriage for her daughter in Asia.47 This time the intended groom was Philip Arrhidaeus. Faced with the threat this marriage might pose to his position as regent, Perdiccas dispatched his brother Alcetas to prevent the women from reaching the main army. Alcetas apparently killed Cynnane in front of the army, but instead of thwarting her plan, the murder brought it to pass.
The army, enraged at the slaying of Philip’s daughter, revolted and demanded that the marriage take place.
Despite her youth, Adea Eurydice was not cowed by her mother’s murder.
Once Perdiccas was dead, she tried to woo the army away from its loyalty to the male officers. Even the arrival of Antipater did not end her influence; in fact, she was able to use his failure to provide the soldiers with their back pay to gain yet greater support from the army. Only the support of some of the other Successors saved Antipater and enabled him, finally, to leash the
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young woman’s ambitions. Antipater, now regent, brought her back to Macedonia with her husband and young Alexander IV.
For Adea Eurydice, as for Olympias, the death of Antipater occasioned new possibilities. Clearly she, not her husband, initiated policy. Somehow—
we do not know how—she and her husband left Polyperchon and reached Macedonia. Adea Eurydice may have plotted a successful escape from Polyperchon’s custody, her husband may have been persuaded to insist, or she may have convinced Polyperchon to let them go. Once free of his control, Adea Eurydice, despite her earlier enmity with Antipater, dismissed Polyperchon and established an alliance of sorts with Cassander. The latter had probably conducted a brief military expedition into Macedonia while Polyperchon was in southern Greece, so she may have established this relationship while that had taken place. The specifics of their dealings are unclear: Cassander was certainly acting as their general but whether Adea Eurydice or Cassander was regent for Philip Arrhidaeus we do not know.
Thus, by 317, a confrontation loomed between Olympias’ branch of the royal family and that of Adea Eurydice. The younger woman had apparently long known of Polyperchon’s offer to Olympias. It is unclear whether Adea Eurydice, once she was an independent agent, turned to Cassander simply because she knew the offer had been made, as Justin claims (14.5.1–2), or because she had heard that Olympias had finally accepted it and was about to return to Macedonia, as Diodorus (19.11.1) asserts.48 (Olympias may have accepted Polyperchon’s offer by the time of Adea Eurydice’s departure for Macedonia.)
In a sense, though it does not matter which of these women made the first move because a confrontation had been inevitable since the bizarre compromise of Babylon—the creation of two kings, neither competent—had been made. The passage of time pushed each of these two remarkable women toward a dynastic showdown, one driven by their “biological clocks.” In the case of Olympias, the biological issue was age. She could not reasonably hope that her grandson could rule on his own until he could command an army, probably at the age of eighteen. The difficulty was that by the time he reached that age, Olympias, if she had survived, would be in her late sixties or even seventy. If she could not count on living long enough to ensure Alexander IV’s indepe
ndent rule, then the next-best thing would be to eliminate the most obvious threat to his survival while she had allies and military forces to do so. Polyperchon may not have been the most able Macedonian general, but he seems to have been the only one immediately available to Olympias.
Adea Eurydice faced a different kind of biological deadline. In the five years or so since her marriage, she had produced no children. If Alexander IV reached adulthood, Adea Eurydice’s power (and probably her life) would end.49 Worse yet, since she was herself an Argead, like Alexander’s sisters, she was vulnerable to a forced marriage if Philip Arrhidaeus were eliminated; many of the Successors would have liked to have children who carried the blood of Macedonian kings as well as their own.
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Some aspects of the crisis that loomed in the fall of 317 resemble previous events in Macedonian history while others had no precedent. Argeads had fought among themselves for the throne time and again, sometimes with armies, sometimes through assassination plots. What was new, of course, was who was in charge of the struggle this time. As Duris ( ap. Athen.
13.560F) observed, this was the first war between women. Though we do not know why, Adea Eurydice did not wait for Cassander to return to Macedonia with his forces and his greater military experience.50 She and her husband marched the Macedonian army out to meet the forces with Olympias at the Macedonian–Molossian border. If Duris’ testimony is correct, Adea Eurydice dressed as a soldier and may well have commanded the army that accompanied her; certainly her husband could not. Though she had spent much of her life around soldiers and had frequently addressed the troops, unlike her mother she had no practical military experience, and certainly no experience of command.51
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