Olympias

by Elizabeth Carney

  Legalities, particularly questions of treason, are dubious in any civil war period, especially in Macedonia, where treason and legitimacy were in this period determined by military success alone. Olympias’ treatment of Iolaus’

  grave (particularly if she, in effect, “unburied” him) and Cassander’s refusal to allow her burial, as well as the denial of burial to Alcetas, could all be understood as judicially inspired, but these acts really have much more to do with the world of Homer and a society in which clan and family (the living and the dead) mattered a great deal and vengeance went on past death itself.

  I have argued that legality was never a major issue in Macedonian society generally. After the death of Alexander and certainly after that of Perdiccas, legitimacy is simply not a useful or viable concept for historians to apply.

  Arguably, none of the Successors had any genuine legitimacy, but one can certainly imagine a legal basis for all three actions. Olympias probably believed that Iolaus had committed treason since she believed that he had killed her son. Cassander doubtless thought that Olympias had committed treason by killing Philip Arrhidaeus and sacrilege by dishonoring Iolaus. For example, after the murder of Perdiccas, the Macedonian army condemned Eumenes, Alcetas, and other Perdiccas supporters to death (presumably their support for Perdiccas was now seen as treason; Diod. 18.37.2), though Perdiccas had been Alexander’s chosen representative.

  The world of Homer, and more particularly the figure of Achilles, is the more meaningful context. Macedonians might treat the remains of a dead enemy, particularly a former philos, honorably, as Eumenes did the body of Craterus (Nep. Eum. 4.4) and Antigonus that of Eumenes (Diod. 19.44.2; Plut. Eum. 19.1). These were not personal enemies but political ones. It was different when the conflict was personal and bitter. Diodorus (18.47.3) reports that once Antigonus was given Alcetas’ body, he maltreated the body for three days and then threw it out unburied. Curtius (4.6.25–9)119 claimed that Alexander dragged Batis, the commandant of Gaza, around the city by his heels, going one better than Achilles since Batis was alive at the beginning of this process. This story is more likely to be true than not,120 irrespective of whether, as Curtius claims, Alexander actually announced that he did this in imitation of his ancestor Achilles. Olympias believed herself to be the linear descendant of Achilles, too; Cassander, like Alexander, had much of Homeric epic by heart (Athen. 14.620b); and the Macedonian elite generally “chose to present themselves in Homeric behavioral patterns.”121

  The point of a refusal to permit burial was not simply to dishonor one individual and that individual’s memory, but to do harm to an entire family, to the philoi of the dead, to the kleos (fame) of the family. The dead were still members of the oikos and their remains could be exiled or allowed to return along with living members of the clan.122 Burial of the dead was the

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  peculiar responsibility of the family and refusal to allow them to perform their duty (or exhumation) dishonored them, too.123 In their treatment of the dead, Olympias acted against the clan of Antipater, not simply his sons, and Cassander against not only Olympias, but the Aeacids and, to some degree, one branch of the Argeads.124 Because of the powerful nature of familial obligation for burial, one suspects that the family (or sympathizers) buried most people who were supposedly left unburied. Certainly Diodorus (18.47.3) reports that Alcetas did ultimately receive honorable burial by supporters (his family having all been murdered). And, despite Cassander’s decision, Aeacids did manage to bury Olympias and raise a tomb over her remains (see Chapter 6). In the Hellenic world, even those on losing sides tended to have kin or friends willing to play less heroic versions of Antigone’s role. By his action, Cassander tried to destroy the kleos of Olympias and her line. His success in that regard, as we shall see, proved ephemeral at best.

  Olympias died, as she had mostly lived, trying to acquire as much power for herself as she could while attempting to safeguard the continued rule of her descendants. She pursued these goals with ruthlessness and violence, as did her friends and enemies. These qualities did not, however, precipitate her murder and the final collapse of the Argead house. Olympias certainly miscalculated on several occasions in her life, most notably when she supported Alexander’s intervention in Pixodarus’ marriage alliance, something that could easily have cost her son and herself even more than it did. One could argue that putting her trust in Polyperchon was a fatal miscalculation, but such an assessment assumes that better alternatives were available to her and I doubt that they were. Had Olympias spurned involvement with Polyperchon, she might well have died in bed of old age in Molossia, but Cassander would surely have eliminated her grandson, most likely more rapidly than he actually did. Whether or not Olympias initially grasped how poor an ally Polyperchon would be, she had no other available supporters with an army. If she had eliminated Philip Arrhidaeus and Adea Eurydice in a more discreet and/or conventional way, had resisted the temptation to dishonor the grave of Iolaus, and had quelled her impulse to eradicate the most important supporters of Cassander, she might have retained the support of some Macedonians for longer, but her failure and that of the dynasty were ultimately military. Untrained in military matters herself and lacking the support of a male relative who was not only loyal but an able commander of a large, experienced, and effective army, Olympias lost. One doubts that any royal woman in such parlous times could have done better. Her career demonstrates how much a royal woman of ability, nerve, ruthlessness, and ambition could accomplish; and, at the same time, how little any royal woman could do in the face of male monopoly of military power.

  5

  Olympias and religion

  Many aspects of Olympias’ life relate to religious experience and ritual. In this, she was typical of Hellenic women. Indeed, religion may have played a central role in Olympias’ identity. The impersonal nature of our sources cannot prove that it did, but one must recognize the possibility. Although Greeks, particularly southern Greeks in the classical period, curtailed female public action in virtually every other aspect of life, women, especially elite women, continued to play a prominent role in the public religious life of the community, as well as in the private cult of the family.1 Macedonian monarchy, still primarily a household monarchy in the Argead period, tended to give royal women an even more prominent role in religious matters because the line between public and private was not as clear as the line between oikos and polis in the south. As a consequence, religious activity of royal women could have an internal political dynamic. All over the Greek world, religion often furnished the basis for the creation, perpetuation, and interpretation of international relationships.2 This meant that women like Olympias could be involved, through religious matters (as well as philia; see Chapter 3), in diplomacy. In order to put the function of religion and religious issues in the life of Olympias in proper perspective, we must first address the general role of Greek women in religion and the more particular topic of female cult activity in Macedonia.

  Within the oikos (household), women performed ritual alone and with other family members. The care of the dead (preparation for burial and the rites at the tomb) was a peculiarly female task. Outside the household, women made dedications to deities, alone, with other women, with family members, or with fellow workers. Women of means traveled considerable distances to make such offerings.3 Female dedications ran the gamut from simple spindle whorls to entire buildings. Women served as priests, in some cases for the most prominent cults in the cities. Typically female deities had female attendants. Some communal festivals involved men, women, and children while others, though public, included only women as direct participants.

  In addition, women or men might make the personal choice to be initiated into one of the so-called mystery religions. Women’s religious experience

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  centered on female deities, on cults and rituals that promised healing or fertility, offered protection in childbirth and for
children, and that enabled them to cope with the stressful transitions of their lives.4

  Greek culture offered strong approval and praise for women’s religious actions. Fathers and husbands, for instance, might be compelled by law to pay women’s expenses for participation in festivals and for dedications.5

  Proud parents erected statues of their daughters on sacred ground when the young girls had been chosen to perform important roles in annual rituals.6

  Female religiosity, particularly as experienced in the more emotional cults, provided a way for women to express the frustrations of lives otherwise so closely controlled and to feel free, if only momentarily. This freedom, of course, was largely illusory, a temporary reversal of their ordinary powerless-ness that, by permitting a brief release, actually reinforced the existing cultural power structure.7 Nonetheless, women’s religious role in the life of the oikos and the polis bound the two parts of the community together.8

  We need to know how much Macedonian religious practice in general, let alone in terms of the specific issue of the role of women, differed from that of other Greek communities. Cult practice varied widely at the individual, family, and communal levels across the Hellenic world. Archaeology and inscriptions are only gradually illuminating the nature of Macedonian religious practice. Any conclusions on this subject must be tentative, particularly as they apply to the Argead period, but currently many differences between Macedonian religion and the Hellenic world look like differences in degree, not kind.9 However, influence from non-Hellenic Balkan cultures, particularly the Thracian, was vital. Archaeology has discovered traces of the cults of the familiar Olympian deities and other deities worshiped in the wider Hellenic world. Macedonians had their own cult to Olympian Zeus based at Dion, on the slopes of Mount Olympus. The cult of the god worshiped there resembled that of many southern cities.10 What little we know about the role of ordinary Macedonian women (and royal women as well) indicates that they participated in activities similar to those of women in the south.

  Nonetheless, Macedonian evidence does suggest particular areas of religious interest. In Macedonia, the various cults of Dionysus were unusually popular, as were the cults of Zeus, the Mother of the gods, the Muses, the Great Gods of nearby Samothrace, and Heracles, the supposed ancestor of the royal family. As we shall see, the royal family, particularly the king, played a role in religious cult, though its extent and importance are difficult to determine. Judging by the large and elaborately outfitted tombs of the elite, Macedonians took the possibility of the afterlife more seriously and perhaps more literally than did some other Greeks. At least one Macedonian burial has preserved parts of an Orphic papyrus meant, among other things, to enable the dead to reach a blessed afterlife.11 Two tombs from Vergina, both likely to be royal burials and possibly burials of royal women, contain objects or decorations with themes taken from the myth of Persephone, again confirming a hope for rebirth.12

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  Evidence indicates that earlier Argead women had played prominent roles in cult in Macedonia. The contents of burials at Vergina (ancient Aegae), which some archaeologists believe to be those of royal women, may indicate that Argead women of the Archaic period were priestesses.13 We know some specifics of the religious activities of Olympias’ most important predecessor, her mother-in-law Eurydice, mother of Philip II and two other Macedonian kings. Eurydice, like Olympias, was a controversial figure. As has been said, her ethnicity is uncertain, but she was probably partly of Illyrian descent.14

  Although Justin (7.4.7, 5.4–8) paints her as a nearly demonic villainess out to murder her own sons and commit adultery with her daughter’s husband, more plausible contemporary evidence depicts her as a loyal royal mother devoted to securing the throne for her sons. Current common opinion now prefers the latter version.15 Evidence survives about dedications Eurydice made to two different cults.

  A passage preserved in Plutarch’s essays ( Mor. 14c) is our source for one of these dedications. This passage praises Eurydice for becoming educated, past the usual age, for the sake of her children’s education, comments that an inscription she dedicated in association with the Muses demonstrates her love for those children, and then includes the text of the inscription, which has now been considerably emended. In the emended text, Eurydice says that she makes the dedication16 to or for the sake of women citizens in association with the Muses.17 The tone of the inscription is personal and there is no reference to a husband. (It may have been made after her husband’s death.) This dedication presents a picture of Eurydice that is a far cry from the villainous murderess of the same children referred to in this dedication as the objects of her devotion.18 The cult of the Muses was associated with women’s concerns in Greece and Macedonia. In sum, the inscription suggests that Eurydice took some leadership role in association with the Muses—why else would the dedication be made to or for the sake of female citizens?—and that she did so on her own, possibly as a counter to the hostile stories her political enemies generated, commemorating herself as a loving rather than a loathsome mother.

  Excavations at Vergina have revealed the foundations of an extensive temple complex in the agora, and within the complex the remains of two statue bases with the identical inscription, “Eurydika Sirra Eukleiai”

  (Eurydice, daughter of Sirras, to Eucleia).19 One surviving statue20 has been found.21 Thus, it appears that the statues and probably the temple complex itself were dedications made by Eurydice,22 probably during the reign of one of her sons, most likely either Perdiccas III or early in the reign of Philip II.23 Eurydice may well have been a priestess of the cult.24 “Eucleia” means

  “good repute” and the Vergina cult apparently involved a personification of that concept. Scholars have disputed the nature of the cult and the context for Eurydice’s dedication. The current excavator has associated it with one of Philip’s military victories or, more plausibly (and more recently), a political/dynastic victory of Eurydice.25 Another scholar has argued that the

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  Macedonian cult was similar to Artemis Eucleia cults elsewhere in Greece: girls made offerings before marriage at temples often found in market places like the one at Vergina.26 Granted that Eurydice had, as I have explained, troubles with her kleos (reputation), I wonder if she intended the shrine to reestablish and celebrate her reputation, particularly since she probably made her foundation in the period of her widowhood, in the course of which all three of her sons became kings.27 Both dedications appear to date from the years of Eurydice’s widowhood, when she acted as a succession advocate for her three sons. Both look like attempts to shape public opinion and respect through piety in order to make herself, her family, and her sons look more attractive and legitimate and to counter rumors suggesting anything sinister.

  Before we turn to Olympias’ religious experience and actions in Macedonia, it is important to consider her Epirote religious background. While many cults found a home in the region, we know that Olympias had ties to the best known of Epirote sanctuaries, the oracle of Zeus at Dodona. Tradition made it the oldest of the Greek oracles; Achilles made a libation to Dodonian Zeus ( Il. 16.233). The original cult at Dodona may have honored a goddess, but by the Historic period, Zeus Naos dominated the site, although a female deity, now called “Dione,” shared worship with him.28 Accounts differ as to the mechanics of the oracle,29 but the sacred oak was always central to the cult, and three priestesses, the Peleiades (Doves), served the oracle. Despite its remote location, the oracle attracted international patrons, though the majority of its clients seem to have been individuals looking for solutions to personal problems rather than Greek states.30 Nonetheless, the Athenians sometimes patronized the shrine. The first permanent structure appeared in the first half of the fourth century BCE, about the time that Molossians came to control the site. Most likely, therefore, the Hellenizing Aeacid house had become the patrons of Dodona.31 The association with Achilles would have made its patronage especial
ly attractive to them. In the third quarter of the fourth century, a separate temple to Dione appeared.32 Olympias’

  connection to Dodona relates to the cult statue of Dione.

  According to Hyperides ( Eux. 24–6), the Athenians had consulted the Dodona oracle for reasons unknown and the oracle had instructed them to honor or decorate the image of Dione. The Athenians accordingly had an especially beautiful face constructed for the goddess (as well as some other expensive accouterments) and dispatched these with sacred envoys and a sacrifice, all in a manner worthy of the goddess and the Athenians. Olympias then sent off complaining letters to the Athenians, stating that the land of Molossia, in which the temple was located, belonged to her and so it was not proper for them to meddle there. Hyperides argues that, if they objected to Olympias’ gift to an Athenian shrine (see below), they would be justifying her accusations and exaggerations, but if they accepted her dedication to their temple, then she could not object to theirs, particularly since they acted at the behest of the oracle. Clearly this incident has a political context.

  The time-frame seems to be c. 330, around the time of the death of Alexander

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  of Molossia and Olympias’ return to Molossia,33 about the time the Dione temple was built (or soon after), and perhaps about the time that the Epirote Alliance was created (see Chapter 4).

  Olympias clearly is using patronage and the denial of patronage at a major sanctuary to assert her own power and prestige, but the specifics of the situation are unclear. The timing suggests a connection to regime change, apparently one that affected the oracle: clearly Olympias’ policy and that of the original oracle were at odds, quite possibly because the oracle had been promulgated before she dominated Molossia. Perhaps her view differed from that of her daughter or brother (the previous rulers of Molossia), or perhaps the episode offers an early indication of friction between the Aeacids and the new alliance. One wonders if Olympias herself, perhaps in concert with her daughter, had dedicated the new structure.34 Political interest as well as religious concern probably motivated both sides in this dispute.