Olympias

by Elizabeth Carney

  Today, majority scholarly opinion considers the testament a product of the political period between autumn 317 and about 305.30 The image of Olympias that Liber de Morte presents bears no resemblance to the complex historical Olympias, apart from brief reference to her quarrel with Antipater and withdrawal to Epirus. In this work, she is Alexander’s “Dear Old Mum,”

  a person to whom things happen, not an actor in events. Even the somewhat racy sex life the Romance allots Olympias is absent from the testament.

  Ammon is Alexander’s father, but not some sorcerer dressed up like him; Olympias is as respectable as Heracles’ mother, deceived by a god who either took the form of her husband or somehow combined with him.31 While it is possible that the origins of this work date back to the last year of Olympias’

  life and to Polyperchon or Ptolemy, the sentimental picture of Olympias and Roxane more likely dates to a period after their deaths and those of Alexander’s sons, but soon after. The testament’s airbrushed Olympias is unlikely to have been produced while the real person was still alive, making trouble, getting besieged, and then being murdered or (depending on your point of view) executed. The concern for Olympias’ income in retirement seems oddly bourgeois. The dumbed-down, prettified Olympias of Liber de Morte is probably the product of the decade or so after her death and that of the rest of Alexander’s immediate family (Thessalonice excepted), when sentiment in Olympias’ favor and that of the Argeads in general was still powerful but no longer practical, something that could be manipulated by one of the Successors. In the testament, Olympias matters mostly because she slept with a god and so bore Alexander.

  On the whole, the same statement applies to Olympias’ part in the Alexander Romance. Her character in the Romance proper32 differs from the staid figure of the testament, though she is still very far from the historical

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  woman. Many versions (recensions) of the Alexander Romance exist, in many different languages, from many historical periods. My focus will be the Greek Alexander Romance, the apparent ultimate source for all the other variations of the story, east and west.33 The Greek Alexander Romance developed gradually. The earliest-known manuscript dates to the third century CE, but elements in the Romance go back to the third century BCE. Some scholars believe that no unified text existed before the third century CE, but today more believe that someone wrote down a version of the Romance quite early, possibly in the third century BCE, and probably in Alexandria.

  Certainly some of the constituent elements in the Romance existed by that date.34 Its author is anonymous, although some manuscripts attributed authorship to Callisthenes, Alexander’s official historian. Granted that Callisthenes died well before Alexander and that the Romance narrates the death of the king, Callisthenes cannot have written it. The author is therefore sometimes referred to as “Pseudo-Callisthenes.”

  In any event, a variety of elements went into the creation of the Romance: a conventional if showy historical writer, some sort of epistolary narrative, traditional Egyptian tales and popular stories about the last native pharaoh, Nectanebo, a rhetorical/philosophical debate set in Athens, wonder tales, and adventure stories. In general, the fabulous element in the Romance grew with the passing of time, but, especially in its earlier versions, it retains material that, though not found in respectable histories, may in fact be historical. For instance, the Romance provides us with the story that Antipater sponsored Alexander’s recognition as king. Many scholars accept this story as truthful. The Romance offers a popular story of the life of Alexander, one in which Olympias plays an important role.35

  Olympias in the Romance differs from the historical Olympias most dramatically in terms of her sexuality. Historical writers barely refer to Olympias’ sexual self. Plutarch’s claim that Philip fell in love with her ( Alex.

  2.1) might suggest that she was attractive, but he mentions nothing directly about her appearance. The snake that Plutarch describes as sleeping with her ( Alex. 2.4) hints at her sexuality, but for Olympias’ husband, it is sexually off-putting. Apart from Justin’s incorrect belief (9.5.9) that Philip had divorced Olympias for infidelity (a belief possibly derived from the Romance), historical sources focus on Olympias as mother, to some degree as a political figure,36 but not as a sexual being. In the Romance, two different men (Nectanebo and Pausanias), upon seeing her, thanks to her beauty, desire her and plot to gain sexual possession of her (1.4, 24). When Alexander meets Candace, queen of Meroe, a woman who was unusually tall and godlike in appearance, the Romance comments that Alexander could have mistaken her for his mother (3.22).

  It is not simply men who take risks in order to obtain control of Olympias’

  sexuality; she herself takes sexual risks. Worried that Philip is about to divorce her because she has not produced a child, Olympias consults the supposed prophet Nectanebo (she is not aware that he had been a king)

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  and he instructs her to have intercourse with a god, thus producing a son, one who will avenge her for Philip’s bad treatment (1.4). In reality, it is Nectanebo, disguised as the god Ammon, who has a sexual relationship with Olympias and becomes the father of Alexander, but Olympias believes it is the god (1.7).37 Nonetheless, she knowingly commits adultery, albeit with a divinity, and the narrative makes it clear that she wants to continue the relationship and enjoys having sex with her supposed divine lover (1.7).

  Despite a handy vision sent by Nectanebo, Philip never quite accepts the divine identity of Olympias’ lover, so her sexual fidelity remains an issue.

  When Pausanias too lusts after Olympias, she resists his blandishments and bribes, so he assassinates Philip in order to seize her, only to have his evil plan thwarted by Alexander.

  The Greek Alexander Romance consistently portrays Olympias’ adultery in a surprisingly sympathetic way,38 whereas Philip receives less kindly treatment. Alexander’s own actions typify the ambivalent but non-judgmental attitude toward Olympias’ sexual activities that characterizes the Greek Romance. When Alexander was working out the details of his parents’

  reconciliation, he told Philip that Olympias “had given him no cause for complaint,” but when he addressed his mother, he reminded her that Philip

  “knows nothing of your sin” (i.e., that his father was not Ammon but Nectanebo) and urges her to beg for reconciliation since “a woman should be ruled by her husband” (1.22).

  While both historical authors and the Romance portray the relationship between Olympias and her son as close and both make frequent references to their letters to each other, the historical sources, as we have seen, generally treat the relationship (or at least Olympias’ role in it) in a negative way, suggesting that it was often conflicted because of Olympias’ demands, whereas the Romance pictures a serene (with the possible exception of the letters of Philip and Olympias to Zeuxis about Alexander’s schoolboy allowance39), intimate, and sometimes touching bond between mother and son.40 Alexander defends his mother against his father’s bad treatment and rejection (1.20), insults from Cleopatra’s guardians (1.21), and Pausanias’

  attempted rape (1.24), and he manages the reconciliation between Philip and Olympias. After his departure, Alexander and his mother write frequently (she is always his “sweet mother”; 2.22, 3.27, 33), he sends her spoils (1.28), arranges for her to send back Persian royal regalia for his bride Roxane, but also tells Roxane to respect his mother (2.22). He even arranges for a priestess for Olympias (so presumably a cult; 2.21). He says that he misses his mother very much (2.23) and, when he hears an oracle predict his imminent death, asks if it will not at least be possible to embrace his mother one more time before he dies (3.17). Alexander even gives Olympias advice intended to help her accept his death (3.33). In historical sources, their relationship is largely fodder for jokes and axioms about the bad qualities of women, but in the Romance their dealings, if sentimentally portrayed, seem nonetheless genuinely affectionate.

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  Compared to the historical Olympias, Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Olympias plays a largely (though not entirely) passive role in events. She does take the initiative to consult a prophet (1.4), but only after a servant has suggested it. She sets up further meetings with “Ammon” (1.6) but Nectanebo has manipulated her into this circumstance. As we have seen, she is the object of sexual desire but not clearly in charge of her own sexuality. When Alexander’s murder of Nectanebo reveals the truth about his deception of her, Olympias

  “berated herself for having been made a fool of by Nectanebo’s magic arts and tricked into adultery” (1.14), suggesting that she expected better of herself. Alexander has to save her from various threats to either her person or her reputation and she obeys his behests. Because Olympias in the Romance is so unthreatening, it does not depict her as a person who violates gender roles, as the historical authors often do. Only in Alexander’s reminder to his mother that wives should obey husbands is there any sign of interest in reasserting conventionality or any sense that it has been challenged.

  Perhaps the element that contributes most to the ambivalent attitude of the Romance toward the character of Olympias is the problematic identity of Alexander’s father. While the narrative certainly begins with the idea that Alexander had one biological father, the mortal Nectanebo (1.14), matters do not remain so straightforward. The narrator sometimes refers to Alexander as the son of Philip and Olympias (1.38, 2.5, 21). One might simply interpret this as a reference to the people who actually brought him up. When, however, Alexander visits Siwah, he says that Olympias has told him his father was Ammon and the god confirms this with a vision (1.29).

  Soon after Alexander affirms that Nectanebo was indeed his father (1.34), yet a subsequent passage refers to Alexander as the son of Ammon and Philip (1.35). At some point, Alexander’s male parent becomes the god, not some sleazy down-at-the-heel and unemployed magical pharaoh. The Romance honors the multiple traditions about Alexander’s parentage in a way that not only contradicts its own main narrative but problematizes Olympias’ choices.

  In the Hellenistic period, during which the traditions behind the Romance were developing and perhaps the Romance itself was being written, many physical images of Olympias may have been created, but none survive that can with certainty be identified with her. The statue of her at Olympia may well have remained visible until late antiquity and could have served as a model for other images of her, but we have no notion of what it looked like.41

  Moreover, comparatively few images of any Hellenistic royal women have been identified because Greek artistic tradition idealized and generalized female images far more than male, making it difficult to distinguish royal women from ordinary women, on the one hand, and from goddesses, on the other. Ptolemaic royal women’s comparatively realistic portraits appeared on coins, making it possible to identify some sculptural images as theirs, but this was not the usual situation. In practice, unless a portrait has an inscription naming the subject, the attributes (for instance, a scepter or a

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  cornucopia) that accompany the image may be the only basis for identification of a woman. Since royal women were often equated with goddesses and so shown with their attributes, deciding whether an image is, for instance, Arsinoe as Aphrodite or simply Aphrodite can be difficult.42 As we have seen, the statue found at Vergina in the sanctuary of Eucleia, dedicated by Eurydice, Philip II’s mother, has been interpreted as an image of Eucleia or as one of Eurydice. The head of the statue, though beautiful, is so generalized that, whether it was intended to represent Eurydice or not, it suggests little of any specific human being. Moreover, images of one person might allude to the qualities of another, divine or mortal, by resembling them.43

  Since we know of no specific physical attributes associated with Olympias at this period and no labeled images of her survive from the Hellenistic period, the only way to recognize a possible image of her is in association with her son. Certainly, at all periods, her image in literature and art is far more present than that of her husband Philip.44 If an image seems to be that of Alexander and appears with that of a woman, one must consider Olympias a more likely companion to the king than any of his wives, as Olympias’ prominence in the Romance suggests. Greeks tended to ignore Alexander’s wives because they were Asian. Moreover, Roxane, the only wife who produced a child, was not of royal birth. Olympias had a distinguished royal Hellenic lineage, fame that surpassed her daughter-in-law’s, and she was believed to have had a close relationship with her son.

  In this context, some scholars have identified the paired images on two large cameos, one in Vienna (Figure 6.1) and the other in St Petersburg (Figure 6.2), as those of Alexander and Olympias.45 Others have recognized in these figures various Ptolemaic or Julio-Claudian royal pairs. As this variety in opinion implies, the dating of the cameos has also continued to be an issue.

  Dates assigned to the cameos range (whether based on stylistic, technical, or iconographic grounds, or some combination of these) from the third century BCE to the first century CE.46 Certainly, the current state of the argument cannot rule out the possibility that the images on either cameo were intended to be those of Alexander and Olympias.

  On both cameos the heads of a male and female appear in superimposed profiles, facing to their right, with the male profile in the foreground. Both cameos idealize and generalize the female figure more than the male.47 The cameos, however, differ in a number of details. On the Vienna cameo the male figure wears a helmet with a snake decoration on its dome, a bearded head (Zeus Ammon?) on the side, and a thunderbolt on the cheekpiece. The St Petersburg cameo’s mane has a partially visible decorated breastplate (an aegis with a gorgon’s head and a bearded head) as well as a differently shaped helmet (like the helmet on the Vienna piece, this one is also decorated with a snake, but one with wings, above a laurel wreath). The image of the woman on the Vienna cameo wears a diadem and veil whereas only a laurel crown rests on the head of the woman in the St Petersburg cameo.48 Furthermore, the somewhat more individualized male head on the Vienna cameo contrasts

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  Figure 6.1 Vienna Cameo

  Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  more dramatically with the accompanying female head than is the case with the more generalized features of both the man and the woman on the St Petersburg cameo.49 The contrast in treatment of the man and the woman is present on both, but greater on the Vienna cameo. Some features on each cameo suit the “Macedonian” identification fairly well, but others, most notably the absence of some standard features of Alexander portraiture, do not.50 On the other hand, both the male and (especially) the female profiles lack the comparative realism of Ptolemaic royal portraits.51 Besides, many rulers imitated Alexander and so might have been depicted with attributes associated with him, without intending to depict him.52

  The iconography of a couple in superimposed profiles first appeared on Ptolemaic coins, initially those relating to deification of a royal pair,53

  although later examples might also be taken to refer to co-rule, since later Ptolemaic women did co-rule. Most of the paired Ptolemaic coin images

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  Figure 6.2 Gonzaga Cameo

  Source: State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

  preserved detailed, individualized heads and most of the pairs commemorated were royal spouses. Cameos from the early Roman Empire period copy the idea of these superimposed profiles, but the faces on the cameos, especially those of the women, are more idealized, divinized to some degree, and, if identifications are correct, often represent non-marital pairs, like a mother and son. If we recognize Alexander and Olympias in the Vienna and/or St Petersburg cameos, then we have representation of them that implies the divinity of both and divorces them from Philip. Granted the stories that claimed the first Ptolemy was, in fact, Philip’s bastard,54 such a Philipless

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  construct better fits the early Imperial period than the Ptolemaic. If this later dating is correct, then the image on the cameos has been filtered through the culture and classicizing modes of the early Roman Imperial period.

  By the later first century BCE, all of the dynasties of Alexander’s Successors had fallen to Roman might and the Roman state itself had been transformed from an oligarchic republic to a monarchy, ruled by the men we call emperors.

  However, because the first emperor, Augustus, created this monarchy by, in essence, denying that he was a monarch, the emperors of the first two centuries of the Imperial period (the so-called Principate) usually followed his model, playing the role of first citizen in public art. The reality was that they had become the heirs of Alexander’s Successors and, like them, received indirect and direct cult worship. By the end of the second century CE, the denial of the existence of monarchy had lost its usefulness and for the rest of Imperial period in the West (the so-called Dominate), emperors ruled and portrayed themselves in more absolute ways.

  These succeeding transformations of the Roman state directly impacted on the image of Alexander and, therefore, that of his mother. All the major extant written accounts of Alexander’s reign date from the period of Roman domination and virtually all from the Imperial period. People living in the Roman period shaped much of what we know about Alexander. For instance, in all likelihood, the Romans gave Alexander his epithet “the Great,” in acknowledgment of his skill as a military commander.55

  Recognition of the Roman origin of much of our knowledge of Alexander has generated a large body of scholarship about views of Alexander in the Roman period and the degree to which various Roman leaders imitated him, tried to surpass his accomplishments, claimed that they had done so, and employed his image for their own ends. Naturally, with so much work in this area, considerable variety of opinion exists.56 During the period of the Republic, most likely Alexander was a figure too troubling to risk imitat-ing.57 Those who did might have it used against them. Alexander was a monarch and Romans of the Republican period loathed the idea of monarchy. Moreover, he lacked the virtues of sobriety and self-control the elite supposedly valued, and he prized Eastern culture too much. Worse yet, his heirs were currently confronting Roman armies. More often than not, Roman Republican generals saw themselves as competing successfully against him and his record. In the early Empire period, even though emperors had become world rulers like Alexander, the pretense that they were not monarchs limited the ways in which they could safely use him as a model. Augustus, for instance, while in Egypt, visited Alexander’s tomb and employed his image for a time on his signet ring, but he replaced it soon enough with his own (Suet. Aug. 50).