Olympias

by Elizabeth Carney

  38 In other versions, the narrator is more critical. For instance, in the Armenian version, the narrator blames Olympias (1.15) for her actions: “Now depraved Olympias carried on in this fashion, revealing her true nature through force of magic” (translation of Wolohojian 1969: 29).

  190 Notes

  39 An exchange of letters between Zeuxis, Aristotle, Alexander, and Philip and Olympias (they write and receive these letters jointly) was probably part of the Greek Romance, although it is preserved in Armenian and Latin versions and is not translated in Stoneman 1991. These letters portray Alexander as giving so many gifts to his friends that he wants more allowance and his parents as reluctant to provide it. Thus the exchange pictures Olympias and Philip acting together, in accord, and implies some conflict and disagreement between them and their son.

  40 Jouanno 1995: 230 sees this as the sole similarity between the figure of Olympias in the historical sources and in the Romance. She also notes (1995: 224) that the theme of secret knowledge/conversation between mother and son that appears in some historical authors in terms of Alexander’s birth continues in the Romance. Her reading of the historical sources, however, makes them closer in tone to the Romance, more sentimental, than is my view; see Appendix.

  41 Bieber 1964: 23 suggests that this image depicted Olympias with a snake. One doubts that Philip would have agreed to this. Granted that the Philippeum must have been completed very early in his reign, Alexander would have been only slightly more likely to do so. Andronicos (1984: 129–31) originally thought that the small ivory heads from the couch in the main chamber of Tomb II at Vergina were portraits and suggested that one might be Olympias, but later stepped back from this claim. Smith 1988: 62–3 doubts that any of the heads are female, let alone portraits.

  42 Smith 1988: 2, 43, 48, 89. See further Carney 2000b: 26–30.

  43 Smith 1988: 48.

  44 Papisca 1999: 864–5; she connects his decline to the rise of the Romance, but the process could easily have happened in reverse order.

  45 See Figs. 11 and 12 in Pollitt 1986: 24.

  46 See discussion and references in Plantzos 1997, especially 123–6. See also Bieber 1964: 23, 57–8; Pollitt 1986: 23–9; Oberleitner 1985: 32–5 and 1992; Hertel 1989; Seidmann 1993: 85–7; Bernhard-Walcher et al. 1994: 90.

  47 The apparent youth of both female images is likely more idealizing, an allusion to divinity, and so contra Bieber 1964: 46 not a reasonable guide to acceptance or rejection of any identification.

  48 Bieber 1964: 57 implausibly sees the same facial features in the Vienna female image and the female head on the Aboukir medallions and fourth century CE

  contorniates (see below), but the headdress of the Vienna woman is similar to that on the Aboukir examples. Certainly the veil and diadem of the Vienna cameo resembles that worn by Ptolemaic royal women. Hertel 1989: 419 sees a dolphin on the front of the Vienna woman’s diadem, notes the dolphin backrest on the contorniate, but unconvincingly argues that dolphins refer to sexuality and thus Zeus Ammon.

  49 Plantzos 1997: 125.

  50 The snake decoration on both helmets, the possible heads of Zeus Ammon, and the thunderbolt on the helmet of the Vienna cameo would be suitable for Alexander, but as Pollitt 1986: 24 notes, the profiles, even that on the Vienna cameo, do not much resemble coin profile images of Alexander.

  51 Plantzos 1997: 126.

  52 Pollitt 1986: 24. Stewart 2003: 64 refers to images “infected with Alexander’s iconography.”

  53 Pollitt 1986: 271, 74. Under Ptolemy II, coins depicting his parents as the Savior Gods appeared.

  54 See Heckel 1992: 222 for discussion and references.

  55 See Green 1978: 9.

  Notes 191

  56 See Spencer 2002 for its bibliography. Her focus, however, is literary, so the bibliography is scant for art historical topics. For those, see Hannestad 1993, Stewart 2003, and below. Moreover, she does not deal with late Roman evidence of either sort.

  57 So Green 1978; Gruen 1998; Stewart 2003: 56–9. Spencer 2002: 167 sees the context for Roman views of Alexander, no matter how varied, as a persistent Roman “ambivalence” relating to Greek power and Greek figures of power.

  58 Hannestad 1993: 66; Woolf 1994; Elsner 1998: 3–7; Spencer 2002: 177–8; Stewart 2003: 63–5.

  59 See Vermeule 1986; Stoneman 2003: 325–45 and 2004: 167–86.

  60 See Zeitlin 2001.

  61 Vermeule 1982: 67–8.

  62 On the Boscoreale frescoes, Simon 1958 identified Alexander (mirrored in a shield), and seated male and female figures as Philip and Olympias, and interpreted the scene as one predicting the birth of Alexander, perhaps deriving from some Antigonid monarch. Stewart 1993: 279, n. 46 rejects her argument.

  Schoder 1982 interprets the seated female figure as Roxane.

  63 Livy 26.19.5–8; Sil. 13.637–44; Vir Ilus 49.1; Dio. 16.39. Dating the origin of these tales is difficult (Gruen 1998: 182). Aulus Gellius ( N.A. 6.1.1), a Latin writer from the first half of the second century CE, prefaces his story about a snake visiting the mother of the future Scipio Africanus with the statement that what is said in Greek literature about Olympias, wife of Philip and mother of Alexander, is also recorded about Scipio’s mother. Suetonius ( Aug. 94) tells the tale about Augustus but does not mention Olympias directly. See also Dio.

  45.1.23.

  64 Tataki 1988: 90, 106, 238, 326.

  65 Gagé 1975: 1.

  66 Kleiner and Matheson 2000: 1–16 for a general sketch.

  67 For general discussions of imperial women and their public presentation, see Kleiner and Matheson 1996: 27–100 and 2000: 17–42, 77–100; and Wood 1999.

  68 Stewart 2003: 61.

  69 See discussion in Blázquez 1990; Espinosa 1990; Millar 1993: 142–4; Baharal 1994 (who argues unconvincingly that Caracalla’s personal identification with Alexander had no political context or inspiration); Zeitlin 2001: 239–41; Stewart 2003: 61–2.

  70 Diodorus (78.7–8.3) claims that Caracalla collected the supposed belongings of Alexander for his own use, had Alexander’s images set up throughout the Empire, raised a 16,000-strong phalanx of Macedonians outfitted in what he believed to be period-appropriate gear, once wrote to the senate that Alexander had entered his body, favored Macedonians, reenacted Alexander’s visit to Troy and the tomb of Achilles (78.16.7; so also Herodian 4.8.4), and tried to marry the daughter of the Parthian king he was campaigning against, in obvious imitation of Alexander (79.1.1; also Herodian 4.10.2). Herodian (4.8.1–3) offers more specifics: he dressed as a Macedonian, ordered statues whose heads combined those of Alexander with his own, urged his officers to take the names of Alexander’s generals, and made an offering at Alexander’s tomb (4.8.9).

  71 Herodian (5.7.3) asserts that he changed his name from that of his grandfather, Alexianus, because of his admiration for the conqueror, the man so admired by his cousin Caracalla. Herodian was apparently unaware that “Alexander”

  is simply a Hellenized version of his grandfather’s name.

  72 Herodian also mentions specifics about his Alexander obsession: he had a nurse named Olympias whose husband was named Philip (13.3) and he placed Alexander among his ancestors in a shrine (31.4).

  192 Notes

  73 Vermeule 1982: 68 refers to Alexander Severus’ mother Julia Mamaea as a

  “veritable Olympias” and suggests that she and her advisors may have been the source of his Alexander emulation. Gagé 1975: 11 suggests that Mamaea consciously revived the memory of Olympias. Nau 1968 argues that Julia Domna identified herself with Olympias, but her arguments do not convince.

  74 Gold bars and gold Roman coins were parts of the same find. See discussion and references in Dressel 1906; Yalouris et al. 1980: 103–4, 115, Pl. 5, Figs.

  10, 11, 33; Vermeule 1982: 67; Savio 1994/5; Stewart 2003: 62–3. The uncertain provenance of the medallions once led to questions about their authenticity, but most scholars now accept them as genuine (see Vermeule 1982: 62–3 for refere
nces). The Tarsus medallions, contemporary with these, also linked to Caracalla, do not depict any figure identifiable as Olympias. One of the images is commonly identified as that of Philip, though it could represent a mature Caracalla, the fictive father of Alexander Severus (see Vermeule 1982: 61, 69).

  75 Some associate the medallions with Macedonian games at Veroea c. 225–50

  (Ninou 1980: 45), perhaps to Gordian III’s visit to the games in 242. Yalouris et al. 1980: 103 connect them to Severus Alexander’s reconfirmation of Macedonia’s privileges in 231. Vermeule 1982: 63–7 is less sure.

  76 Dressel 1906: 10–11, 17–19. See chart in Dressel 1906: 69 of obverse/reverse types. Two remain at the Walters Art Gallery, but the third is now in Thessaloniki.

  77 See Wood 1986: 52–3, 59–60, 62, 64, 74–5, 125–6; Kleiner and Matheson 1996: 81–4, 86–9.

  78 Vermeule 1982: 69–70 suggests that the “Olympias” figure on the Aboukir medallions could refer to one of the Severan royal women. The hairdo of the portrait makes his hypothesis, plausible in the abstract, somewhat difficult to accept: see Kleiner and Matheson 1996: 81–4. While one can imagine that the artist intended to allude to one of the Severan women as well as Olympias, the generic nature of the image (see below) seems poorly adapted to such an intention; a more portrait-like representation would seem necessary if one wanted to allude to one of these women.

  79 Dressel 1906: 31–3; Alföldi and Alföldi 1990: 2.85.

  80 Dressel 1906: 33.

  81 Hertel 1989: 419 considers Europa a possible identification of the figure on the bull-headed creature (Ninou 1980: 45 sees either Europa or a Nereid) but sees Thetis for the hippocamp. Yalouris et al. 1980: 103 connects Thetis to Alexander’s and (by implication) Caracalla’s imitation of Achilles, but it can hardly be an accident that the reverse seems to show the female divine ancestress of the Aeacids. The other two reverses are more problematic, although one could simply associate Athena’s snake with that of Olympias on the obverse. Toynbee 1944: 69, n. 52 suggests that Perseus and Andromeda could allude to Olympias’ affection for her husband. Such a suggestion would be implausible if one considered only the historical Olympias, but is conceivable (though not easily) if applied to the developing character of Olympias in the Romance.

  82 Yalouris et al. 1980: 103.

  83 The snake on the rod seems much closer to Plutarch’s account of Olympias’

  ritual and domestic use of snakes than to the later tale of her union with a divine snake, let alone the Romance’s sexual relationship with Nectanebo in the guise of a snake.

  84 Dressel 1906: 38; Alföldi and Alföldi 1990: 2.86 against Nau’s views.

  85 Dressel 1906: 19 points to holding of the veil as a universal female gesture in Greek art.

  Notes 193

  86 Gagé 1975: 16 argues that the Severi were the last Alexander revivers for whom the historical Alexander, not the character in the Romance, was the main inspiration.

  87 Gaebler 1906, Tafel V, nos. 3 and 5, Tafel XI, no. 25; Bieber 1964: 22; Stewart 2003: 62. The revival included games and Alexander’s cult.

  88 Dressel 1906: 31.

  89 Many uses have been suggested. See Yalouris et al. 1980: 117; Stewart 2003: 65.

  90 Bieber 1964: 22, n. 20; Yalouris et al. 1980: 116–17, Figs. 34–7.

  91 Alföldi and Alföldi 1976: 10.1, Tafel 1, nos. 1–11.

  92 Ross 1963: 17–21 is inclined to connect the image to Plutarch; so also Gagé 1975: 10. Dressel 1906: 31 connects the coin and contorniate images of Olympias and the snake with the Romance. Vermeule in Yalouris et al. 1980: 116 suggests that the Olympias figure (Fig. 34) was copied from a Hellenistic relief or painting of Olympias as a “divine banqueter” and was brought to Rome as booty. The 700th anniversary of Alexander’s birth fell in 344; some associate the contorniates with that: see Stewart 2003: 65–6.

  93 Alföldi and Alföldi 1976: 1.18, Tafel 22, nos. 7–12, Tafel 23, nos. 1–2. The exceptional reverse shows a bestiarius (gladiator).

  94 Alföldi and Alföldi 1976: 1.19–20, Tafel 23, nos. 3–6. The reverses for this Olympias type refer to gladiatorial games, the story of Heracles, or to the goddess Roma.

  95 Dressel 1906: 33; Alföldi and Alföldi 1990: 2.86.

  96 Kampen 1996. On ruler imitation of Heracles, see Palagia 1986; Huttner 1997.

  97 Dressel 1906: 333; Alföldi and Alföldi 1990: 2.86 point out, however, that though the attributes of this Olympias type are unconventional, the figure’s pose (particularly the way she holds the club) resembles that of the more conventional Olympias figure on the other contorniates (and the Aboukir medallion) rather than images of Omphale.

  98 On the Alexander mosaic at Soueidié/Baalbeck, see Chehab 1958: 43–50 and 1959: Pls. XI–XXVI; and Ross 1963. Ross 1963: 3–9 bases his argument on the text of the Romance and the tradition of medieval picture cycles that accompanied it. He believes that the damaged figure behind the couch on which Olympias and Philip sit is Nectanebo. See contra Chehab 1958: 49–50, who thinks that the mysterious figure is a divine messenger and that the scene represents the annunciation to Olympias of Alexander’s divine origin.

  99 Chehab 1958: 48.

  100 A fragment of a second panel above the first survives. What remains is the head of a bald philosopher, labeled “Aristotle.” This third scene presumably dealt with Alexander’s education. See Ross 1963: 13–15, who suggests that rest of the damaged Aristotle panel may also have shown the taming of Bucephalus.

  101 See, for instance, McLynn 1998: 228–9.

  Appendix: Olympias and the sources

  1 See Carney 1993b: 29, especially n. 1. Jouanno 1995 examines the representation of Olympias’ relationship to Alexander in the sources, but I am not aware of a general discussion of Olympias’ role in the ancient sources. I do not find Jouanno’s thesis, that the “Vulgate” authors (she includes Plutarch in this category) idealize the relationship between mother and son to such a degree that they conceal difficulties between the two, persuasive or supported by the texts. Most of the texts, as we shall see, focus on Alexander’s piety toward his mother but often show him resisting her desires, or being said to do so by

  194 Notes

  ancient authors. Many stress gender difference and Olympias’ failure to follow the correct gender pattern.

  2 See Baynham 2003 for an insightful overview of the sources for the life of Alexander and scholarship about them. This Appendix, of course, deals with material from the period of the Successors as well.

  3 On Diodorus and his work, see Sacks 1990.

  4 Sacks 1990: 107.

  5 On Hieronymus and his dependability, see Brown 1946–7 and Hornblower 1981: 18–75.

  6 See Casevitz 1985 on Diodorus’ general treatment of women.

  7 Diodorus does not refer to Cassander’s refusal to bury Olympias again when he narrates the events leading up to her death and its aftermath.

  8 Brown 1946–7: 689 and Hornblower 1981: 281 are skeptical about the historicity of these details. My view (see Chapter 4) is that Olympias probably did allow Adea Eurydice to kill herself and that Adea Eurydice may have acted much like a tragic queen, though some details of the incident are probably not dependable.

  9 Sacks 1990: 107 emphasizes Diodorus’ tendency to add to and embroider material when a possibility for moralizing arose whereas Westlake 1969: 314

  believes that Hieronymus was not given to such an approach. Duris (see arguments in Carney 1993b: 44, n. 40) is a more likely source for this passage.

  Hornblower 1981: 121–2 accepts Hieronymus as the source, believing he had access to eyewitness and possibly to partisan accounts.

  10 See Carney 1993b: 42–4. Edward Anson, in private conversation, suggested that Hieronymus could have blamed Olympias for Eumenes’ death because of her poor strategy. While Olympias ultimately disregarded Eumenes’ advice to stay put in Molossia and Hieronymus could have blamed her for that, several things make Anson’s hypothesis unlikely. Diodorus’ narrative, as we have noted
, focuses on a series of military failures (primarily those of Polyperchon), failures that often forced Olympias to take military matters in hand, although this was clearly not her original intention. The chronology of events Anson assumes (i.e., for Olympias’ failure to have happened in time to have contributed to Eumenes’

  death) is very tight. Anson’s suggestion also depends to some degree on the controversial date of composition of Hieronymus’ work, since, if Hieronymus had taken this view, he would have appeared to justify Cassander’s actions against Olympias’ family, something Antigonus, Hieronymus’ patron, would not have approved.

  11 Casevitz 1985: 122 exaggerates the hostility of Diodorus’ portrayal of Olympias, primarily because his discussion is so brief.

  12 Yardley 2003.

  13 See Riley 2001 for a discussion of his general treatment of women.

  14 See Baynham 1998a: 201–19.

  15 See Baynham 1998a for an overview of his work; see Atkinson 1980, 1994 for commentaries. McKechnie 1999 launched an overall attack on Curtius’ work on the grounds that it was entirely shaped by perceived parallels between Curtius’ day and Alexander’s. I do not find McKechnie’s arguments convincing; see discussion in Carney 2001: 68–70.

  16 Alexander refers to Olympias as his “sweetest mother” (5.2.22); Philip the doctor refers to Olympias and Alexander’s sisters as an incentive for his recovery from an illness (3.6.15); and in a speech Alexander says that he would rush home to his parens (parent; mother) and sisters if duty did not call (6.2.5).

  17 See Stadter 1980 for an overview of Arrian’s work; see Bosworth 1980, 1995

  for commentaries.

  18 Contra Jouanno 1995: 212–13, who stresses Arrian’s differences from the

  Notes 195

  Vulgate and the Vulgate’s similarity to the Romance in its depiction of the relationship between Alexander and Olympias. See Greek Alexander Romance 1.30, 3.17, 27.