Olympias of Epirus

OLYMPIAS OF EPIRUS, fourth wife of Philip II of Macedon and mother of Alexander the Great.

Olympias was a daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus, a kingdom in northwestern Greece that bordered the barbarian lands of Illyria to the north and the kingdom of Macedon to the east. Her dynasty, the Molossians, claimed descent from Achilles. She was a member of an orgiastic snake-worshipping cult of Dionysus and used to sleep with snakes in her bed. At the age of 18, she was married to the 25-year-old king of Macedon, Philip II, as part of a treaty between the two kingdoms, becoming the queen of Macedon. The consummation of Olympias’ marriage with Philip was accompanied by prophecies. The night before, Olympias dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her. She dreamt that she had been impregnated by Zeus, who according to Greek mythology, had the habit of impregnating random mortal women to make demigod children. Of course, that’s just ancient historians embellishing things. At the age of 19, Olympias gave birth to her famous son Alexander, and there is no reason to doubt that Philip was the father. A later tradition would make the last Egyptian pharaoh, Nectanebo II, Alexander’s father, but that’s another story.

The court of Philip II was never even close to being a happy family, among other things, because of Philip’s unpredictable character and his many marriages with both Greek and barbarian women (unlike other Greek states, polygamy was not rare in the royal court of Macedon). Conspiracies and plots were also common in the court, sometimes with Philip’s wives involved. Olympias was known for her ruthless character, especially when securing the accession to the throne of both her son and her grandson, eliminating potential threats, killing if necessary. After Philip’s assassination (of which Olympias had been accused), Alexander became king of Macedon and invaded Asia. Olympias kept exchanging letters with her son but never saw him again, as he died in Asia.

Following Alexander’s death, Olympias had an active role in the wars of the successors. She protected Alexander’s widow Roxana until her son, named Alexander after his father, was old enough to rule. But meanwhile Alexander’s generals were fighting with each other for the throne. Olympias, together with Roxana and her child, were finally captured by one of Alexander’s former generals, Cassander, who would later be king of Macedon. Cassander ordered his soldiers to execute Olympias, but they refused to kill the mother of Alexander the Great, so Cassander had to find someone else. At the end it was the enemies that Olympias had been making throughout her life that were asked to stone her to death. She was executed at the age of 59. A few years later, Cassander also ordered the execution of Roxana and her teenage son.