Queen Olympias – Mother of Alexander The Great

Olympias (c.375-316): Epirote princess, married to the Macedonian king Philip II, and mother of Alexander the Great.

The girl who was later to be called Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus, the king of the Molossians, one of the greatest tribes in Epirus. They lived in the neighborhood of modern Ioannina in Greece. During Neoptolemus’ reign, the tribe became more sedentary; urbanization started and we hear about scribes and other administrative officials. In 358, the Molossians became the allies of the Macedonian king Philip II (360-336); the alliance was strengthened by a diplomatic marriage. In 357, Olympias became Philip’s wife.

Next year, a chariot that Philip had sent to the Olympic games, was victorious. Therefore, the queen received the name Olympias. In the same summer, she gave birth to her first child: Alexander. According to the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.122), these events took place on the same day (text).

In Antiquity, people believed that the birth of a great man was accompanied by portents. They are mentioned by Plutarch: “The night before the consummation of their marriage, Olympias dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were extinguished. And Philip, some time after he was married, dreamt that he sealed up his wife’s body with a seal, whose impression, as be fancied, was the figure of a lion” (Plutarch, Alexander 2).

Philip and Olympias also had a daughter Cleopatra, who was to play an important role in the years after the death of Alexander. The birth of the crown prince and a princess that could be used in international affairs must have enhanced Olympias’ position, but political influence can not be proven. It is true, Philip appointed Olympias’ brother Alexander -not to be confused with her more famous son- as king of Molossis (350), but this does not mean that Olympias was behind the arrangement. After all, the Molossian throne was rightfully Alexander’s.

In August 338, Philip defeated the Greeks; next year, he reorganized the conquered territories in the Corinthian league. At the same time, he married to a woman named Cleopatra, a relative of a Macedonian aristocrat named Attalus. This caused great tensions between the king, Olympias and the crown prince.

Olympias went into voluntary exile, staying at the Molossian court of her brother Alexander. Her son Alexander and his friends (e.g., Ptolemy and Nearchus) were briefly expelled, but returned soon after. Olympias was further isolated when Philip married Olympias’ own daughter Cleopatra to Alexander of Molossis (336): she could no longer count on her brother’s support.

However, Philip was killed during the wedding in October 336. Many suspected Olympias and her son Alexander. The fact that (after her return to Macedonia) she ordered Philip’s wife Cleopatra and her child to be murdered, did not improve her reputation. However, her son was now king, and her position was safe.

During Alexander’s campaigns, she kept in touch with him. Our sources mention their correspondence. She probably confirmed the claim, made by her son during his visit to Egypt, that Alexander was the son not of Philip, but of the god Zeus Ammon. It is even possible that she made this claim before Philip’s death (and, consequently, before Alexander’s visit to Siwa): the events of 337-336 offered ample opportunity.

Although the relations with Alexander were cordial, he kept her far away from politics. Macedonia was ruled by Antipater, one of Philip’s most reliable commanders and diplomats and the man who had helped Alexander become king. It seems that he and Olympias were not on speaking terms, and the queen-mother must have been glad that she could go back to Molossis in 330: her brother had died during a campaign in southern Italy, and she served as regent for her cousin Aeacidas.

On 11 June 323, Alexander died in Babylon, and the age of the successors or Diadochi began. His wife Roxane was pregnant of a son, who was born a few months later and was called Alexander. He and Alexander’s brother Philip Arridaeus, who was mentally unfit to rule, were subject to the regency of Perdiccas, Alexander’s vizier. He tried to strengthen his position by a marriage with Antipater’s daughter Nicaea. However, Olympias offered him the hand of her daughter Cleopatra, a full sister of Alexander the Great (and the former wife of Alexander of Molossis). Perdiccas accepted this marriage, Antipater felt insulted, and the result was a civil war in which Antipater was victorious. He was the new regent of the royal family. However, he died almost immediately (319).

His successor as regent was an old general named Polyperchon. However, Antipater’s son Cassander, who had taken Philip Arridaeus captive, forced him out of Macedonia. Polyperchon had to flee to Epirus, taking Roxane and the baby Alexander with him. Until then, Olympias had refused to support any side in the conflict, but now she realized that if Cassander were to rule, her grandson would definitely loose the crown. So she took the army of Aeacidas, joined the remains of Polyperchon’s army and invaded Macedonia (317).

At the border, she captured Philip Arridaeus, who was executed immediately (October). Many supporters of Cassander were massacred as well. However, Cassander was approaching and besieged Olympias in Pydna, a harbor town at the foot of the holy mountain Olympus. Although both Polyperchon and Aeacidas tried to relieve her, she was forced to surrender. Cassander promised to save her life, but had her executed (316). Roxane and the baby Alexander were killed in secret.

The succession of Philip and the last two years of Olympias’ life were full of bloodshed, and many authors -both ancient and modern- have considered her a cruel woman. This is exaggerated. She was trying to stay alive and see to the succession of her son and grandson. Of the many Macedonian leaders who took part in the civil wars after the death of Alexander the Great, she was one of the few who were not fighting for their own power, but for the legitimate dynasty.

Source :

http://www.livius.org

Marble Heads of Alexander The Great

Head of Alexander, found near the Erechtheion of the Athens Acropolis in 1886. Thought to be an original work of the sculptor Leochares, made around 330 BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Head of Alexander the Great, from Cyme (Namurt),Turkey. Marble.Hellenistic,late 3rd century BC.Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

Marble head of Alexander From Pergamon,Turkey.First half of 2nd century BC.Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

The Gonzaga Cameo

The Gonzaga Cameo

3rd century BC

Alexandria; h 15.7 cm

This cameo, a rare example of the large ‘dynastic’ stones of the Hellenistic age, was created in the 3rd century BC in Alexandria. The rulers of Egypt, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his wife Arsinoe, are portrayed as gods from the Greek pantheon. Basing himself on an image formed under the influence of the personality of Alexander of Macedonia, an unknown master engraver created an idealized portrait of the king as hero, and emphasized the unity of the royal couple in this profile portrait. Their heads are crowned with laurel wreaths. The king’s attire is part realistic and part symbolic: the helmet is decorated with a star and a winged dragon; Zeus’s aigidos, attribute of the most significant deity of Hellas, is thrown over the king’s armour. The pathetic heads of Medusa and Phobos, genius of Horror, intensify the fantastic nature of the king’s dress. The qualities of the agate, in three layers, enabled the engraver to create a unique example of spectacular ‘painting in stone’, in which delicate colour transition and contrast seem to be inherent in the material itself.

Source : The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Marble head of Zeus Ammon

Imperial, ca. A.D. 120–160 A.D.,Roman, Marble, H. from base: 19 in. (48.2 cm.),Stone Sculpture

Zeus Ammon’s sanctuary at the Oasis of Siwa in the Libyan desert was already famous when Alexander the Great made his pilgrimage there in 331 B.C. Alexander’s visit to Siwa was a pivotal moment in the young king’s extraordinary life. The details are shrouded in mystery, but legend has it that the Oracle proclaimed him son of Zeus Ammon and answered Alexander’s questions favorably, “to his heart’s desire.”This powerful portrait of the god combines a classical Greek image of the bearded Zeus with the ram’s horns of the Egyptian Ammon, an attribute with which Alexander himself was sometimes represented. It may well reflect a sculpture created in Egypt in the years after Alexander’s historic visit to Siwa.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statuette of Alexander with a Lance (Now Missing)

Statue of Alexander, Greek, 200 – 100 B.C, Marble

Ancient authors record that Alexander the Great was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he decreed no other sculptor would make his image. Although this statement is probably exaggerated, Lysippos did make some of the most powerful and lasting images of Alexander. It also shows Alexander understood the propagandistic importance of his image and the need to control it.

Lysippos’s statue “Alexander with a Lance,” made in the 320s B.C., portrayed Alexander armed and naked, echoing the great heroes of Greek mythology like Achilles with whom he identified. He stood with his weight on one leg, one arm extended and holding a spear, the other hanging down at his side. This broken statuette, carved in the 100s B.C., is a small-scale variant of that original. One of numerous surviving posthumous images of Alexander made well into the Roman period, this statuette may have been a private devotional image related to the worship of Alexander as a god. Its owners certainly valued it, since the statuette was repaired and reworked in antiquity.

Source : The J. Paul Getty Museum

Toxic wine led to Greek tragedy

An Otago University scientist may have unravelled a 2,000-year-old mystery of what killed Alexander the Great.

National Poisons Centre toxicologist Dr Leo Schep thinks the culprit could be poisonous wine made from an innocuous-looking plant.

Classical scholars have been deeply divided about what killed the Macedonian leader, who built a massive empire before his death, aged 32, in June of 323BC. Some accounts say he died of natural causes but others suggested members of his inner circle conspired to poison him at a celebratory banquet.

Read more : Toxic wine led to Greek tragedy: NZ scientist

Marble head of Alexander the Great

Marble head of Alexander the Great, found in the Kerameikos, Athens
c. 300 BC. Height 0,28 m.

Marble head of Alexander the Great, found in the Kerameikos, Athens c. 300 BC.

Head of Alexander the Great, made of pentelic marble. It was found in the Kerameikos, Athens. Alexander wears the lion’s pelt, a common iconographic feature in depictions of the young king on coins, which hints at his descent from the mythical hero Herakles. The letters on Alexander’s face were carved at a later period.

Source : National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander

Alexander directed by Oliver Stone. Colin Farrell as Alexander The Great.

Macedonian Criticism of Oliver Stone’s film Alexander (Letter Sent to Movie Critics – November 2004)

1) Where are the Historical Errors in the film?

Stone has Collin Farell (the actor playing Alexander) saying to the Macedonians before the battle of Gaugamela against the Persians that they are fighting for “the glory of Greece.” Ancient sources do not write that Alexander fought for the “glory of Greece” but for that of Macedonia. Three ancient historians detailed Alexander’s address to the army before the battle.  And each one of them made a clear distinction between Macedonians, Greeks, Illyrians, and Thracians, as four separate ethnicities that composed Alexander’s army.  Here are the words of the Roman historian Curtius Rufus: “Riding to the front line he (Alexander the Great) named the soldiers and they responded from pot to spot where they were lined up. The Macedonians, who had won so many battles in Europe and set off to invade Asia … got encouragement from him – he reminded them of their permanent values. They were the world’s liberators and one day they would pass the frontiers set by Hercules and Father Liber. They would subdue all races on Earth. Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces. Getting closer to the Greeks, he reminded them that those were the people (the Persians on the other side) who provoked war with Greece, … those were the people that burned their temples and cities … As the Illyrians and Thracians lived mainly from plunder, he told them to look at the enemy line glittering in gold” (Curt.3.10.4-10)

Notice what Alexander told the Macedonians – “Bactria and India would become Macedonian provinces”.  It is for the glory of Macedonia, not for the glory of Greece. The Greeks, are here a second nation of importance to Alexander. Throughout Oliver Stone’s film there is confusion whether the Macedonians were distinct people or just another Greeks. Ironically the original Synopsis of the film makes the clear distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. There we read: “Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek and Macedonian armies through 22,000 miles…His extraordinary journey begins when Alexander launches his invasion from Macedonia…” Yet although in the Synopsis the Macedonians are separate from the Greeks, and they left from Macedonia and not from Greece, Stone has them fighting for the “glory of Greece”?!  The error is obvious.

Ancient Greek artefacts : Medusa Gold & silver wine jug from the tomb of Philip II.

Medusa Gold, from the tomb of Philip II

Silver wine jug from the tomb of Philip II.

Source : Culture24

Head of Hephaestion

Head of Hephaestion. Unknown. Greek, about 320 B.C. Marble. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

The son of a noble Macedonian family, Hephaestion was the beloved companion of Alexander the Great. Together since boyhood, Hephaestion fought alongside Alexander as he created his great empire. When Hephaestion died in Persia in 324 B.C., Alexander mourned him extravagantly. He was given a royal funeral and Alexander ordered the cities of Greece to worship Hephaestion as a hero.

This head of Hephaestion, broken from a full-length statue, was originally part of a multi-figured group, which might have depicted a sacrificial scene. The J. Paul Getty Museum has more than thirty fragments of this group. The participants include Alexander, Hephaestion, a goddess, Herakles, a flute player, and several other figures, as well as animals and birds. This group may have served as a funerary monument for some nobleman who wanted to associate himself with Alexander, or it might be a monument erected in response to Alexander’s call for the creation of a hero cult.

The appearance of this head has changed over time. A metal ribbon or diadem once circled the head, although only a shallow groove remains today. The head was also re-carved in antiquity, with the hair shortened and the lower eyelids altered.

The J. Paul Getty Museum

Modern equestrian statue of Alexander on the seafront of Thessalonika

Modern equestrian statue of Alexander on the seafront of Thessalonika.

This larger than life 20th century sculpture of Alexander stands on a high plinth at the southeast end of Thessalonika’s long promenade, near the city’s trademark White Tower (Lefkos Pirgos) and the Achaeological Museum. It portrays the great conquerer, placid but resolute, his sword at the ready, looking into the far distance; he faces eastward, towards Asia. The drama and excitement in the monument are provided by the agitated state of his horse, the renowned Bucephalos, echoing ancient portrayals of Alexander in action. As in ancient depctions of him, such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, he is shown wearing a short cloak which billows out behind him, rather like a modern comic book super hero.

During the 20th century Greece as a whole and Macedonia in particular rediscovered Alexander in a big way. Once again he is seen as the great pan-Hellenic hero, a defiant unifying symbol and a heritage trademark both for the country and the region. Statues and busts of him can be be found in many town squares and in the lobbies of public buildings. Even the airport of Kavala has been named after him.

Alexander in Thessalonika.

Photos & text by David John – My Favourite Planet

 

Alexander The Great visits Jerusalem

Most scholars agree that the following story, told by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his Jewish antiquities 11.317-345, is not true. One argument is that Alexander is shown a book that was not yet written. Another argument is that the story is a bit too good to be true: the Samarians, the eternal rivals of the Jews, blacken the Jews and get permission to build a temple of their own, Alexander visits Jerusalem, understands that he owes everything to the God of the Jews, allows them the privilege to live according to their ancestral customs and behaves rather unkind towards the Samarians. If a Jew in the second century BCE were to invent a story, he would write something along these lines.

On closer inspection, however, we may notice some odd details. In the first place, the Samaritans are allowed to keep their temple: not exactly something a Jew would invent, and in fact a plausible punishment for the Jewish refusal to send soldiers. In the second place, in fact, Alexander gives the Jews no privileges at all: everything he grants the Jews, had already been granted to them by the Persian kings. This was Alexander’s usual policy.

In the third place, the idea that Alexander had had a vision in which the God of the Jews played an important role is just too incredible to be invented: everyone knew that Alexander claimed to be the son of the Egyptian god Ammon. Nobody would invent a special link to the Jewish God. The easiest explanation is that Alexander did indeed sacrifice to the God of the Jews.

Another aspect that deserves to be mentioned is Alexander’s demand for auxiliaries and the presents the Jews formerly had sent to the Persian government. This matches the demand made by Alexander to Darius that he would address him as the master of the Persian possessions

The following translation was made by William Whiston (Ancient-Warfare)

So when Alexander besieged Tyre, he sent an epistle to the Jewish high-priest, to send him some auxiliaries, and to supply his army with provisions (1); and that what presents he formerly sent to Darius, he would now send to him, and choose the friendship of the Macedonians, and that he should never repent of so doing. But the high-priest answered the messengers, that he had given his oath to Darius not to bear arms against him; and he said that he would not transgress this while Darius was in the land of the living. Upon hearing this answer, Alexander was very angry; and though he determined not to leave Tyre, which was just ready to be taken, yet as soon as he had taken it, he threatened that he would make an expedition against the Jewish high-priest, and through him teach all men to whom they must keep their oaths. So when he had, with a good deal of pains during the siege, taken Tyre, and had settled its affairs, he came to the city of Gaza, and besieged both the city and him that was governor of the garrison, whose name was Babemeses.(2)

But the Samarian leader Sanballat thought he had now gotten a proper opportunity to make his attempt, so he renounced Darius, and taking with him seven thousand of his own subjects, he came to Alexander; and finding him beginning the siege of Tyre, he said to him, that he delivered up to him these men, who came out of places under his dominion, and did gladly accept of him for his lord instead of Darius. So when Alexander had received him kindly, Sanballat took courage, and spoke to him about his present affair. He told him that he had a son-in-law, Manasseh, who was brother to the high-priest Jaddus; and that there were many others of his own nation, now with him, that were desirous to have a temple in the places subject to him; that it would be for the king’s advantage to have the strength of the Jews divided into two parts, lest when the nation is of one mind, and united, upon any attempt for innovation, it prove troublesome to kings, as it had formerly proved to the kings of Assyria. Whereupon Alexander gave Sanballat leave so to do, who used the utmost diligence, and built the temple, and made Manasseh the priest, and deemed it a great reward that his daughter’s children should have that dignity; but when the seven months of the siege of Tyre were over, and the two months of the siege of Gaza, Sanballat died.

Now Alexander, when he had taken Gaza, made haste to go up to Jerusalem; and Jaddus the high-priest, when he heard that, was in an agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience. He therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifice to God, whom he besought to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them; whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. Upon which, when he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced, and declared to all the warning he had received from God. According to which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of the king.

And when Jaddus understood that Alexander was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect, for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple. And when the Phoenicians and the Samarians that followed him thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high-priest to death, which the king’s displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened; for Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high-priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high-priest.

Alexander The Great in Egypt

Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 bc), better known to history as ‘Alexander the Great’, spent several months in Egypt as part of his on-going campaign against the mighty Persian  Empire of Darius III. After conquering Persia’s naval bases all along the coastline of Asia Minor and Syria-Palestine, Alexander marched south into Egypt where he remained for some six months. Although generally regarded as little more than an eccentric diversion, Alexander’s Egyptian sojourn was essential to his future plans. He needed a strong coastal base for both strategic and commercial purposes, from which he could not only communicate across the Mediterranean but which could also handle the highly lucrative sea-borne trade network he wanted to divert from Phoenicia. With naval reinforcements following his progress down the coast, his Macedonian army covered the hazardous 130 mile distance in only a week to reach the heavily fortified coastal town of Pelusium in late October 332 bc.

With his reputation going before him, Alexander was met by Egypt’s Persian governor Mazaces. With no armed forces and with no likelihood of any assistance following the defeated Darius’ swift departure back east to Persia, Mazaces simply handed over the treasury’s 800 talents and “all the royal furniture”. In return he was kept on as part of the new administration together with the new governor Cleomenes, who was made responsible for finance and created the royal mint around 331 bc. Cleomenes was a hard-headed, unscrupulous businessman who quickly amassed a personal fortune of 8,000 talents during his career as governor. Yet he remained loyal to Alexander with whom he kept up a regular correspondence, sending him such delicacies as smoked quail by the thousand.  After installing a garrison at the key defensive site of Pelusium, Alexander then ordered his fleet to sail south up the Nile to the traditional capital Memphis (Ineb-hedj) at the apex of the Delta where he himself would arrive by land at the head of his troops. Passing by the ancient religious site of Heliopolis (Iunu) with its vast white temples and obelisks, Egypt made an enormous impression on both the Macedonian troops and their 24 year old leader. Brought up with his formidable mother Olympias’ tales of Egyptian gods, the religiously-minded Alexander must have been completely dumbstruck in a land so steeped in ritual, where priests held enormous power wielded inside temples not built to human scale. Passing by the great pyramids of Giza, still gleaming in their shining white limestone, he finally reached Memphis to a genuinely rapturous reception.

Greek travelers had actually been visiting Egypt for centuries, many of them setting up trading colonies or acting as mercenaries. Others such as the historian Herodotus and philosopher Plato came to study a culture they regarded with awe as the cradle of civilization, their knowledge almost certainly part of Alexander’s education. Yet for almost 200 years Egypt had been occupied by Persia who had incorporated it into the growing empire, and assuming the Egyptian crown by right of conquest the Persian king had ruled in absentia through a satrap, exploiting its vast grain reserves and taxing its people. The Persians showed relatively little respect for the ancient traditions and were deeply unpopular, and the Egyptians’ had rebelled so often parts of the country remained virtually independent.

Alexander was therefore hailed as Savior and Liberator, and as the people’s choice and legitimate heir he was offered the double crown of the Two Lands. Anointed as pharaoh in Memphis on 14 November 332 bc, the culmination of his coronation was the climactic moment when the high priest named him ‘son of the gods’ according to traditions dating back almost 3,000 years. This title deeply affected him, and Olympias’ references to him being the son of Zeus must have filled his mind; indeed, there were even scenes of the king of the gods Amun (‘Zeus’) impregnating selected queens with the heir to the throne! In a world where the gods were perceived as living entities and were considered a part of everyday life, Alexander must now have began to believe in his own divinity as a fact rather than a simple exercise of propaganda.

Always a devout man who began each day with sacrifices to the gods, Alexander had no difficulty worshipping the Egyptian deities. Equating their gods with his own, he worshipped the Egyptian Amun as a form of Zeus. At the Memphite necropolis of Sakkara the new pharaoh offered sacrifices to the Apis bull, cult animal of the creator god Ptah, followed by Greek-style games and literary contests in which performers from all over the Greek world took part in a multi-cultural extravaganza. These kind of events mark the beginnings of Hellenism in their blending of Greek practices and local traditions, and Egypt and Greece would successfully co-exist for the next 3 centuries.