Separated from the lands of the Hellenes by the range of the Cambunian Mountains which extended north of Thessaly from Mount Olympus on the east to Mount Lacmon on the west, there lay a rugged country, whose inhabitants were destined to play a prominent role and become a powerful factor in the later history of Greece. This country, divided into many basins by spurs which branch off from the higher mountain chains, by its mountain system not only shut the people off from the outside world, but also forbade any extended intercourse between the dwellers in the various cantons. The wide and fertile valleys, however, and the mountain slopes abounding in extensive forests, the haunts of wild game, mark the land as the country of a great people, who by generations of seclusion were storing up strength and vitality to be of vast influence whenever they should break through their narrow confines.
Such a people dwelt there, but it required strong leaders to bring them in touch with the rich Hellenic life to the south of them and to make them a powerful factor in the history of the world. Philip, lord of Macedon, and his mightier son, Alexander, were the great men who were to accomplish the work of grafting the new blood and energy of Macedon upon the decaying stock of Greek culture, and to diffuse the spirit of Hellenism throughout the civilized world. With them the old order of things, as represented in Athens and Sparta, passed away, and a new order, with new ideals, new motives, new views of life, was born. Hence, the people of Macedon, themselves Greek by race, have a large place in the consideration of any phase of Greek life. When the Hellenes originally migrated into Greece, a branch of the race found its way into the southwestern part of Macedon behind the barriers of Olympus, and later, by intermixture with the Illyrians and other barbarous races, these invaders lost some of their national characteristics and, shut off as they were, failed to share in the history and development of their kinsmen to the south. In language, in institutions, and in aspirations, however, they gave indisputable evidence of their right to be considered as members of the great Hellenic family.
The people were a hardy, peasant folk, devoted to hunting, to grazing, and to agriculture, and they preserved the patriarchal institutions which obtained among the earliest Greeks. They were divided into many tribes, each with its own chief and leader. Among some of the hardier tribes, the man who had not slain a wild boar was not allowed to recline at table with the warriors, and not to have slain an enemy was regarded as a mark of disgrace. In the tribal organization and in the institution of the kingship, we are carried back to the society of Homeric times, and in manifold ways the public and private life of the Macedonians reflects the life portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Aristotle remarks that the ancient kingship survived only among the Spartans, the Molossians, and the Macedonians, of all the Greek peoples; and only among the last mentioned did the office retain all its prerogatives. As in the Heroic Age, so in Macedon, the king was supreme judge, military commander-in-chief, and at the head of the religion of the State. But he was no Oriental despot. The people were conscious of their liberty and sensitive as to their rights. By the side of the king stood the nobles, who were closely associated with him at all times, constituting his council, accompanying him to war, and sharing with him his dangers and his honors. As the population was largely rural, there were present none of the conditions which tend to nullify clan distinctions and create a democracy. The lines between noble and peasant were very broad. Hence, Macedon was essentially a dynastic State, and its history is largely the history of its royal family. As we have frequently noted, in monarchies woman is ever a most influential factor, A king must have a court, and there can be no court without a queen. The queen's life has necessarily its public, political, and military aspects; and the part she plays largely determines the weal or woe of both king and people. Hence it is with the royal family of Macedon, and with those queens and princesses who make up a large part of its history, that we are now chiefly concerned.
The royal family of Macedon claimed descent from members of the ancient Heracleid family of Argos, which had taken refuge in the north; and this descent was so capable of proof, that, on the basis of it, one of the earlier kings was admitted to the Olympic games. Herodotus, the great story teller, relates the incident of the founding of the dynasty. According to his narration, three brothers of the royal race of Temenus,--the fourth in descent from Heracles,--Gauanes, Eropus, and Perdiccas, exiles from Argos, went into Illyria, and thence into upper Macedon, where they placed themselves, as herdsmen, at the service of Lebea, one of the local kings. Now, when the queen baked the bread for their food, she always noticed that the loaf destined for Perdiccas doubled its weight; she made this marvel known to her husband, who saw danger in it, and ordered the three brothers to depart from the country. They replied that they would go as soon as they had received their wages. Thereupon the king, who was sitting by the hearth, on which fell sunlight through the opening of the roof, as if by divine inspiration said to the brothers, pointing to the light on the floor: "I will give you that; that is your wages." Upon this, the two elder brothers stood speechless; but the younger, who held a knife in his hand, said: "Very well; we accept it." And having traced with his knife a circle on the floor surrounding the rays, he stooped down thrice, feigning each time to take up the sunshine and place it in the folds of his garment and to distribute it to his brothers; after which, they all went away. One of those who sat by called the attention of the king to this conduct on the part of the young man, and the manner in which he accepted what was offered him; and the king, becoming anxious and angry, sent horsemen to follow the brothers and slay them. Now in that country is a river, to which the descendants of these Argives offer sacrifice as to a god. This river, after the fugitives had crossed it, became suddenly so swollen that the horsemen dared not follow. The brothers arrived in another part of Macedon and established themselves near the lake called the Gardens of Midas, and, when they had subjugated the country in those parts, they went thence to conquer the rest of Macedon.
Herodotus states that Perdiccas I. founded the reigning dynasty in Macedon, and he mentions as his successors Argæus, Philip, Eropus, Alcetas, and Amyntas I., whose son, Alexander "the Philheliene," the Greeks permitted to take part in the Olympic games. This Alexander on one occasion visited dire punishment upon a party of Persian envoys who at a banquet forgot the respect due to the ladies at the court of Macedon; he caused them to be assassinated by a company of young men whom he had disguised in women's attire. When the Persians sent to require the punishment of the guilty, Alexander won over the envoy by giving him his sister in marriage.
This Alexander, who became king in the year 500 before the Christian era, begins the series of those Macedonian kings who felt the need of Hellenizing their people, and his reign accordingly marks a turning point in the history of Macedon. Perdiccas II., Archelaus I., and Amyntas II. were his successors, who continued this policy; but this forced civilization by no means reached the mass of the people, and, while it refined the nobility and the court and paved the way for the Macedonian inroads into Greece, it also introduced luxury and corruption. Amyntas II. left three sons, Alexander II., Perdiccas III., and Philip, the last of whom was the one so well known to fame; and Eurydice, the mother of these three valiant sons, was the first of that series of remarkable women, noted for their power, their beauty, or their crimes, who from this time on fill the annals of Macedonian history.
In her barbarous instincts, Eurydice gives evidence of the non-Hellenic blood in her veins. Her career in crime was such as to place her among the Messalinas and Lucrezia Borgias of history. To begin with, she was implicated in a conspiracy with a paramour, Ptolemæus of Alorus, against her husband's life; but when the plot was detected, she was, out of regard for their three sons, mercifully spared by her husband. Alexander, the eldest, succeeded his father, but, after reigning two years, was assassinated by Ptolemæus, with his own mother as an accomplice of the murderer. When Perdiccas grew to manhood, he avenged his brother's death and his mother's disgrace by slaying Ptolemæus; but he himself, a few years later, fell in battle against the Illyrians, or, as was asserted, at the hand of an assassin hired by his mother Eurydice. Philip, the next in succession, then ascended the throne, and succeeded in securing himself against the attempts of his mother and in conciliating all factions. Eurydice then disappears from the scene, and the manner of her death is unknown. Heredity, without doubt, had much to do with the cruelty in Philip's nature, and in spite of her crimes he seems to have had much respect for his sanguinary mother, for he placed a figure of her among the gold-and-ivory statues embellishing the monument he erected to commemorate his victory over the Athenians and Thebans at Chæronea.
We are not concerned here with the rise of Philip's power over Hellas, nor with the history of his son Alexander and the empire he established, except in so far as the spread of Hellenism and the union of the world under one dominion brought about changes in social conditions which affected the status of woman. We shall, for the present, confine our attention to the consideration of those women, chiefly royal princesses, whose names group themselves about the careers of Philip and Alexander and their immediate successors, and who by their strong personalities greatly influenced the course of events.
A few general reflections will prepare us for the sombre history which we are about to read. The Macedonian kings were, as a rule, not content with one wife; they either kept concubines, or married a second wife, as did Philip and Alexander, while the first was living. This practice led to jealousy, envy, and hatred, and the attendant ills of constant and bloody tragedies in the royal families. We find henceforth a combination of Greek manners and Macedonian nature. In the life of the courts, women as well as men, in spite of their Greek culture, show the Thracian traits of passion and cruelty. Owing to the intense respect in which women were held, the royal princesses occupied an exalted station and hence found willing instruments for the carrying-out of their cruel practices. Every king was either murdered or conspired against by his family. Women entered into matrimonial alliances with a view to increasing their power and extending their influence. Hence, the women who played so prominent a part in the great struggles that attended Philip's extension of his power over all Hellas, Alexander's conquest of the world, and the founding of independent dynasties by the Diadochi and their descendants, were not women who attained the Thucydidean ideal of excellence; namely, that those are the best women who are never mentioned among men for good or for evil. They were, on the contrary, powerful and haughty princesses, who possessed royal rights and privileges, who had resources of their own in money and soldiery, who could address their troops with fiery speeches and go forth to battle at the head of their armies, who made offers of marriage to men, and who finally got rid of their rivals with sinister coolness and cruelty.
Philip the Great followed the Oriental fashion of marrying many wives; according to Athenæus, he was continually marrying new wives in war times, and seven more or less regular marriages are attributed to him. Of his numerous wives or mistresses, the strong-minded Olympias was the chief; and, as she survived both her husband Philip and her son Alexander, she played a dominant part in Macedonian history and was the most prominent woman of those stormy times. Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus, who traced his lineage back to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Philip is said to have fallen in love with Olympias while both were being initiated into some religious mysteries in Samothrace, at a time when he was still a stripling and she an orphan. He was ardent in his suit, and, gaining the consent of her brother Arymbas, he shortly after married her. We know nothing of the first few years of their married life, but the union seems never to have been a happy one. Both were of too decided individuality to blend well together. Says President Wheeler: "Both were preëminently ambitious, energetic, and aggressive; but while Philip's ambition was guided by a cool, crafty sagacity, that of his queen manifested itself in impetuous outbreaks of almost barbaric emotion. In her, joined a marvellous compound of the mother, the queen, the shrew, and the witch. The passionate ardor of her nature found its fullest expression in the wild ecstasies and crude superstitions of her native religious rites."
Plutarch gives a graphic account of the religious intensity of Olympias's nature: "Another account is that all the women of this country, having always been addicted to the Orphic and Dionysiac mystery rites, imitated largely the practices of the Edonian and Thracian women about Mount Hæmus, and that Olympias, in her abnormal zeal to surround these states of trance and inspiration with more barbaric dread, was wont in the sacred dances to have about her great tame serpents, which, sometimes creeping out of the ivy and the mystic fans, and sometimes winding themselves about the staffs and the chaplets which the women bore, presented a sight of horror to the men who beheld."
In Olympias we find all the traits of character which selfishness and love of power, combined with intense religious fervor, could engender; and her devotion to weird religious rites makes more ghastly the story of her life. With a different husband she might have been a good woman, but when two such natures clash much evil is bound to result. To her young son, Alexander, she was ardently attached, and she expected great things of him. Just before her marriage with Philip she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about and then were extinguished. This was later regarded as a presage of the rapid spread of Alexander's empire and its ultimate breaking-up among the Diadochi.
Philip's numerous infidelities and marriages caused an estrangement between him and Olympias that was far-reaching in its consequences. They reached their culmination when Philip with great ceremony wedded Cleopatra, a niece of his general, Attalus. At the wedding banquet, Attalus, the uncle of the bride, heated with wine, cried out:
"Macedonians, let us pray the gods that from this marriage may spring an heir to the throne!" Whereupon, Alexander, who was present, violently irritated at the speech, threw one of the goblets at the head of Attalus and exclaimed: "You villain, what! Am I, then, a bastard?" Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose up, and would have run his son through with his sword, but, overcome by rage and by drink, he slipped and fell to the floor. "Here is a man," scornfully exclaimed the prince, "preparing to cross from Europe into Asia, who is not able to step safely from one table to another." This incident brought to a climax the estrangement between Philip and his wife and Alexander. Olympias and Alexander fled, the one taking shelter with her brother, the King of Epirus, and the other going into Illyria, where he remained until a sort of reconciliation was effected by the marriage of Philip's daughter, Cleopatra, with the Epirote king. When Philip was assassinated, suspicions of complicity in the murder attached to both Olympias and Alexander. The young man's conduct fully acquits him of the crime, but it would not be strange if the mother, seeking her own vengeance and her son's preferment, should have abetted the youth Pausanias, who committed the deed.
Olympias could not brook any rivals, and shortly after the murder of Philip she despatched that king's last wife, Cleopatra, and her infant son. Throughout Alexander's brilliant but short-lived career, Olympias remained in Macedon, exercising a queenly power. She and her son seem to have been bound by the closest ties of affection and respect. With Antipater, however, who had been left behind by Alexander to govern Macedon in his absence, she was continually falling out. Plutarch gives an interesting account of the intimate relations between mother and son and of the quarrels between the old queen and the regent:
"How magnificent he, Alexander, was in enriching his friends appears by a letter which Olympias wrote to him, where she tells him he should reward those about him in a more moderate way. She said: 'For now you make them all equal to kings, you give them power and opportunity of making many friends of their own, and in the meantime you leave yourself destitute.' She often wrote to him to this purpose. To her he sent many presents, but would never suffer her to meddle with matters of State or war, not indulging her busy temper; and when she fell out with him on this account, he bore her ill humor very patiently. Nay, more, when he read a long letter from Antipater, full of accusations against her, 'Antipater,' he said, 'does not know that one tear of a mother effaces a thousand such letters as these.'
"The tidings of the difficulties he had gone through in his Indian expedition had begun to give occasion for revolt among many of the conquered nations, and for acts of great injustice, avarice, and insolence on the part of satraps and commanders. Even at home, Olympias and her daughter Cleopatra had raised a faction against Antipater and divided his government between them--Olympias seizing upon Epirus, and Cleopatra upon Macedon. When Alexander was told of it, he said his mother had made the best choice, for the Macedonians would never consent to be ruled by a woman."
Upon the death of Alexander, Olympias espoused with great devotion the cause of her daughter-in-law Roxana and the young Alexander against the intrigues of the generals, and she did everything in her power to maintain their rights in opposition to the cold and calculating Cassander. Diodorus gives a graphic account of her last days:
"As soon as Olympias heard that Cassander was entering Macedonia with a large army, she, taking with her the son of Alexander and his mother Roxana, and other kindred and eminent relations, entered the town of Pydna. Neither was there provision in that place sufficient for such a multitude to hold out any long siege. Yet she was resolved to stay here, expecting many Greeks and Macedonians to come in to her assistance by sea. Now spring came on, and the famine increased every day, whereupon most of the soldiers came up in a body and entreated Olympias to suffer them to leave the place because of the scarcity, who, not being able to supply them with bread, let them go. At length Olympias, perceiving that many went over to Cassander, without delay got ready a galley of five oars with a design to rescue herself and her kindred; but being discovered to the enemy by some of the deserters, Cassander sailed to the place and seized the vessel. Whereupon Olympias sent a herald to Cassander to treat upon terms of pacification, but he insisted upon the delivering up of herself to his mercy; she at length prevailed only for the preservation of her person. He then incited the relations of such as were put to death by Olympias to prosecute her in the general assembly of the Macedonians, who readily complied with what they were desired to do; and though she herself was not then present, nor had any person there to plead her cause, yet the Macedonians condemned her to die. Cassander therefore sent some of his friends to Olympias and advised her to get out of the way, and promised to procure for her a ship and to cause her to be conveyed safely to Athens. He did not do this for her preservation, but that, as one confessing her own guilt by her flight, it might be judged a just vengeance upon her if she was cut off as she was on her voyage; for he was afraid as well of the fickle disposition of the Macedonians as of the dignity of her person. But Olympias refused to fly, and said she was ready to defend her cause before all the Macedonians. Cassander therefore, fearing lest the people should change their minds and so take upon them to defend the queen, sent to her a band of two hundred soldiers with orders to despatch her forthwith, who, rushing on a sudden into the palace, as soon as they saw her, in reverence to her person, drew back without executing the command. But the kindred of those she had put to death, both to ingratiate themselves with Cassander, and likewise to gratify their own revenge for the death of their relations, cut her throat, she not in the least crying out in any womanish terror or fear to spare her. In this manner died Olympias, the greatest and most honorable woman in the age wherein she lived, daughter of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus; sister of Pyrrhus, who made the expedition into Italy; wife of Philip, the greatest and most victorious prince of all that ever lived before in Europe; and lastly the mother of Alexander, who never was exceeded by any for the many great and wonderful things that were done by him."
So Olympias showed herself in her death, as in her life, every inch a queen; and, in spite of her temper and her bloodthirstiness, she deserves a high place in the history of womanhood, because of her untiring devotion to her son and to his helpless widow and child against the machinations of cruel and powerful men.
Philip had three daughters who appear prominently in Macedonian history: Cynane, by an Illyrian princess, who figures in the history of her daughter Eurydice, which we shall recount later; Thessalonica, whom Cassander married after he had slain Olympias and all the heirs of Alexander, and after whom he named the famous city which he built; and Cleopatra, full sister of Alexander, who was first married to her uncle, Alexander, King of Epirus, murdered in Italy while he was trying to subdue the West. The young Princess Cleopatra was left a widow in good time to enter upon a career in the stormy days that followed the death of the world-monarch. She returned to Macedon, and notwithstanding the fact that she and her mother Olympias were both of violent tempers, and frequently quarrelled, yet their interests were too closely united to permit any permanent estrangement. Her claims to the throne were the strongest, next to those of the infant Alexander, and, in consequence, she was much sought after in marriage, and had her choice of almost all the distinguished men of the time. She regarded marriage as a legitimate weapon of diplomacy to advance her interests and to increase her influence. Yet a sad fatality seemed to attach to the men whom she proposed to honor with her hand. She first chose, probably from ardent affection, Leonnatus, one of the most gallant of Alexander's generals, but he was killed while assisting Antipater before Lamia. Her mother then offered her hand to Perdiccas, when he became regent, and he gladly accepted; but before the nuptials were celebrated, he was slain in an attack on Egypt. Had the loyal Eumenes been victorious in his long struggle against Antigonus, Cleopatra would doubtless have married him, in spite of the fact that he was not of royal blood. She then resided for fifteen years in Sardis, amid all the pomp and luxury naturally attending so noble and beautiful a princess, and became the object of intrigue among the rival generals. Old Antipater, when appointed regent, accused her of treason and sedition; but she publicly defended herself, in their native tongue, before the Macedonian soldiers, and so great was the influence she exerted over them that Antipater wisely concluded to withdraw the charge, and harassed her no further. At last, however, at Sardis, she fell into the power of her old enemy, Antigonus. Realizing her peril, this redoubtable princess, although past fifty, was planning escape and flight to Egypt to marry Ptolemy, who had already two wives and grown-up children. To prevent this marriage of the queen with his strongest rival, Antigonus put her to death.
Cleopatra manifested the same strength of personality and independence of character as her mother Olympias, and she had, in addition, all the advantages of education and culture which would naturally accrue to the sister of Alexander. She differed most strongly from her mother and other Macedonian princesses of the day, in that no murders could be laid at her door.
When we come to Cynane, the third daughter of Philip, we find another type of womanhood. She showed her Illyrian blood in her fondness for outdoor exercise, being a skilled horsewoman, and she would even enter into battle at the head of her troops. She was first married by Philip to her cousin Amyntas. Left a widow, she devoted herself to the education of her daughter, Eurydice, whom she trained in the same martial exercises for which she herself was famous. When Philip Arrhidæus, the imbecile half-brother of Alexander, son of a female dancer, Philinna of Larissa, was proclaimed joint heir with the posthumous son of Roxana to Alexander's dominions, Cynane determined to marry him to her daughter, and started over to Asia to accomplish this end. As her influence was great, Perdiccas and Antipater determined to forestall such a contingency by the murder of the mother, and Perdiccas sent his brother Alcetas to meet her on the way and put her to death. By her valor and her eloquence, however, she won over the Macedonian warriors, so that the schemes of the generals could not be publicly carried out; but, in defiance of the feelings of the soldiery, Alcetas secretly consummated the ruthless plot, and Cynane met her doom with dauntless spirit. After the death of the mother, the discontent of the Macedonian troops and the respect with which they looked on Eurydice, as one of the few surviving members of the royal house, induced Perdiccas not only to spare Eurydice's life, but also to give her in marriage to the unhappy King Philip Arrhidasus, whose weakened intellectual powers were due to the drugs of Olympias--the queen who never ceased to wreak her vengeance upon her rivals in Philip's affections and upon their ill-fated offspring.
Then began the long and bitter struggle for mastery between the new queen, Eurydice, and the old queen, Olympias, who took the part of Roxana and her son; and only the superior claims of Olympias, as the mother of Alexander, to the respect of the Macedonian soldiery led to her final victory over her gifted and powerful rival. These hostile factions in the royal party of Macedon were to lead to the extinction of all the legitimate heirs to the throne. After the death of her mortal enemy Antipater, Eurydice determined to make an active campaign against his successor, the less able Polysperchon, who had allied himself with Olympias. She therefore concluded an alliance with Cassander, assembled an army, and took the field in person. Polysperchon marched against her, accompanied by Olympias and Roxana, with the young Alexander, and the presence of Olympias decided the day.
"As the troops of Alcetas would not fight against her and Cynane, so the troops of Eurydice deserted her when she led them against the queen-mother. It was the moment when Olympias's pent-up fury burst out after many years. Amid her orgies of murder and of disentombing her enemies, she was not likely to spare the offspring of Philip's faithlessness; for Philip Arrhidæus was the son of a Thessalian dancing girl, and Eurydice the granddaughter of an Illyrian savage. She shut them up, and meant to kill them by gradual starvation. But her people began to expostulate, and then, having had Philip shot by Thracians, she sent Eurydice the sword, the halter, and the hemlock, to take her choice. But she, praying that Olympias might receive the same gifts, composed the limbs of her husband, and washed his wounds as best she could, and then, without one word of complaint at her fate, or the greatness of her misfortune, hanged herself with the halter. If these women knew not how to live, they knew how to die."
A word must be said about Alexander the Great and his relations with the fair sex; for notwithstanding the fact that in Alexander's career Persian woman plays the chief rôle, yet it was by breaking down the barriers between Greek and Barbarian, between Occidental and Oriental, that the way was prepared for the larger freedom of woman in succeeding generations; and in his younger days, before becoming a world-conqueror, Alexander was greatly influenced by certain women of his household. We have already spoken of his ardent affection and respect for his queen-mother. He also had in his childhood a nurse, Lanice, to whom he was devotedly attached, "He loved her as a mother," says an ancient writer. Her sons gave their lives in battle for him, and her one brother, Clitus, who had once rescued him from imminent death, was later slain by Alexander's own hand in a fit of anger. This deed occasioned the conqueror infinite regret and remorse, and Arrian tells graphically how, as he tossed weeping on his bed of repentance, "he kept calling the name of Clitus and the name of Lanice, Clitus's sister, who nursed and reared him--Lanice the daughter of Dropides,--'Fair return I have made in manhood's years for thy nurture and care--thou who hast seen thy sons die fighting in my behalf; and now I have slain thy brother with mine own hand!'"
Another friend of his youth was a lady of noble birth, by name Ada, whom he dignified with the title of "mother," and later established as Queen of Caria. Plutarch tells how, as a friendly attention, she used to send him daily not only all sorts of meats and cakes, but finally went so far as to send him the cleverest cooks and bakers she could find, though, owing to the rigid training of his tutor, he was extremely temperate in eating and drinking and did not avail himself of her indulgence.
Alexander was ever considerate of women, even when these were taken captive in battle, and Plutarch tells an interesting story of his treatment of a noble lady of Thebes, when he had captured and was about to raze that city:
"Among the other calamities that befell the city, it happened that some Thracian soldiers having broken into the house of a matron of high character and repute, named Timycha, their captain, after he had used violence with her, to satisfy his avarice as well as lust, asked her if she knew of any money concealed, to which she readily answered she did, and bade him follow her into a garden, where she showed him a well, into which, she told him, upon the taking of the city she had thrown what she had of the most value. The greedy Thracian presently stooping down to view the place where he thought the treasure lay, she came behind him and pushed him into the well, and then flung great stones in upon him till she had killed him. After which, when the soldiers led her away bound to Alexander, her very mien and gait showed her to be a woman of dignity and of a mind no less elevated. And when the king asked her who she was, 'I am,' she said, the sister of Theagenes who fought the battle of Chæronea with your father Philip, and fell there in command for the liberty of Greece.' Alexander was so surprised, both at what she had done and what she said, that he could not choose but give her and her children their liberty."
In the evil fortunes of the princesses of Macedon the Persian wives of Alexander shared. Roxana, the daughter of a Bactrian satrap, whose youthfulness and beauty charmed him at a drinking entertainment, was the first of his wives. Later, in celebrating at Susa the union of Europe and Asia by the marriage of his Greek officers to Persian maidens, he himself wedded Statira, the daughter of Darius. "After Alexander's death, Roxana," says Plutarch, "who was now with child, and upon that account much honored by the Macedonians, being jealous of Statira, sent for her by a counterfeit letter, as if Alexander had still been alive; and when she had her in her power, killed her and her sister and threw their babies into a well which they filled up with earth, not without the assistance of Perdiccas, who in the time immediately following the king's death, under cover of the name of Arrhidæus, whom he carried about with him as a sort of guard to his person, exercised the chief authority." There is no more tragic story than that of the fate of the young Alexander and his mother. Olympias, the grandmother, warmly espoused the youth's cause, but his existence was a menace to the ambitions of the rival generals. Cassander finally seized the power in Macedon and obtained possession of Roxana and her son, whom he confined in the fortress of Amphipolis and later caused to be secretly assassinated by the governor of the fortress.
After the murder of Roxana and her son, a movement was made to raise to the throne Heracles, son of Darius's daughter, Barsine, he being the sole surviving offspring of Alexander, though a bastard; but Cassander, perceiving the danger, conspired for the destruction of the young prince, and the latter was poisoned or strangled by the treacherous Polysperchon. His mother, who lived with him at Pergamum, was also secretly put to death. So perished by violent death all the women of the family of Philip and Alexander, except Thessalonica, who became the wife of Cassander, the destroyer of her mother and her half-sisters.
On the death of Alexander, his generals began the task of establishing independent dominions. They were surrounded by a group of princesses who added to the interest and liveliness of the court society of the times. These generals and their sons, in spite of their bitter rivalries and constant wars, eagerly sought family alliances with each other, such as would in any way increase their prestige. Hence, the princesses who were thus in demand were expected to take a part in the game of politics and diplomacy; and frequent marriages fell to the lot of many of them, as husbands were ofttimes either slain or murdered, and divorces were readily obtained for the slightest reasons of State. The marriage tie seems to have been regarded with but little sanctity; and no bonds were forbidden because of relationship or of family feuds, Cratesipolis, for instance, was the wife of Alexander, son of the titular regent Polysperchon; and at Alexander's death, the father married his son's widow. She had a thrilling career, and was famous not only for her warlike qualities, but also for her goodness of heart and kindness to the poor. Her first husband was Tyrant of Sicyon, and at his death she seized the reins of power. The citizens, despising her because she was a woman, revolted; but she met them in battle, herself commanding her troops, and defeated them and crucified the thirty ringleaders of the revolt. Thus she established her power.
Of all the princesses of this stormy period, the one who ranks as the noblest and most virtuous woman of her age was Phila, daughter of Antipater and wife of Demetrius the Besieger, son of Antigonus--the Alcibiades among the princes of the Succession. She shared with her brilliant husband his various vicissitudes of fortune; and she bore uncomplainingly his many infidelities, his disgraces, and his misfortunes. When, after an erratic career of successes and failures, he was made King of Macedon, she no doubt attained the height of her desires. But his ambition soared higher, and he endeavored to organize a movement to reconquer and embrace under his exclusive rule the whole extent of the empire of Alexander. He was unsuccessful; and after seven years of power as King of Macedon, he was expelled from his kingdom and was compelled to flee for his life to the Peloponnesus. The blow was too severe for his noble-hearted wife, and Phila poisoned herself when she thought his ruin inevitable. She left two children by Demetrius who became prominent in the politics of the times--Antigonus Gonatas, who stood nobly by his father in his misfortunes, and who finally became King of Macedon and was the first of that famous line of kings which became extinct only at the hands of the Romans; and Stratonice, who at the tender age of seventeen was married to the aged Seleucus, King of Syria.
Plutarch tells an interesting story of this princess. Antiochus, son of Seleucus, fell violently ill, and it was difficult for the royal physicians to discover the nature of the malady. Finally, the cleverest of them observed that when Stratonice, the prince's young stepmother, was present, he exhibited all the symptoms mentioned by Sappho in her famous ode,--"his ears rang, sweat poured down his forehead, a trembling seized his body, he became paler than grass." The physician at once perceived that Antiochus was sick for love of the queen. The wily physician, however, in explaining to Seleucus the nature of the malady, pretended at first that it was his own wife with whom the prince was in love; but, so soon as he fully ascertained the king's mind, he told him that his son was dying for love of his stepmother, the beautiful Stratonice. Without a moment's hesitation, the old king resigned his wife to his son and gave them an independent kingdom as a wedding present.
It is rather a remarkable society of queens and princesses to which the court of Macedon admits us,--the licentious and cruel Eurydice the Elder, mother of Philip; the gloomy and violent Olympias; the brilliant and versatile Cleopatra; the valiant and eloquent Cynane and her warlike and ambitious daughter Eurydice; the rather colorless and ill-fated wives of Alexander the Great; the kind-hearted Cratesipolis; the unselfish and noble Phila; and her beautiful daughter Stratonice.
The court life of which they formed a part had its brilliant side, with its veneering of Greek culture and much of the etiquette and ceremony of an Oriental monarchy, and they were the objects of all the respect with which high station endows royal women at the hands of courtiers and gallant soldiers. But one is apt to think rather of the storm and turmoil through which they passed, of their jealousies and intrigues, of their marriages and alliances, and of the violent deaths which they all, with one or two exceptions, found at last. Yet, the most wicked of them had redeeming qualities; even Olympias, who sent numberless men to death, was devoted to her own children, and fought to the bitter end for the rights of her son's heirs; and Eurydice the Younger, who carried on the losing battle with the aged queen, was ever the zealous wife of her weak husband, Arrhidæus. Phila stands out, however, amid this remarkable group, as the one against whom nothing can be said and whose virtues were preëminent--the ever-faithful and devoted wife of the most brilliant and most licentious man of his time.
A history of Greek womanhood would not be complete, did it not somewhere in the volume consider the story of two Greek queens noted for their beauty, their wisdom in counsels, and their valor in war, and withal for their devoted love,--the two Artemisias, Queens of Caria. The first flourished during the Persian Wars, in which she took a prominent part; the second, a century later, and her name is closely identified with the names of many members of the Hellenistic royal families and with the later history of Greek art. Hence we feel justified in appending the account to this chapter discussing the careers of Hellenistic princesses.
Herodotus delights to praise the first Artemisia's queenliness and wisdom, and the only fault he has to find with her is that she fought on the Persian side. He dwells on her story whenever the occasion offers, and we shall be pardoned for permitting the great story teller to sketch the account of her career:
"Of the rest of the officers [of the Persian fleet] I make no mention, but only of Artemisia, at whom I marvel most that she joined the expedition against Hellas, being a woman, for after her husband died, she, holding the power herself, although she had a son who was a young man, went on the expedition, impelled by high spirit and manly courage, no necessity being laid upon her; and she was the daughter of Lygdamus, and by descent she was of Halicarnassus, on the side of her father, but of Crete by her mother. She was ruler of the men of Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyrus, and Calynda, furnishing five ships, and she furnished ships which were of all the fleet reputed the best after those of the Sidonians; and of all his allies she set forth the best counsels to the king. Of the States of which I said she was the leader, I declare the people to be all of Dorian race."
After the disaster to the Persian fleet at Artemisium, King Xerxes was in doubt as to his future policy. He knew that the Greeks had gathered a great fleet at Salamis, and, after sacking Athens, his own naval strength was being collected in the Saronic Gulf. The problem was whether to make a naval engagement, and accordingly "Xerxes sent Mardonius and inquired, making trial of each one, whether he should fight a battle by sea. So when Mardonius went round asking them, the others gave their opinions, all to the same effect, advising him to fight a battle by sea, but Artemisia spoke these words: 'Tell the king that I, who have proved myself to be not the worst in the sea fights which have been fought near Euboea, and have displayed deeds not inferior to those of others, speak to him thus: "Master, it is right that I set forth the opinion that I really have and say that which I happen to think best for thy cause; and this I say--spare thy ships and do not make a sea fight; for their men are as much stronger than thy men by sea, as men are stronger than women. And why must thou needs run the risk of sea battles? If, however, thou hasten to fight forthwith, I fear that damage done to the fleet may ruin the land army also. Moreover, O king, consider also this, that the servants of good men are apt to grow bad, and thou, who art of all men the best, hast bad servants, namely those who are reckoned as allies, Egyptians, Cyprians, and Cilicians, in whom there is no profit."' When she thus spoke, those who were friendly to Artemisia were grieved at her words, supposing that she would suffer some evil from the king; while those who had envy and jealousy of her, because she had been honored above all the allies, were rejoiced at the opposition, supposing that she would now be ruined. When, however, the opinions were reported to Xerxes, he was greatly pleased with the opinion of Artemisia; and whereas even before this he thought her excellent, he commended her now yet more."
Xerxes, however, did not follow the counsel of Artemisia, but was persuaded to attack the fleet of the Greeks. Artemisia entered most valiantly into the sea fight, which very soon began to be disastrous to the Persians.
"When the affairs of the king had come to great confusion, at this crisis the ship of Artemisia was being pursued by an Athenian ship; and as she was not able to escape, for in front of her were other ships of her own side, while her ship was further advanced toward the enemy, she resolved what she would do. She charged in full career against a ship of her own side manned by Calyndians and in which the King of the Calyndians was embarked. Now though even it be true that she had had some strife with him before while they were still about the Hellespont, yet I am not able to say whether she did this by intuition or whether the Calyndian ship happened by chance to fall in her way. Having charged against it and sunk it, she enjoyed good fortune and got for herself good in two ways; for first the captain of the Athenian ship, when he saw her charge against a ship manned by barbarians, turned away and went after others, supposing that the ship of Artemisia was either a Hellenic ship or was deserting from the barbarians and fighting for the Hellenes. Secondly, she gained great reputation by this thing with Xerxes, for besides other things which happened fortunately for her, there was this also, that not one of the crew of the Calyndian ship survived to become her accuser. Xerxes is reported to have said: 'My men have become women and my women men.'
"Now if the Athenian captain had known that Artemisia was sailing in this ship, he would not have ceased until either he had taken her or had been taken himself; for orders had been given to the Athenian captains and a prize was offered of ten thousand drachmas for the man who could take her alive; since they thought it intolerable that a woman should make an expedition against Athens."
After the calamitous issue of the battle of Salamis, Xerxes, having learned by hard experience that the insight of such a woman as Artemisia was more to be depended upon than the wisdom of his male advisers, once more sends for Artemisia and takes counsel with her. "When Xerxes was taking counsel with those of the Persians who were called to be his advisers, it seemed good to him to send for Artemisia also to give him counsel, because at the former time she alone had showed herself to have perception of that which ought to be done. So when Artemisia had come, Xerxes removed from him all the rest and spoke to her thus: 'Mardonius bids me stay here and make an attempt on the Peloponnesus, saying that the Persians and the land army are not guilty of any share in my calamity and that they would gladly give me proof of this. He bids me, therefore, either do this, or, if not, he desires himself to choose thirty myriads from the army and to deliver over to me Hellas reduced to subjection; and he bids me withdraw with the rest of the army to my own abode. So now advise me which of these things I shall do.' She spoke these words: 'O king! it seems good to me that thou shouldst retire back and leave Mardonius here, if he desires it, and undertakes to do this. If Mardonius suffer any disaster, no account will be made; and if the Hellenes conquer, they gain a victory which is no victory, having destroyed one who is but thy slave. Thou, however, wilt retire, having done that for which thou didst make thy march--that is to say, having delivered Athens to the fire,' With this advice Xerxes was greatly pleased, since she succeeded in saying that very thing which he himself was meaning to do. He commended Artemisia, therefore, and sent her away to conduct his sons to Ephesus, for there were certain sons of his who accompanied him."
This time Xerxes took the advice of Artemisia, and left Mardonius with three hundred thousand men to carry on the campaign, while he himself, with the greater part of his forces which had survived, retired to Persia. Artemisia, having won great glory by her valor and wisdom returned to her own dominions, and we know nothing authentic as to her later life. So queenly a woman, however, could not escape the Greek fondness for manufacturing marvellous stories concerning the great; and Ptolemy Hephæstion, a writer who mingles little fact with much fancy in his works, preserves a tradition that Artemisia came to her end in a most romantic manner. During her later years, she conceived a violent attachment for Dardanus, a beautiful youth of Abydos. As her passion was not returned, she avenged herself by putting out his eyes while he slept. This excited the anger of the gods, and in obedience to an oracle she, like the traditional Sappho, threw herself down from the Lover's Leap of Leucate.
The second Artemisia is immortalized by her attachment to her husband Mausolus, King of Caria, in memory of whom she built the celebrated and stately tomb, considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This imposing structure, four hundred and forty feet in circuit, and one hundred and forty feet high, built by the most renowned architects of the time, embellished with sculptures from the hands of Scopas and his associates, and rendered gorgeous by the use of the most varied colors, gave the name ofmausoleumto all succeeding sepulchres built on a colossal scale. No expense was spared by the devoted queen to make it expressive of her love for her husband and brother; for this species of marriage, so common later in Egypt, was sanctioned by the customs of the country.
She furthermore invited the most noted writers of the day to attend a literary contest, and offered the richest prizes to the one who should excel in composing a panegyric to her husband's virtue. Notwithstanding the interest she took in these memorials to her departed lord, she continued to be a prey to the deepest affliction. The story is told that she visited the place where her husband's ashes were deposited, and, mixing them with water, drank them off, for the purpose of becoming, as she said, the living tomb of her husband. In spite of her poignant grief, she did not neglect the duties of her elevated position, but conquered the island of Rhodes, whose inhabitants she treated with great severity. Her love of art was shown in the two statues she had set up in the city, one representing the city of Rhodes, habited like a slave, the other of herself branding the city with a hot iron. Though interested in making Halicarnassus a centre of art and culture, and extending and strengthening her dominions, she could not overcome her desolation of heart, and is said to have died of grief two years after the loss of her husband.