Olympias

I was born among the Molossians of Epirus, of the Aeacid line that traced itself to Achilles. In youth I was called Myrtale; Macedon knew me as Olympias. Philip took my hand for alliance and for heirs, and I gave him Alexander and Cleopatra. I kept the rites of Dionysus and the Orphic songs close, not as spectacle but as devotion and sign. Men muttered of serpents and sorcery; I learned how rumor can be made to serve, or to wound.

At Aegae, during my daughter’s wedding to my brother Alexander of Epirus, Philip fell to an assassin’s blade. Slander walked beside grief: some called me instigator, others called me widow. When my son took the throne and the spear, I guarded his name and the house of the Argeads. When flatterers styled him son of Zeus-Ammon, I answered as a mother answers—proud, and not fooled by incense. He wrote to me plainly; I kept Macedonia watchful while he went east.

After Babylon and his death, the realm shattered. In 317 I returned with Polyperchon and stood as regent for my grandson Alexander IV. I struck at those who had usurped: Philip III Arrhidaeus and Eurydice paid with their lives, as did others who hunted my blood. At Pydna, Cassander penned me in; he swore me safety and then set the bereaved upon me. Stoned in 316, I learned the weight of Macedonian oaths. Judge me by the sons I guarded, not by the stones that found me.