A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Olympias
OLYMPIAS,
Daughter of the King of Epirus, married Philip, King of Macedonia, by whom she had Alexander the Great. Her haughtiness and suspected infidelity induced Philip to repudiate her, and marry Cleopatra, niece of Attains. This incensed Olympias, and Alexander, her son, shared her indignation. Some have attributed the murder of Philip to the intrigues of Olympias, who paid the greatest honour to the dead body of her husband's murderer. Though the administration of Alexander was not altogether pleasing to Olympias, she did not hesitate to declare publicly, that he was not the son of Philip, but of Jupiter. On Alexander's death, B. C. 824, Olympias seized on the government, and cruelly put to death Aridaeus, one of Philip's Illegitimate sons, who had claimed the throne, and his wife Eurydice, as well as Nicanor, the brother of Cassander, with a hundred of the principal men of Macedonia. Cassander besieged her in Pydna, where she had retired, and after an obstinate defence she was obliged to surrender. Two hundred soldiers were sent to put her to death, but the splendour and majesty of the queen overawed them, and she was at last massacred by those whom she had injured by her tyranny. She died about 316, B. C.