Alexander the Great's Mummy Issues: Olympias

They say behind every great man is a great woman. In this episode, we meet the woman behind Alexander the Great's success. From securing his status, to influencing his succession, Olympias was a force to be reckoned with. Kate is joined for this episode by Tristan Hughes, host of our sister podcast, The Ancients. Please vote for us for Listeners' Choice at the British Podcast Awards! Follow this link https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting - https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting - and don’t forget to confirm the email. Thank you! Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:35Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwisters! It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwister Sheets, but before I'm allowing you to listen any further, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, talking about adults, other adults, about adulty things in an adulty way, covering our age, and also makes news being an adult too. That's our small print. That's our auditory small print, because if you do keep listening after that and you happen to get upset, well, tough tits, that one's on you, because fair dues, we did warn you. Right, on with the show!

• 1:06Kate Lister?

  In the north of the Aegean Sea, the azure blue waters give way to the island of Samothrace. Wooden boats laden with pilgrims bump against the pier. Inland, white-robed initiates gather to join a mysterious cult. There is music, chanting, fire, and everyone's being ritually cleansed. Hmm, sounds like a Friday night.

• 1:30Kate Lister?

  But seriously, across the masses of the swaying and dancing bodies, a man and a woman catch each other's eyes, as though struck by cosmic lightning, they're immediately taken with each other. It's fate, it's kismet. These two people are destined to be together, and soon they will birth the legend Alexander the Great. Or, that's how some Greek writers would have us believe that the meeting of Philip II and Olympias went, but let's be honest, it's probably bollocks. The cult that they were said to meet in was on Samothrace, but is a complete mystery, and as all good cults do, it swore everyone to secrecy, so we don't know what was going on. But what do we know about Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias?

• 2:14Kate Lister?

  How did she rise to become one of the most powerful women, in fact, the most powerful people, in the Macedonian Empire? Where did that weird story about cults come from? Well, I am ready to find out if you are.

• 2:29Kate Lister?

  What do you look for in a man?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Oh, money, of course.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing it.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Goodness, what beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, do we?

• 2:58Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Kate Lister. We often talk on this podcast about the fact that women are given very little space in history. Just the margins, really, despite having been there the whole damn time. And today's subject is no exception. We will be returning to the Macedonian Empire, made famous by Alexander the Great, to meet a woman who changed the course of history. Turns out, Alexander, Alex, was quite the mummy's boy. So let's get to know his mum, Olympias. And I'm joined by the host of The Ancients, our sister podcast, Tristan Hughes. So get your sandals on and your togas off. On with the show.

• 3:41Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Tristan Hughes. How are you doing?

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Very well, Kate. Thank you so much for having me back on your show.

• 3:51Kate Lister?

  I had so much fun talking to you last time. Actually, I've been dying to have you back on. And this just seems like a fabulous opportunity to talk to you about another really interesting woman from the ancient world, Olympias.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  Yes, the mother of Alexander the Great, a truly formidable woman. I mean, lots of, shall we say, interesting stories around her that have endured down to the present day. But it's always fascinating to delve into a story, you know, whether it's before Alexander the Great rises to power or during his reign. Or, my favourite part, actually, her rise to prominence following Alexander's death.

• 4:30Kate Lister?

  For anyone listening who's not sure who this is, this is the person that Angelina Jolie played in the film, right?

• 4:35Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 4:36Kate Lister?

  Is that your Braveheart where you just hate it?

• 4:38Speaker 04

  No, I don't want to be so strong on it. I love the detail, like I love certain parts of it. I know it had quite a mixed reception. You can't deny that the attention to historical details is really, really impressive.

• 4:52Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  The problem is... It's almost like we're never happy with these films. Sometimes if they lack the historical accuracy, we're just like, oh no, why haven't they done this? Or this is absurd. But then the other part of that is when they go too much into the historical accuracy and too much detailed. Most people are just like, oh no, this is really boring now.

• 5:09Kate Lister?

  It's got boring now, yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  I think it went too much on that direction. But I thought the casting of Angelina Jolie as Olympias was fantastic. Some amazing stories that we can delve into that her character really includes. And Angelina Jolie, I mean, epitomizes that, a very formidable woman in the public eye. And I think Olympias was exactly the same.

• 5:30Kate Lister?

  You can see why they made that choice, can't you? My interesting fact about that is Angelina Jolie was only like three or four years older than Colin Farrell, who was playing Alexander the Great. It's just fucking behave yourselves. So yeah, that was his mum, apparently. But you can see what they're doing because she's got that sultry sexy thing that Olympias has that reputation for. I wonder if that's fair.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  No, absolutely. And that strong nature and this idea that she had, you know, quite a lot of influence and power over Alexander. And also this idea that she was slightly different at the same time. You know, she wasn't your classic Macedonian woman or mother. The fact that she didn't actually come from Macedonia, but a nearby family, the link with snakes and so on, that I'm sure we'll explore.

• 6:21Kate Lister?

  Well, let's start with that then. So let's give Olympias a bit of an origin story. Where did she come from? Because she must have had a life before being Alexander's mum. Although if you're in Hollywood, that was a life of four years and then she became a mum.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Well, I'm sure she did. Sadly, you never really hear too much about it. But we can piece together a few things. We know that she comes from a kingdom called Melosia. Now, I think I mentioned this in our last chat as well. If people type in Melosia today, you will either get this extraordinary ancient kingdom situated in what is today northwestern Greece and southern Albania, and very much on the fringes of the ancient Greek world. Or you will get this microstate that someone has decided to create in the central of the USA. I think it's just this man who decided, I'm going to create my own little state and I'm going to call it Melosia in the middle of America. So we're not talking about the latter, we're talking about the former.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  But she was a member of that royal family. And the Kingdom of Melosia was Hellenised, i.e. had Greek culture. But once again, it was viewed like the Kingdom of Macedonia, where Alexander the Great is from, as being more on the periphery of the Greek world and so nearer the barbarians. And so there was a thought that maybe because they had direct relations with certain barbarian peoples, that they were closer, that they weren't as pure civilized.

• 7:46Kate Lister?

  It's all the proof I need, quite frankly.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  But their royal family are called the Iacids and they claim descent from Achilles, the great hero Achilles from the Trojan War.

• 7:58Kate Lister?

  Well, go big or go home. Why not? Okay.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  Exactly. So she has royal blood and she's linked to this royal family from this neighbouring kingdom of Melosia.

• 8:07Kate Lister?

  So she's royal, but she does have kind of associations of like slightly barbarian-y, just slightly, because she lives near the barbarians.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:18Kate Lister?

  This is like how Londoners think of northerners because we're near Scotland.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  It's a classic trope that you get kind of thing. And also this idea that the dialect was probably a bit rougher as well than someone, say, living in Athens. Kind of a classic trope. You have to look at the source material we have surviving for Olympias and understand that there are clear biases there. There is clear hostility to Olympias in the fact that she is ultimately a loser in the great struggle for power following Alexander's death. And so there's quite a bit of anti-Olympias propaganda that emerges. And there is just the classic ancient Greek, we just have to say hostility and fear of powerful women. And Olympias does seem to have been able to wield more power than I think many Greeks would have liked, quite frankly, in that society.

• 9:06Kate Lister?

  I think she did. So how does this get positioned that she marries Philip of Macedonia, the big cheese, the big guy? Have we got anything in the records that suggests that might have been a career trajectory for her? Was it a surprise? Was it pretty standard?

• 9:22Speaker 04

  Absolutely was a career trajectory. This is one of the most important moments in Olympias's life because she becomes the mother of Alexander the Great. It's very early on in King Philip II's reign. And to give a bit of background on that, Macedonia, the date is 359 B.C.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  Is in a lot of trouble. It's this big kingdom in the north of the Greek world, what is northern Greece today? And it has been hit by invasions on several sides by neighbouring barbarians. People like the Illyrians, who lived in the Balkans area today, Serbia, Montenegro and so on. And northern Albania. It's been hit by the Thracians in modern day Bulgaria. It's very much a kingdom that is struggling. And then enter Philip the Second of Macedon, who over his career, over his reign of almost thirty years or so, he transforms Macedonia into the leading power in the Greek world. One of the ways he goes about doing this early on is by reforming the army

• 10:25Speaker 04

  and also by doing a number of marriage alliances. And polygamy is a big thing for Macedonian kings. So what you see with Philip is very quickly he starts marrying princesses, royal women of neighbouring kingdoms. So he marries an Illyrian princess after he defeats the Illyrians in battle. And then he looks to Melosia, this kingdom that borders Macedonia in his southwest. And he decides, I want to align myself, I want to kind of strengthen that border as well. And so he arranges a marriage alliance with Olympias, who was the niece of the king of Melosia at that time.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  And so Olympias goes to the court of Philip, basically, you know, as this diplomatic pawn. She's been used to secure a marriage alliance between Philip's kingdom of Macedonia to stabilise his kingdom and Arribas's Melosian kingdom, Arribas, Olympias's uncle, the king.

• 11:26Kate Lister?

  It's not giving Disney romance princess, is it, this?

• 11:31Speaker 04

  I'm afraid not. I mean, to try and soften it, there is another story that Philip and Olympias, they met each other whilst being initiated into a mystery cult. On an island.

• 11:43Kate Lister?

  Much better.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Exactly, and they fell in love. They met each other there and they fell in love. Philip, it was love at first sight and they married and then, hey presto, within a year.

• 11:53Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  There's Alexander the Great. However, when you consider the nature of Philip's marriages, how they're almost all, if not all, diplomatic marriages to secure, to strengthen Macedonia. I think sadly the former is more likely. And Olympias at that time, she's a teenager. She's probably born in the like 370, 371, 372 B.C. She marries Philip in about 357 B.C., so she would certainly be in her teens.

• 12:18Kate Lister?

  How many other wives does he have?

• 12:20Speaker 04

  There are seven overall. So yeah, one more than Henry VIII is how I remember it. And only one of them is actually from a Macedonian family. The others, they're all married from neighbouring realms to help secure, strengthen Philip's kingdom of Macedonia.

• 12:36Kate Lister?

  How does this work then? I'm always fascinated by this. Like you're going over, okay, it's a diplomatic marriage. This probably wasn't your idea. It sounds like it was their uncle's idea. Off she goes as a teenager. And now you have to live with seven other women, seven other wives. Like, I know that we'll never know it, but like what on earth was that dynamic like? Was like, did he have one top favourite wife and then the rest were kind of like backup wives? Or was it like, like what on earth is going on with this?

• 13:02Speaker 04

  You know, it's a fascinating question. Sadly, we don't know too much about it. I mean, given the fact that she is the mother of Alexander the Great. And I'm going to call Alexander the Great Alexander I from now on, because sadly, as we explored in our last chat, these guys aren't great with the diversification of their names, with the variety of their names. So there's a couple of Alexanders, there's a couple of Cleopatra's, so I'll just call him Alexander I for the meantime.

• 13:27Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  So Olympias gets the limelight of talk about her because of that fact. However, you know, one of the big problems with polygamy is that you get these factions developing at court, where you have some people preferring one, another, the family of another wife, and so on. And this idea that, I think, you can't call her the top wife, because all seems to point that as Philip's reign goes on, their relations between Philip and Olympias become more and more strained. And you especially see near the end of Philip's life, that it looks like he is aligning himself with the last wife he marries, which is actually a Macedonian noblewoman. And Olympias may well have been threatened by that. She fears

• 14:13Speaker 04

  for the potential of her son Alexander actually becoming Philip's successor, because that's another thing. It's not clear who the successor of Philip will be. And Macedonian succession is bloody. It's a horrific world that Olympias has been thrown into, that if you are not the mother, or if you are not the faction that becomes the heir, that becomes the successor of King Philip, you're most likely going to be knocked off straight away, because you'll be seen as a threat by the people who do succeed. Alexander I, Alexander the Great, is only one of two male heirs that Philip has, direct sons. So she's got less competition,

• 14:55Speaker 04

  dare I say, there. There is also a cousin who could potentially succeed Philip. So that may well give her a bit more elevation in Philip's eyes and Macedonian eyes, because, you know, she is one of the only wives of Philip that does give him a son, and early on, during Philip's reign. But at the same time, I've also got to highlight the fact that she is a Melocean birth. She's not a Macedonian. And there is sometimes just this idea in the Macedonian aristocracy, the nobility, that they would prefer, you know, a pure blood. Macedonian era as well. So that you have to consider all of these things when trying to understand a bit more of what life would have been like for Olympias during those years.

• 15:35Kate Lister?

  I always look at these things and it's inevitable that rivalry and factions arise because of the power involved and because the stakes are so high and because they do like to kill each other. It's like you just like if you're going into that kind of environment, you'd be like, right, guys, there's seven of us, there's one of him. That means that we all get at least six nights off per week. We'll get a rotor going, we'll share resources and then like none of us have to be bugged by this guy full time. We can just job share this wife nonsense. But that isn't what happens. It just gets nasty and pretty quick, doesn't it?

• 16:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. And also considering the fact that Philip is away campaigning a lot of the time. But it aligns with the fact that Olympias and Alexander do certainly seem to have had a very close relationship. That's what we can gather. And obviously, as time goes on with Philip, when we get to his ultimate murder, there are certain rumours that both Alexander and Olympias were involved in his death, in his assassination. We can't prove that. I'm sure we'll talk about that as time goes on. But yes, factional strife is there. It's an inherent part of Macedonian royal politics, of the polygamous world, of the succession crises that always hit when one Macedonian ruler dies. And it, quite

• 16:48Speaker 04

  frankly, it emphasises further that strong formidable nature of Olympias. She knows that. She knows the cutthroat world that she's entering into. You should never pity Olympias, in my opinion.

• 17:00Kate Lister?

  Oh no. Oh no.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Although sometimes we want to do that, you know, that she's misunderstood with the pretty infamous legacy she's got. And there are absolutely parts of her story that are, you know, exaggerated and she's done badly by the surviving sources. But never think of her as being a victim in any way or go too far in that regard. She was very happy to kill if it meant that Alexander became the next king. Family is very important to her, only if it's the immediate family. Anyone who's not immediate family, she'll see as a threat to her son, she's happy to get rid of.

• 17:37Kate Lister?

  Could you be doing with seven wives? I've got the idea of seven husbands, it's just, no, thank you, send me to a nunnery.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  No, absolutely not.

• 17:46Kate Lister?

  No.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  It's the, it shows the political nature of marriage in Macedonian politics.

• 17:50Kate Lister?

  It does, doesn't it?

• 17:50Speaker 04

  It was, yeah.

• 17:51Kate Lister?

  Can I ask, is there anything in the sources, and you just hinted at it there, that they had a happy marriage in the beginning? What was it like to be married to Philip of Mastum? Was he a kind and generous lover? Do we know anything about what kind of relationship they had?

• 18:06Speaker 04

  Well, he certainly wasn't loyal, I give you that.

• 18:07Kate Lister?

  No.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  You know, he's having sex with everyone, I'm pretty sure. He seems to be pretty promiscuous. There are certain hints that Philip, I think you could say, he did try to keep Olympias happy to a degree.

• 18:22Kate Lister?

  Ooh, okay.

• 18:23Speaker 04

  Or at least tried to show that he respected the Meloshans. Because you've also got to consider that Olympias is representing the Meloshan royal family. And so there's a political viewpoint here that, you know, Philip can't just sideline Olympias once she's given him a, a boy. You know, this is also an active diplomatic arrangement. So one thought that I can think of is that one of Alexander's tutors does come from Melosia. Uh, and so is this a, a link to Philip basically saying, yes, go on, Olympias, you can bring this man in? Was this man someone who Olympias asked Philip to bring in to, to help educate Alexander? Although there's another contrasting story, which suggests that Olympias didn't like this teacher at all.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  So you can see, that's just an example of the nature of our sources. There's also an interesting piece of architecture that survives from one of the great sanctuaries of Greece at Olympia, where Philip constructs this building called the Philippion, within the sacred precinct.

• 19:23Kate Lister?

  So modest, so modest.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Well, exactly, the hint, the clue is in the name, isn't it? I think it's the only building within the Altis, the religious precinct there, not dedicated to a god. It's dedicated to Philip and his family, and within you had statues of Philip. But you also had Alexander, the young Alexander the Great, and Olympias.

• 19:44Kate Lister?

  Interesting.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  So it's interesting that he chose to depict Olympias there.

• 19:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  And there's one other thing that I would say, kind of to pro the point, that maybe Philip and, you know, he was always wanting at least to do a few acts once in a while that Olympias would have been happy about, which is to do with Olympias's brother. Now, this is where it gets slightly confusing because he's also called Alexander.

• 20:08Kate Lister?

  Oh, fuck.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  So he is Alexander II.

• 20:10Kate Lister?

  Or call him Uncle Alex.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he is the uncle of Alexander the Great. So this is Uncle Alex, Alex II. And he is the younger brother of Olympias, and he also goes to the court of Philip. And Alex II, one source says that he becomes a catamite of Philip the Second.

• 20:27Kate Lister?

  Oh, now that's complicated family relations.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. So he's married to Olympias and, you know, Olympias's younger brother is his catamites, idea that in one of our sources. But the key thing here is that after a decade or so, Philip decides that he's fed up with the current king of Melosia, Olympias's uncle. And so he marches an army into Melosia, gets rid of that king, and in his place installs young Alexander, Alexander II, so Olympias's brother.

• 21:03Kate Lister?

  Oh.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  So you could think that Olympias probably did like that. You know, this idea that Philip has gone and got rid of the old uncle and instead installed her beloved younger brother as king of Belosia. Yeah. So it suits Philip, but you can imagine it probably also suited Olympias as well. So I'm trying to think of stuff like that. But shall we get into the juicy stuff?

• 21:27Kate Lister?

  Yes, let's, because it can't have just all been, yeah, they quite loved each other, but there was a lot of wives and she had a baby and it was great. Like, stuff does start to come off pretty quick.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Well, the stories that we have surviving, a lot of them seem to suggest that Philip grew, quite frankly, scared and lost all interest in Olympias a few years after their marriage. But how far we can believe these, we've got to take them with a massive barrel full of salt.

• 21:53Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Because of the nature of the sources. I mentioned earlier, because of the nature of the stories, Olympias has this strong connection with snakes, which I think is fair enough.

• 22:03Kate Lister?

  And does in the movie. Angelina Jolie's like cozying up to snakes all the way through it.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  Because do you know what god in the Greek pantheon has a symbol of a snake is closely associated with snakes?

• 22:16Kate Lister?

  Oh, was it the healing god? No.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Oh, Escaipius, yeah, that's another one. The party god.

• 22:21Kate Lister?

  Dionysus?

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Dionysus, the mystery.

• 22:23Kate Lister?

  I didn't know he liked snakes.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  One of my favourite pieces of artwork comes from Pompeii. So this is much later and it shows Bacchus slash Dionysus. But you also see, you see him clad in grapevines. There's Vesuvius as a beautiful mountain in the background before it's erupted, covered in vines. And in the foreground, you have a big snake, just kind of an S-shaped snake in the foreground. So it is a big symbol of Dionysus. And we know, although there are exaggerated stories about it, that Olympias seems to have been very big into the Dionysiac mysteries, into the worship of Dionysus. So

• 22:58Kate Lister?

  Oh, well, okay.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  The fact that she possessed snakes seems very likely. Where this gets into Philip losing interest in Olympias in one of the stories is apparently Philip is peeking through the keyhole.

• 23:10Kate Lister?

  Philip.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  He's looking like for a slit in the door and he sees inside Olympias having sex with a snake.

• 23:17Kate Lister?

  That'll do it. That would, that

• 23:22Kate Lister?

  if you had to pinpoint the moment your relationship started to turn, it might be that one.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Well, I will elaborate on it. The snake is supposedly the great Egyptian god Amun.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  In the guise of a snake. Now that sounds a bit peculiar, doesn't it? We've been talking about Greek gods and now we're talking about a cheap.

• 23:40Kate Lister?

  That wasn't the bit I thought that was peculiar about that story. No, but now you point it out. Yes.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  I'm just so used to it with Greek mythology, you know, gods turning into animals and so on. But Ammon is effectively the Greek equivalent of Zeus. So sometimes they'll call it Ammon. Alexander the Great famously visits the oracle of Ammon because he's equilated. He's the equivalent of Zeus. So it's this idea that appears, you know, once we know what Alexander will become and how extraordinary a figure he is, that he's the son of Zeus.

• 24:11Kate Lister?

  Oh, so the snake. Oh, okay. Okay. So she's not just shagging reptiles. This is how Alexander was conceived. I don't think this is a true story. Tristan's going to throw it out there.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly.

• 24:25Kate Lister?

  I have doubts.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  I do too. But I think it maybe aligns with this idea, at least that is sometimes presented in the sources, that over time Philip did lose interest in Olympias. How much we can say that for certain, we cannot. We'd, I just thought you would enjoy that story and your listeners would enjoy that story.

• 24:43Kate Lister?

  I loved that story, but it's amazing how often strange births and strange conceptions turn up in sources for legendary figures. It's almost like we can't imagine that they just had a normal birth, a normal conception, like King Arthur was supposed to have been conceived through Merlin magic, doing weird stuff and, you know, Christ virgin birth and all the stuff. So this Olympias is shagging a snake who's actually the Egyptian god. That sort of tracks, doesn't it?

• 25:13Speaker 04

  And also you see, and this is another interesting story, like following Alexander the Great's death, you see the emergence of one of the most remarkable successor kingdoms, that kind of Greek Macedonian dynasties in Egypt, the Ptolemies. And what you see happening there is the creation of another story, but surrounding Alexander the Great's conception. And so it of course features Olympias again, but it's this idea that actually the last native Egyptian pharaoh was a man called Nectonibo II. He went into exile at the court of Philip II in Macedonia. All nonsense. There's no historical claims for this happening at all. But this later romance story includes it.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  And the crux to that story is that Necta Nebo could transform into an Egyptian god, into Amun or into Zeus. And then he basically has an affair with Olympias. And it is he who is the father of Alexander the Great, has sex with Olympias. They give birth to Alexander. What's so important about that? Alexander becomes the new pharaoh of Egypt. And then following his death, the Ptolemies claim to be the successors of Alexander. So from that fictional story, you suddenly get the legitimization, a link between the new Greek rulers of Egypt, the Ptolemies, Alexander before them, and then Necta Nebo before them. So this trying to show that they were the next in line.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  But it's another example where Olympias is used basically to try and confirm either the divine nature or the legitimacy of Alexander and his successors. You know, it's really interesting.

• 26:50Kate Lister?

  It is, isn't it? All right, so we've got a strange story that we both have some doubts about, that Olympias had sex with the snake while Philip was watching, apparently. But what kind of mum was she to Alexander? Because I just have this image like of her being like the ultimate stage mother, like overly pushy. Do we have any records of that? Like when Alexander is growing up, what kind of mum is she?

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Sadly, we don't really. We just have a few stories about it. I mean, I mentioned the tutor earlier. And also just the nature of Macedonian politics, that Olympias would want Alexander to be, to be Philip's successor. And she would see any other wife, any other children, you know, that emerged from official marriages of Philip as a direct threat.

• 27:43Kate Lister?

  And where there were the children.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, and this is actually an interesting story. In regards to Olympias herself, she also does give birth to a daughter. So she has two children with Philip, the famous one being Alexander the Great, Alexander I. But also an amazing daughter, who I'm sure we'll explore as time goes on, called Cleopatra. And she's Cleopatra I think is fair to say, because there'll be another Cleopatra in time. But yes, Philip does have another child. He does have another son. And it's not clear whether he's older or younger. I think he's older. So that, once again, is slightly concerning, an older son. His name is Aridaeus, and he is born to a Thessalian mum, a Thessalian wife of Philip.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  And Thessaly is the region just south of Macedonia, so kind of Middle Greece today.

• 28:30Kate Lister?

  Is that better than the Melotians in this strange judgmental system?

• 28:36Speaker 04

  If you look at recent history, I think the Thessalians in the early 4th century B.C. have been a very big power.

• 28:44Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  There's one man called Jason of Ferai, who's extraordinary. And cavalry, horsemen, they have a very rich culture there. So maybe they share more with the Macedonians. It's a great question, Kate. Like, would Philip have seen the marriage to this woman, Philina, as more beneficial than a marriage to the Melotians? Which, quite frankly, at the end of the day, the Melotians aren't really a big threat to Macedonia. They're a small kingdom in the southwest.

• 29:10Kate Lister?

  It's like this wife came from Bristol and Olympias came from Liverpool. That kind of like.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  I don't want to, I don't want to say anything too much now. Um, but.

• 29:19Kate Lister?

  I know what I mean.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Lovely friends in Liverpool.

• 29:21Kate Lister?

  Yeah, but they're edgy in Liverpool. They're sparring for a fight, aren't they?

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's difficult to tell. The interesting story here is that Olympias, and this may well be fiction because of the hostile nature of our sources and this idea. But then again, Olympias was formidable. She would do so much to ensure that Alexander became Philip's successor. Is Aridaeus, seems to be a healthy young boy, until he's in his early teenage years, where it becomes obvious that he suffers from some mental disability. We don't know what, but it means that he is incapable of ruling on his own. Which basically. In the Kingdom of Macedonia, where you need to be a strong king, you need to be a warlord,

• 30:08Speaker 04

  you need to be fighting from the front with your men, you know, sharing in the risks of battle, you need to be active and, you know, decision making and willing to risk your life. That kind of puts Aridae a sound of the question. And so one of the stories that emerges is, well, did Olympias poison him when he was younger?

• 30:24Kate Lister?

  Oh, Olympias.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  So I don't think that story is accurate once again, but it's another of these stories that emerges is that like, she probably did see him as a threat. Did she poison him so that he was no longer a threat? In regards to other children, yes, he does. They're all daughters, so they're less of a threat and they're not as targeted by Olympias. Until after Philip's death, where one of those daughters, who is half a Lyrian, which basically means half barbarian, and she's more warlike, she's absolutely extraordinary figure, she becomes a bit more of a threat to Olympias, her name's Canane, but I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves. But yes, Philip does have one other son, but he's not capable of really challenging Alexander for the succession.

• 31:10Kate Lister?

  No, so by whatever means, the road is cleared for Alexander to inherit the throne, which he does when Philip meets a rather sticky end, doesn't he? What happens then?

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's interesting because Philip is killed, he's assassinated, actually, when Philip seems to be doing something for the benefits of Olympias and Alexander. They'd had a falling out the year before, and we should also talk about this because Philip had married his final wife, who is a Macedonian noblewoman, a young Macedonian noblewoman, also called Cleopatra, so we'll call her Cleopatra II. Damn it, indeed. But at the wedding feast of this marriage, Cleopatra II's mum and dad are dead, and so her guardian is her uncle, a prominent Macedonian noble called Attalus, who is very much seeking favour with Philip. And during this feast, Attalus makes a toast and effectively says, with Alexander and Olympias both in the room.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  He says to Philip, toasting him and his niece, may you have fine legitimate sons. Oh, fuck. Rookie error there. That's not good. So Alexander hears this, like, he throws his cup across the room at Attalus, goes into a mad frenzy because basically Attalus has called him illegitimate. You know, he's not a proper Macedonian. This goes back to this idea of a pure Macedonian son. Like xenophobia, is it? Xenophobia, I guess is the right word, yes. But even more local than that. Well, exactly. And basically Philip gets annoyed and Alexander flees into exile and Olympias flees with him. And so for a year or so, maybe less than a year, Olympias goes back to Melosia and Alexander resides with the old barbarian enemies of the Macedonians in Elyria.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  So northern Albania and the Balkans today. They are reconciled and it seems Olympias does return. But as part of that reconciliation, it looks like Philip wants to show them that the kingdom of Melosia and the Melosians, they're still dear to him, they're still important and Alexander's still important to him. So he arranges, and once again, this is a family affair, it's slightly horrific when you think of it. He arranges the marriage of Olympias's younger brother, the new king of Melosia, Alexander II. Yeah. To Olympias's daughter, Cleopatra I. Oh. So Olympias's younger brother and her daughter are getting married. Oh, no. Right, okay. Yeah. So it's just the nature of these royal marriages sadly.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  But Philip was doing this, once again, it's to try and strengthen this links with Melosia. And maybe as a bit of a peace offering to Olympias and Alexander. It comes to no avail because Philip will be assassinated at that event by a jilted lover. One of his male lovers and bodyguards, a man called Pausanias, who Philip had grown tired of. And then had been raped by the aforementioned Attalus at the same wedding feast we mentioned earlier. I'm sorry, there's a lot of events here, but quite frankly, Pausanias gets raped, he complains to Philip about it. Attilus being the new, basically, uncle, well, kind of now related by marriage to Philip. Philip says, I can't do anything about it. And one of the rumours is that Pausanias seeks solace.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  He seeks reassurance and help in this difficult time with Olympias. And Olympias orchestrates him to go and murder Philip at this ceremony, which he does. So, once again, you get Olympias linked to the murder of Philip. This can't be proven, but she's strongly linked, along with Alexander himself, with the ultimate killing of Philip.

• 34:43Kate Lister?

  Does that seem likely to you?

• 34:44Speaker 04

  There is certainly motive there.

• 34:46Kate Lister?

  I thought that he was doing something nice for them.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  The problem is, he may have been doing that, but I think Olympias is thinking first and foremost about Alexander and the solidity of his succession. Philip's new wife, Cleopatra II, has already given birth to one child. It's a daughter, so it's not a son, but I think there is a fear there. Also, Philip's about to go on campaign.

• 35:08Kate Lister?

  So let's move this along, that's what she's thinking.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, so there is motive there to get rid of Philip so that Alexander can be the clear successor now.

• 35:16Kate Lister?

  Yeah, okay.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  It's not for certain. There's another line of evidence that it was the Persians who paid, who irked on Pausanias to murder Philip at this event. But I think there is certainly a possibility. And Olympias certainly did have the willpower to do it, I would argue.

• 35:32Kate Lister?

  I think that you're probably right. I wouldn't mess with her. But it's also true that there wasn't a short list of people that would probably want to bump him off as a fair few contenders.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  Well, that's the factional politics, isn't it?

• 35:44Kate Lister?

  That's what happens with power, isn't it? You're going to piss people off.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Yes, but I think there certainly is motive there. There does seem to be a potential idea that Olympias, she was wary of letting things go on too long. She was wary of Alexander's position. She was wary of the influence of Attilus, of Cleopatra's uncle, and how much he could potentially make Philip decide otherwise. Also, just how long Philip was going to live for.

• 36:09Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  So she decides to act, but through the agency of this jilted lover.

• 36:13Kate Lister?

  Interesting.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  There are two horses prepared for him whilst Pausanias is trying to run away from the crime. He doesn't escape, but once again, it adds to this idea that this is a planned event.

• 36:22Kate Lister?

  It's pre-planned.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 36:26Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Tristan and Olympias after this short break.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows, or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.

• 37:40Kate Lister?

  Now Alexander is gonna be crowned, I don't know, what was he, king, emperor?

• 37:44Speaker 04

  King, yeah.

• 37:44Kate Lister?

  King. And now Olympias is gonna have to face what every single mother of a powerful man has had to face throughout history. You've bred him to be king, and you've trained him, and you thought he could be like a bit of a puppet, but eventually, he is gonna become his own man, and maybe won't want his mum calling the shots. What happens when he actually takes power?

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Yes, and exactly. I think we would have seen more of that directly if it hadn't been for the fact that within two years of him assuming the throne, Alexander is out campaigning, he launches his invasion of the Persian Empire, and he never returns to Macedonia again.

• 38:20Kate Lister?

  Oh, right, okay.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  Where Olympias stays. But that's not to mean that they never communicate with each other. They do send letters to each other. Once again, this is a case where the surviving source is probably, you know, you've got to sort of fact from fiction there. But what we can see is that Olympias evidently meant a lot to Alexander, Alexander the Great's son. We're gonna be talking largely about him from now on, not Olympias's brother. And that he seems to have made his closest members of the family, which is his mother, and his full sister, his official family. So they are elevated. They are basically the royal representatives which represent Alexander in Europe, in Macedonia, when he's out campaigning in the east.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  Any other members of the royal family, half-sisters, and this half-brother Aridaeus, who he doesn't kill off, by the way, he doesn't see him as a threat, really interesting, we'll probably come back to him. He doesn't make his official family. He tries to marry one of them off, the rest just kind of retreats into relative obscurity for years and Alexander doesn't really pay much attention to them. So there is that genuine connection there, that Alexander wants to elevate their status, and it seems that Olympias does hold an important role back in Macedonia whilst Alexander is out campaigning. But she doesn't call all of the shots, and the nature of her letters to Alexander are very, very interesting, because in a few of them, there's clear jealousy. She's jealous of some of the closest friends

• 39:49Speaker 04

  of Alexander and how many gifts he's giving them. And there's one story where she sends a letter to Alexander and she's like, "You need to be wary about how many gifts you're giving these certain individuals, because it's affecting how much power you have. And just be wary of them, Alexander, just be wary of them." And at the end of the day, it does seem to be that she's a bit jealous of how much prominence certain figures close to Alexander are getting, including the man who becomes his best friend and almost certainly lover, Hephaestus. It's all very interesting.

• 40:20Kate Lister?

  So she's ruling while he's away? She's like the queen regent?

• 40:24Speaker 04

  She's ruling to an extent. I think it's very clear from the surviving sources and archaeological evidence that she holds some sort of official role. Alexander sends her back loot that he's won in battle. She offers stuff at Delphi, the most important Greek sanctuary, to Apollo. Also at Athens as well, she has a very strong connection to Athens, which is something that her family does have a long alignment with. And she does seem to have an important role. However, there is also an official man governing Macedonia and these western territories.

• 40:59Kate Lister?

  Damn it. I was hopeful there, Tristan, that she was put in charge of a whole load of stuff. Who's the man?

• 41:04Speaker 04

  You say that, but actually, this becomes one of the most fascinating parts of her story, because she develops an absolute hatred of this figure.

• 41:10Kate Lister?

  Of course she does.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  And it dominates, quite frankly, the rest of her life. And this is a man who's older than Alexander, who actually was from the same generation as Philip the Second, and actually was one of the closest advisers of Philip the Second. So it may well be that Olympias's rivalry, hatred of Antipater stemmed back to factional politics ever since she was a teenager. We don't know. But Antipater is made the viceroy of Macedonia and Greece. So the Macedonian lands, because they now control Greece as well, west of the Aegean Sea. And what you get is letter after letter, apparently, being sent by Olympias and by Antipater to Alexander. And effectively, they're bitching about each other.

• 41:56Kate Lister?

  Oh, no.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  They're complaining about each other all the time. Olympias is worried about Antipater's power-hungry nature. This idea that Antipater actually wants the throne for himself, and that he's gaining more and more power than he's supposed to, as basically the man in charge of Macedonia in Alexander's absence. Antipater is really annoyed at Olympias because he sees her as just infringing on his power and being a pain in the arse. But she has her own official position. And it seems that Olympias is always trying to limit Antipater's power and to limit what Antipater's trying to do. Antipater's sending messages to Alexander saying, look, can you please tell your mum to stop this?

• 42:42Speaker 04

  And then Olympias is sending messages to Alexander saying, look, you need to be wary of this guy. This guy is causing mischief. He's slowly increasing his power. He's going to take over. It's a fascinating rivalry you get through Alexander, because sadly, in this period, understandably, all the sources are not focused on Macedonia. They're focused on what's happening with Alexander. So it's through the letters to Alexander that you learn more about what Olympias is doing in the meantime. It does seem that Olympias does gain some success in this, however, because there's one line in our source Plutarch, who, after he reads a very, and he stresses, a very long letter by Antipater, just complaining about Olympias. Alexander supposedly remarks, ah.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  One tear from my mother wipes away 10,000 or thousands of words written against her. So this idea that, you know, his connection to Olympias, you know, the familial connection is so strong that Antipater can complain as much as he wants, but as soon as he sees Olympias, you know, or hears from his mother, Olympias would always win in that battle. And by the end of Alexander's reign, it seems that he starts agreeing with Olympias because he summons Antipater to Babylon. Basically, he aims to demote him. Alexander will die before that happens. He will die in 323 B.C. But it's an interesting case of where you have this

• 44:07Speaker 04

  year-long rivalry and this growing hatred and wariness of one another, of Olympias and Antipater, that just endures through, it seems, the entirety of Alexander's reign.

• 44:19Kate Lister?

  Could you even imagine being on the receiving end of those letters of just like, "Alex, Alex mate, I'm so sorry, there's another one that's arrived. Fuck, hey", just having to like read through, blah, blah, blah. "Oh my god, mum, yes, all right", just, oh, because that's politics, isn't it? You know, that when you get past all the war and the glitz and the glamour, it's just diplomacy with a lot of people thinking that they know what's best for you.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And Alexander's not alien to that at all. The jostling of people for his attention at court, you know, and whispering stuff in his ear. Olympias can't be there in person. Cleopatra, his sister, can't be there in person as well. They are both back in Europe. Cleopatra, going back to us talking about powerful women. In the meantime, Olympias' brother, the other Alexander, Cleopatra's husband, the king of Meloche, has died, basically trying to emulate the achievements of his nephew, Alexander I in the East, by campaigning in Italy. He dies badly there, trying to extend control. But what's interesting there is Cleopatra becomes the regent of Melosia. She actually becomes in charge for a bit of time.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  So you have actually Alexander's sister also commanding a lot of power. So you have the two closest female family members of Alexander. Although they have troubles, particularly from Antipater, they are almost certainly controlling quite a bit of power in Alexander's empire west of the Aegean in Europe.

• 45:46Kate Lister?

  All right, so how does this end up then? Does Olympia die of old age in her home, in her bed, nice and safe? And everyone thinks, oh, that's a shame.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  No, I'm sorry to say.

• 45:59Kate Lister?

  No.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Olympias is an absolutely formidable woman who you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of. And Antipater and his family do get on the wrong side of. But Olympias herself is also not immortal. She's not invulnerable. And actually, when Alexander the Great dies unexpectedly, aged just 32 in Babylon, all of a sudden, her son, one of the keys to her protection, quite frankly, has died. And what follows Alexander's death is this extraordinary period of chaos where all these people compete for power in his empire, these various generals. But you also see prominent women rising to the fore, trying to ensure that they align with the winners.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  And that is clear with Olympias and her daughter Cleopatra. Because what do they have that many other figures don't? They have a direct royal bloodline to Alexander the Great. And so they become very appealing to many of these generals, these Alexander-like figures who fought with him for generations, who are trying to seize power in this post-Alexander world. And what way to secure your legitimacy by marrying in to the royal family? Now, none of them would marry Olympias. She's too old by this point. She's probably in her 60s at least. She'd probably also destroy them, let's be frank. But they could marry Alexander's sister Cleopatra, now a widow.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  You know, and she'll be in her thirties, early thirties at the oldest. And so what you see is Olympias and Cleopatra forming this extraordinary mother-daughter team, where they start to align, you know, put out offers to generals who are coming back west following Alexander's death to marry. Because once again, they also need to secure themselves in this, this difficult world. Antipater's still alive, there's the threat from him. He's got quite a few sons as well, and he's been pretty active in the marriage market, trying to align himself with other generals who are rising to power at this moment. And so what you see is Olympias and Cleopatra trying to secure marriages with certain generals to secure their position. They try it with one general, he comes back west, he's very happy, he's excited because

• 48:07Speaker 04

  he's going to marry Cleopatra, then he dies, he dies in battle. So that one falls apart. They then go right for the top, they go for the man who becomes effectively the next ruler of the empire. He's the regent, he's not the king, but he's the regent because the king at that time, there are two. One of them is the Aridaeus I mentioned earlier, the one who Olympias could have poisoned, but he's just a figurehead because he can't rule in his own right. And the other is the third Alexander, Alexander III, which is Alexander the Great's infant child. He's just a boy, he's only born actually after Alexander dies. So he can't rule either. So you have a regent and that man is Perdicus.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  And so they petition Perdicus, they say, if you come back west, if you bring back the body of Alexander the Great as well, you bring back the royal army, if you also bring back those two kings, you've got all these symbols of legitimacy, come back to Macedonia with all your troops and we will meet you there. Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, and marry Cleopatra. Perdicus has got all these symbols of authority, he becomes the new, he basically will become the new king. I think that's pretty clear what the plan is. Doesn't work out. Perdicus dies in Egypt. That plan fails as well. But those are just examples of how Olympias, you know, she's trying to be a mastermind now with her daughter to secure her position now that Alexander, her son, has died. And they don't work.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  In fact, it goes the opposite way because Antipater becomes the top dog. He actually becomes the winner. He's old, but he...

• 49:43Speaker 04

  Defeats Perdicus and the others, he becomes the top dog for a couple of years. He then dies, but his son, a man called Cassander, then rises to the fore. And this really annoys Olympias because she has now got it into her mind because of how much she hates Antipater, that he, Antipater and his whole family, were actually responsible for Alexander's death.

• 50:05Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 50:05Speaker 04

  She doesn't believe that Alexander died a natural death.

• 50:09Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay, that's bollocks though, isn't it? That's just, she's just stirring stuff up.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  It's a big rumour, that does get some credence, but she believes that Antipater's son Cassander goes to Babylon, because he does. And then one of Antipater's other sons, a man called Iolaus, who was Alexander's cupbearer, poisons his drink, and then that's why Alexander dies at that age.

• 50:30Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  It seems that Olympias is convinced by that rumour that spreads. And so she retreats back to her family region of Melosia and stays there for a few years because she thinks she'll be in danger in Macedonia. She still wants to secure her grandson, this third Alexander's rule, this infant Alexander's rule, but that's still going to be a decade or so's time for that to happen. And she knows that the people like Cassander, who's basically the new Antipater, once Antipater dies, could be a threat. And this ultimately happens. Because a few years later, all the action is back in Macedonia. Aridaeus has returned to Macedonia, Cassander is back in Macedonia, Olympias is in Melosia.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  But then she hears that Aridaeus's wife basically aligns Aridaeus, this king, with Cassander. And now Olympias fears for her grandson.

• 51:26Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Tristan and Olympias after this short break.

• 51:41Kate Lister?

  Hello Betwixters, I am jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 52:10Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 52:24Kate Lister?

  There's the baby grandson, Alexander's actual son, but he's too young to do anything. So a whole load of other people have got into the fray going, we'll do it. And now this baby's very vulnerable because if they take him out, then they're pretty much golden.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  Exactly. Two kings and now Olympias fears, oh, hang on. This other king, because of his wife, who's very, very strong hearted, she's called Eurydice, fascinating woman, has decided to align her husband with Cassander, who's a rising power. Olympias is in Melosia at that time, but the man, the general, who controls the infant baby Alexander IV, retreats to Melosia and basically begs Olympias to help. Like, please leave Melosia, leave the safety of your home region.

• 53:05Kate Lister?

  How old's she by this point?

• 53:07Speaker 04

  She's in her mid 60s, mid 60s at least.

• 53:10Kate Lister?

  Not worth it, just retire, grow some herbs, just...

• 53:14Speaker 04

  You need to understand the importance of family for these people. You know, her son is dead, but her infant grandson, she probably knew that the chances were slim in this chaotic world that he would rise to adulthood and become the next king.

• 53:27Kate Lister?

  All right, yeah, my mum would kill for her grandchildren. Yeah, okay, good point, yep.

• 53:31Speaker 04

  It seems that she decides, right, okay. I've also now seen that this other queen has declared for Cassander. And I think they will slowly try to make Aridaeus the sole king and then seize power through that, which means that my infant son will be out of the picture for good. And it'd be really hard to reinstate him. So what she does, she enlists the help. Of the new king of Melosha, who's another family member. She marches with this army into Macedonia and she accompanies it back very much with this idea that she will be a guardian of this infant Alexander the Fourth and try to see that he rises to prominence. It's extraordinary story then, that when she's marching into Macedonia from Melosha, the queen of the other king, who had declared for Cassandra,

• 54:16Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  rallies troops and marches out to meet her.

• 54:20Kate Lister?

  Oh, cracking, right, okay.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  And in one source, it's called the First War of Women.

• 54:24Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  Which sadly is nonsense, I'm afraid, because there's no battle, there's no war. As soon as they see Olympias, these troops that this other queen Eurydice had mustered, they go over to her because of her status, because of her prominence. And so she wins Macedonia without a fight. She instates Alexander the Fourth as king and aligning with her brutal streak, she confines Eurydice and Aridaeus to a small chamber. She has the incapable Aridaeus killed. He's stabbed through. His body is left to rot with Eurydice, who she hates, by the way. She detests this other queen who's tried to align with Cassandra.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  And then a few days later, someone enters her cell, offers her a dagger, a noose and some hemlock, so poison. And basically says, you choose which way you want to die, I don't care. And then she dies. But then that's Olympias in a nutshell. She's killed other members of the family. You know, she's killed an infant baby in the past to secure Alexander's succession. She's not afraid to kill people who she sees as a threat to her family. And it's the same with her grandson.

• 55:30Kate Lister?

  It's very Cersei from Game of Thrones, isn't it? It's sort of giving that sort of vicious, like, I'll protect my family at any cost vibe.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  It's kill or be killed, this idea, that it is brutal. It is a horrific way that she did it. I mean, that the stories have survived, that she did it, that she removed these royal rivals now that they've declared for Cassandra. But the terrible way to say it is that some would argue that it is necessary to secure the legitimacy of the figure. She'd done it also, Alexander had done it also when he became the new king. She's not scared to do away with people that she thinks would be a threat to either her son, first of all, and then her grandson, Alexander the Fourth. But then she goes on this mad killing spree. She kills lots of Cassandra supporters in Macedonia, which might not be a good move. She desecrates the tomb. She destroys the tomb of one of Cassandra's brothers, which is the figure of Iolas, who she thinks was the cupbearer

• 56:22Speaker 04

  who poisoned Alexander. So she destroys his tomb. She spreads that rumor that Alexander was poisoned by Antipater's family. And the sources say that the Macedonians, you know, they start to think twice about Olympias and a new rule saying, oh, hang on, this is, you know, this is going a bit too far. How much we can believe that, we don't know. The killing of Cassandra's supporters, a hundred of them, may be going a bit too far. But quite frankly, Cassandra is still in Greece at this time. He's further south with an army. He reacts when he hears that his brother's tomb has been destroyed and that his ally, you know, this queen has been killed and the king has been killed and that he's got a very hostile Olympias now in charge in Macedonia. So he marches north of the army straight away.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  And it seems to be a case that Olympias and her generals really mismanage the military side of the upcoming war. Because it's defeat after defeat for her in the war that follows. Cassandra gains victory after victory. And ultimately Olympias, you know, still fighting in her mid 60s, at least by this time. She withdraws to one city and she's besieged by Cassandra's forces for several months. Starvation kicks in, like all the animals are killed. There might even be hints of cannibalism as well. And ultimately Olympias surrenders to Cassandra.

• 57:45Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  You can imagine that that's not good news for Olympias.

• 57:48Kate Lister?

  That's not good news for her. He didn't just go, don't do that again. Off, off you go.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  No. And even though she is the mother, she still holds the big, important title of mother of Alexander the Great. It's not going to save her because Cassandra wants to do away with her. He says, okay, you surrender. I'll guarantee you safe passage. You can go away somewhere else. You'll be okay. Our surviving source suggests that actually this was just Cassandra giving an excuse. And then once Olympias was out of the kingdom, The boat would surprisingly sink or something like that. She'd die in a tragic accident. Olympias knows that that's what Cassandra wants, so she says, I'm not falling for that. I want a trial with the Macedonians, which suggests that she still thought she held good sway with the Macedonians, that they would pardon her, that they would make Cassandra think twice.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  And it seems Cassandra thought that as well, because he doesn't want her going to trial. He know that she sussed him out, so he tries to send these mercenaries, these basically assassins to her. The sources go that they enter the room where she is, and she's so formidable and striking in her appearance that she berates them so hard that she tells them off, that they just cower and they walk away. They can't go through with the act. So Cassandra's just like, damn, that didn't work. Fortunately, Olympias has shot herself in the foot. She's killed quite a few people and their family members are still lurking about. What Cassandra does is basically goes to these family members.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  You remember that Olympias who killed your beloved son, nephew, dad, uncle? You can get rid of her. Here's a knife. There she is, living in that room. And they go through with it. And that is the end of Olympias's story.

• 59:34Kate Lister?

  I mean, she was always gonna meet a violent end, wasn't she? She was never gonna just retire quietly.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  It was part of her character.

• 59:41Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 04

  She knew as soon as she married into Macedonian politics that it was kill or be killed with the nature of Macedonian succession.

• 59:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  And she very much took that to heart. It was the survival, it was first, it was the accession of Alexander as king and making sure that there were no rivals to his throne. It was paving the way for that, maybe even the killing of his dad, Philip. She made many enemies, and I think it was natural she was going to make enemies because she very much threw herself into the fray in that regard. And also, quite frankly, the fact that she wasn't a pure Macedonian, that there would have been other aristocrats in Macedonia that didn't like her for that, and also the ancient Greek natural fear of powerful women.

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  She was always going to bring enemies and you could argue, yes, she sot herself in the foot ultimately in the end by seeing off the brutal killings of several members of the family, including a king and queen. That doesn't help her reputation. She went all in and that resulted in her having a lot of enemies that ultimately spell her downfall. But I think if she hadn't have gone all in, she would have been used like a pawn or she would have been done away with much earlier. So the alternative is, could she have just stayed in Melosia and lived out her life there? Yes, she could have. I think it would have been even less likely that her grandson would have lived to adulthood. Shocker, he

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  doesn't. He's killed a few years later anyway. But the chances were always very slim that he would live to become the next king. It's such a chaotic world following his death. But that is the nature of Olympias's story. A formidable, powerful, scary woman. The surviving sources have made her quite the villain, quite the horrific character. It's important to sort fact from fiction with it, but then at the same time not to go too far with that. To understand, you know, she's not a victim. She is still an absolutely formidable woman in her own right.

• 1:01:39Kate Lister?

  Oh Tristan, you have been wonderful to talk to. I knew that you would be. And if people want to know more about you and more about Olympias, quite frankly, where can they find you?

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  Well, they can find me on social media, on Instagram at Ancients Tristan. And I guess that gives you a clue as to what I do first and foremost, which is a sister podcast of Betwixt the Sheets of History Hit, which is of course the Ancients. So you can listen to my tones on the Ancients, where I take Kate's role of interviewing other experts on various areas of ancient history and prehistory and dinosaurs.

• 1:02:13Kate Lister?

  Will you come back and talk to us about some other ancient badasses?

• 1:02:16Speaker 04

  I'm sure we can find someone that I'd be happy to come back and talk about and droll on about for hours on end.

• 1:02:23Kate Lister?

  Thank you so much Tristan. You have been marvelous.

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  Thank you, Kate.

• 1:02:31Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Tristan for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. This month, we will be back looking for the biggest fuckboys in history, so don't miss that one. And if you fancy putting forward a candidate of your own, not your ex, please, give it about 100 years, then please email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstle and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheep, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.