Mythologization and rationalization of the image of the famous Queen of Macedonia

Modern historiography, describing the life and work of Alexander the Great's mother, conveys a stereotype that developed in antiquity and survived many epochs. The image of a ruthless, vindictive woman who craved power and reveled in it was fixed for the Olympics. The difficulty of studying this figure of Macedonian history is connected not only with the peculiarities of the source base, but also with the contradictory nature of this woman. Nowadays, it is difficult to explain some of the actions of the Olympics, even if people who knew her personally did not always understand her actions. The more time separates the modern author from the time of the queen's life, the more difficult it is to figure out where there is a biased attitude of sources towards her, and where there is objective reality. Myth and myth-making had a strong influence on the writers of antiquity, because any significant historical figure eventually becomes overgrown with legends and legends ^{[1, p. 39]}. And the degree of misunderstanding only increased over the years, as the extraordinary personality continued to be mythologized after death. On the other hand, the ancient authors who wrote about her tried to rationalize the available information, which led to new distortions of her image.

It should be noted that ancient historians did not dedicate a separate work to this woman, as a rule, information about her is contained in works dedicated to her son, Alexander the Great. Plutarch in "Comparative Biographies" gives a lot of material about the childhood of the great commander and the role of the Olympics, and speaking about the activities of Alexander, mentions the influence exerted by the queen, also describes some of her independent actions. The same author has an interesting work – "That the pythia no longer prophesies in verse." It contains information about all the names of the Epirus Olympiad.

An important source is also the work of Justin. Although the author, when presenting data about Philip II or Alexander, provides information about the queen, but the disadvantage of this work is clearly a negative attitude towards the Macedonian monarchy. Diodorus Siculus in the "Historical Library" devoted a lot of space to the Eastern campaign and the struggle between the successors of Alexander, in which the Olympiad of Epirus also took part, but, unfortunately, the books devoted to the period after the death of the tsar have been preserved rather fragmentary. Diodorus, in fact, is the most important source, the least hostile to the queen ^{[2, p. 125-127]}, Justin's version is inconsistent, he is too fond of dramatic scenes and unusual behavior of the heroes ^{[2, p. 128-129]}. Quintus Curtius Rufus mentions the queen in his "History of Alexander the Great", and Arrian in the "Anabasis of Alexander", but the authors were more interested in military history, not the personality of the Olympics. In addition, all sources are united by gender bias. After all, the behavior of the Olympics did not fit into the stereotype of women's perception that had developed in Greece and Rome. The role of a woman was to be reduced to the birth and upbringing of heirs, politics was exclusively the lot of men. Everything that went beyond the scope of public perceptions gave rise to rumors, and over time contributed to the formation of a mythological image.

In connection with this circumstance, E. Kearney suggests, quite reasonably in our opinion, the following approach to the information contained in the sources: only documentary evidence (preserved inscriptions, decrees, etc.) can cause trust, the statements of opponents of Macedonia, like Demosthenes, are of much less importance, and the most dubious data are works of anecdotal nature ^{[2, p. 3]}. In general, it can be noted that there is not a single objective characteristic of the Olympics in the sources, and no source can be considered reliable for assessing her career and politics.

The literature devoted to the Olympiad is rather scarce, modern researchers rarely turned to the study of the role of Macedonian queens. As a rule, here we have the same approach as in the sources, the authors limited themselves to brief mentions of Alexander's mother in the works dedicated to her great son ^{[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]}. The situation was changed by Elizabeth Donnelly Kearney's monograph ^[2]. In this study, the historian highlighted the main issues of the biography of the queen: origin, marriage, her political role in Epirus and Macedonia both under Alexander and after his death, examined the origins of the negative assessment of the personality and activities of the Epirus Olympiad in the works of ancient authors. A comparative analysis of her deeds and the role of other women of the Macedonian house allowed us to conclude about the subjectivity of the assessments of ancient authors and about the negative attitude of Greek society towards women who actively conduct business in the political arena. ^{[10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]}.

The purpose of this study is to examine some well-known facts from the life of the Olympiad in a mythological context and highlight the characteristic features that influenced the image of this famous queen that has developed in historiography.

The dominance of myth in people's lives was facilitated by the fact that myth is closely connected with the figures of heroes, and the hero gave life stability, created reality instead of a chaotic state ^{[17, p. 84]}. Of course, Alexander the Great became such a hero in ancient times. However, the personalities who came into contact with him and fell within the scope of the myth of the famous conqueror were also endowed with mythological features. Due to this circumstance, it can be assumed that the image of the Olympiad preserved in literature is quite likely very far from reality.

According to the mythological tradition, the space in which the hero exists is divided into its own world and another. Macedonia was the center of the world for the Olympics, another world is connected with death, with the dead, with overcoming serious difficulties and going "beyond" the profane world. The otherworldliness of the hero should manifest itself in the appearance and associated symbols, especially snake ones.

In the image of the queen, these characteristics also manifest themselves – despite the years, she retains her beauty and attractiveness, although she is lonely (typical features of a mythological personality). Indeed, in Macedonia she is surrounded by rivals for her husband's attention and enemies. The relationship between the spouses was quite cold. The Olympiad in family life was unhappy ^{[8, p. 52]}. And after her son went on an Eastern campaign, she remains alone. E. Kearney's attempt to find out who can be considered an ally or supporter of the Olympics in Macedonia is original, because sources only talk about those whom the queen hated ^{[2, p. 54]}. According to the researcher, the list of allies includes Ptolemy, Nearchus, Harpalus, Arriba, Neoptolemus, Polyperchon, Leonnatus, Perdiccas, etc., that is, those who belonged either to the Argead dynasty, or to the Olympian family, or came from the clans of Upper Macedonia. However, with the beginning of the Eastern campaign, almost all of them left with her son to fight. And after 323 Olympias, in fact alone, is forced to fight against the collusion of her main opponents – Antipater's son, Cassander, and Philip's wife, Arridea Adea-Eurydice.

She often has a completely non-female role: as an archaic hero, she does not follow moral norms too much and acts according to the situation, and not according to the dictates of conscience. The character of the hero should bear the imprint of frenzy, uncontrollable, unbridled anger. The same is the case with the Olympics: she is a woman who can kill without hesitation; she herself leads an army into battle, and in the image of a bacchante.

After Alexander's death, the tsarina returns to Macedonia to protect the rights of her young grandson to the throne.  If Olympias had lived to see the time when her grandson could lead an army and become the real ruler of Macedonia, she would have been almost 70 years old. Most likely, she did not expect that she would live so long, but she could at least eliminate the obvious threat to her grandson's life ^{[2, p. 73]}. From such a statement it follows that the queen deliberately went to her death for the sake of ensuring the reign of her grandson. In this case, we have both a heroic motive of sacrifice, and a heroic model of behavior in the last minutes of life (Diod. 19. 51. 2; Just. 14. 6. 9–12). Sacrifice, traditionally, acts as the ultimate form of the sacred, which allows us to attribute this phenomenon to the order of the mythological ^{[18, p. 83]}, more precisely to mythocontent phenomena ^{[19, p. 35]}.

Snake traits in myths are usually inherent in almost all villains. There is also a story about the Olympics with the mention of a snake. The story of the sleeping snake that frightened Philip (Plut. Alex. 2), according to one version, appeared later, when Alexander began to consider himself the son of Zeus ^{[2, p. 26]}. The legend was supposed to justify his divine origin (Plut. Alex. 3), but the creator of this myth was not the Olympics (Arr. 4. 10. 2). The Queen was a participant in the Dionysian cult (Plut. Alex. 2), it was in religious affairs that the social status of women manifested itself, but bacchantes girded with live snakes, with thyrses in their hands and ivy wreaths over their loose hair, remained an unforgettable symbol of the beautiful wildness that slumbers in the depths of the human soul ^{[20, p. 113]}. The ancient authors created from these facts a mixture of myth and rationality: the participation of a woman of her position in Dionysian rituals (Plut. Alex. 2. 6), the discord in the relationship between husband and wife, and later Alexander's claims to the cult contributed to the formation of the myth of the connection of the Olympics with Zeus in the best traditions of Greek mythology. Contact with the other world and the appearance of a snake on the queen's bed is a symbolic indication of the negative perception of the event.

Her enemies also have manifestations of otherworldliness: they are unusual, negative or endowed with certain physiological characteristics. It is worth remembering Philip Arriday, the mentally retarded son of Philip (Just. 13. 2. 11; Diod. 18. 2. 1), proclaimed one of the kings of Macedonia, and his wife Adea-Eurydice ^{[14, p. 498]}, brought up in the Illyrian manner, owning weapons and also leading an army into battle.

It can be noted that Olympias was from the royal family of Molossia, and the position of Epirus women was much freer than in Athens or other Greek cities, and even than in Macedonia ^{[2, p. 7]}. In addition, some of her habits (typical, for example, for the Dionysian cult) seemed exotic ^{[2, p. 92]}. Naturally, this freedom should have affected the lifestyle of the Olympics in the future. This is what becomes the root cause of the rejection of it by the Greek authors. Thus, the historical image of Alexander's mother bears a strong mythological imprint. The development of ancient philosophy led to the desacralization and rationalization of mythology, but ancient Greek culture could not get rid of the pervasive influence of myth ^{[1, p. 50]}, but rationalized it.

She arrived in Macedonia realizing that the former wives of Philip II did not occupy such a prestigious position as she did. After the birth of Alexander's son, the tsarina saw a threat to his future in Arrideus, the son of the Thessalian Phyllina, especially since Arrideus was about a year older than Alexander. There is a version in the sources that the Olympics tried to poison Arridei with some kind of poison or drug, which affected his mental abilities. However, E. Kearney rightly denies this fact, considering this episode a manifestation of propaganda hostile to the Olympics ^{[2, p. 25]}. Although it is probably more correct to talk about the later rationalization of this story. The ancient authors knew about the weak mental abilities of the eldest son of Philip and tried to explain this by the machinations of the villainous Olympias.

It is known from sources that the Olympics played a key role in the death of Philip's last wife, Cleopatra, and her child (Plut. Alex. 9–10; Just. 9. 7. 12; Paus. 8. 7. 5). Nowadays, the murder of a baby is perceived as an atrocity, but the Greeks were quite indifferent to the death of young children. Moreover, the general trend indicates that contemporaries were not surprised by the actions of the queen, because, as a rule, children were killed if their family was doomed to death, and the Argeads themselves did not escape this fate. The ancient authors were not outraged by the very fact of the elimination of Cleopatra and the baby, they again rationalized the event. Alexander, after the death of his father, eliminated possible contenders for his power, in particular his cousin Aminta and Attalus, Cleopatra's uncle. It is characteristic that the last three belonged to the Argeads, so the murder of members of their own clan subsequently did not fit well into Alexander's heroic appearance. Speaking about the death of Attalus, historians give a justification for the need to eliminate him, mention Aminta in passing, and the death of a young stepmother and half-brother required explanations.  Cleopatra appears as an innocent victim, although she was not ^{[2, p. 45]}, their death becomes an act of violence, the benefit of which historians attributed to the Olympics, the motive of the action is jealousy and revenge of the rejected woman ^{[13, p. 30]}, and, consequently, another mythological manifestation of her violent, otherworldly essence is formed.

The very background of Philip's murder can also be considered in this context. The king was killed by one of his bodyguards, Pausanias. But the authors convey rumors of a possible conspiracy (Plut. Alex. 10. 4), organized by the Olympiad. The main argument in favor of this theory is the burial of Pausanias, arranged by the queen (and had no consequences for her): she herself buried her husband's murderer and put a golden wreath on Pausanias ^{[8, p. 52]}. From a mythological point of view, she again comes into contact with another world, going beyond, or rather "beyond" the boundaries of the familiar world. There is no doubt that the death of Philip turned out to be an extraordinary success for Alexander and the Olympics ^{[9, p. 308]}.  But they were hardly involved in the murder, because the physical elimination of the tsar could have resulted from the opposition and numerous external enemies ^{[7, p. 115]}. It was necessary to be very confident in one's own abilities and the support of supporters in order to decide on such a drastic step. However, Olympias, who lived a few months before the murder of Philip in Epirus, could hardly have such a support.

Thus, it is quite difficult to see the historical context behind the mythologization and rationalization of the image of the queen. In addition, the phenomenon of the victim, which is present in the stories about her death, acquires an additional socio-political meaning, and since it is included in the history of the whole country, it becomes part of something sublime, great ^{[18, p. 85]}. It is impossible to say with certainty about the motives of her actions: whether the queen was guided only by emotions (the mythological component of her portrait) or pursued a pragmatic goal – to eliminate and weaken the opposition (the rational grain in her image). Rationality has been firmly rooted in people's lives since ancient times, but it cannot replace or displace the irrational components of culture: feelings, emotions, experiences. Therefore, in reality, human existence is imbued with both meaningfulness and impulsiveness ^{[21, p. 102]}. So, for example, if the Olympics had succumbed to emotions, then it should have been expected that she would eliminate Philip-Arridei and his wife at the first opportunity, clearing the way to power, but this did not happen. The conflict flared up later when Adea-Eurydice tried to suspend the Olympics. Only after losing, Eurydice and Philip ended up in prison (Diod. 19. 11. 4), and then were secretly killed (Diod. 19. 11. 6). The queen was involved in the murder of her brother Cassander and his other supporters, but during the wars of the diadochi, blood was shed in large quantities. The Argeads always acted in this way with opponents, and Cassander himself did not stop before killing first the Olympics, and then the entire royal family. Grave grave desecration (the Olympics were condemned, in particular, for desecrating the grave of Iolaus, the son of Antipater, Alexander's cupbearer, accused of poisoning the tsar) was also not uncommon, because it fit into the concept of blood feud ^{[3, p. 77]}.

Summing up, it should be noted that the Olympics did nothing extraordinary, nothing beyond what was accepted in those harsh times. In essence, we are dealing with the peculiarities of the sources. They were written at a time when the mass consciousness operated with mythological images for a long time ^{[22, p. 119]}. Moralizing authors, for whom the free and unusual behavior of the queen, her active role in politics were incomprehensible and, therefore, unacceptable, tried, on the one hand, to give a habitual rational explanation, and on the other, not only greatly exaggerated the significance of these events, but endowed them with symbolic, characteristic of myths, characteristics.