Doomed Queens (5 page)

or

When Empire Building
Is a Bad Thing

Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus, the king of the Molossians; the Molossians were a tribe in Epirus, a region located in what is now northwest Greece. Though Philip had other wives, none could compare to—or survive after—Olympias.

Alexander did not name an heir to his empire. When asked on his deathbed, he cryptically replied, “To the strongest.” Chaos ensued. Alexander’s wife Roxane gave birth to a son after his death, whom she named after his father. In the meantime, the throne was kept warm for Alex Junior by Alex Senior’s older half brother Philip, who was mentally impaired; many believed Olympias had poisoned him for fun and profit. The empire became mired in civil war, aided and abetted by Olympias’s scheming.

After much strife, an eventual victor emerged in the form of Cassander, the son of Alexander’s most trusted deputy Antipater. He married Alexander’s half sister, Thessalonike, thus continuing Alexander’s bloodline.

Divine omens or no, it was clear from the start that Alexander was meant for great things. To place him on the fast track for world domination, Olympias went far beyond what even the most devoted Texas cheerleader mom would consider. Philip grew uncomfortable with her zeal and cut off marital relations after he found her sleeping next to a serpent. He decided that the queen was either an enchantress or making whoopie with the god Zeus, who often took on animal forms to seduce mortal women.

In either case, Philip felt threatened. To protect himself, the king chose to dump Olympias as queen, disinherit Alexander, and take yet another wife, Cleopatra Eurydice, who was of pure Macedonian blood. The results were incendiary. Olympias insinuated that Alexander was indeed the son of Zeus and the divine superior of Philip. Soon Philip was stabbed to death by a jealous male lover. Not surprisingly, Olympias’s fingerprints were all over the plot. One rumor claimed that she plied the murderer with words to inflame his anger. She even placed a gold crown upon the executed murderer’s corpse—hardly the act of a mourning widow. To ensure Alexander’s reign would be unimpeded, Olympias assassinated Cleopatra Eurydice and her two small children by Philip. In a scenario out of a Grimms’ fairy tale, the children were roasted to death, their mother forced to hang herself.

From here, there was no stopping Alexander—or Olympias. After he took off to conquer the world, she never saw him again. Nonetheless, she wrote him frequently. He bore her advice patiently, though he rarely took it. In turn she, too, did as she wished. When Antipater, his governor in Macedon, wrote Alexander to complain about Olympias’s meddling, Alexander remarked, “Antipater does not realize that one tear of a mother erases ten thousand letters like this.”

As predicted, Alexander was as brave as a lion—but even lions are vulnerable. After conquering much of the world, Alexander died in 323 BCE from a suspiciously sudden illness. He was only thirty-three.

Without Alexander’s protection, Olympias knew her days were numbered. She returned to Epirus to plot her return to power but met her match in Antipater’s son Cassander, who inherited Alexander’s throne. He arranged for the queen’s execution in 316 BCE. As a final insult, he denied her the rites of burial.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Religion can take you only so far.

309 BCE

ne has to feel compassion for Roxane, queen to Alexander the Great. Though her beauty made her the toast of the ancient world, she simply couldn’t compete with Alexander’s number one love. Surprisingly, this all-encompassing passion wasn’t his mother, Olympias (though the king certainly loved her best of all women). Nor was it world domination (though he slept with a copy of Homer’s
Iliad
by his side). Nope, it was a man, Hephaestion. And when Hephaestion died, Roxane’s life went to hell in a handbasket.

Hephaestion was Alexander’s favorite childhood friend. When they came of age, evidence suggests that their friendship became a friendship with benefits. Olympias did everything she could to discourage their intense attachment. She even sent her son a famed courtesan, to ease him into heterosexuality. But Alexander refused to do the deed with her—the courtesan could not compare to his beloved Hephaestion.

Had Alexander not conquered Persia, Roxane would probably have been married off to some minor warlord, hopefully to live and die in peaceful obscurity. Instead, she became enmeshed in a dynastic struggle that brought the lives of herself and her son to premature ends.

Coin of the realm featuring the emperor himself.

Roxane was the daughter of Oxyartes, king of Bactria, a region in what is now Afghanistan. Her name translates as “Little Star,” presumably in reference to her luminous beauty. The royalty of Bactria used the fortress of Sogdian Rock as a refuge when threatened; Sogdian Rock was surrounded by a sheer cliff no one could surmount—until Alexander. In 327 BCE Alexander sent three hundred of his best climbers to scale the cliff in the middle of the night. Come morning, they greeted Oxyartes and company with pancakes and mimosas. The Bactrian king was so unnerved by Alexander’s success that he surrendered without a fight. He also surrendered Roxane’s hand to Alexander. Hephaestion served as best man.

Though Plutarch claimed that it was love at first sight, this seems unlikely: Alexander had eyes only for Hephaestion. Marrying Roxane was a savvy political move to solidify alliances. To his credit, Alexander wed Roxane using the ceremonies of her people, which won him much respect—he didn’t just invade, he assimilated. It was for similar reasons that three years later Alexander married Stateira, the daughter of the Persian king Darius III, after he conquered that land. Their union was part of a mass Moonie-style wedding that Alexander insisted his soldiers partake in—the ultimate consolidation of power.

Roxane’s life with Alexander was one long military slog. Legend claims that she traveled with him to India, which was feared as an exotic realm no one could conquer. Alexander could not resist the challenge but emerged unvictorious. However, even the toughest campaign was a cinch compared to the queen’s life after Hephaestion’s unexpected death in 324 BCE. Alexander was never the same. He died several months later, also of a sudden illness—some believe he and Hephaestion were poisoned—but not before knocking up Roxane a mere six years after their wedding.

Fate might have been kinder had Roxane given birth to a girl—but she didn’t. It is surprising that Roxane and Alexander Junior survived as long as they did, given the chaos after Alexander Senior’s demise. To save their skins, Roxane behaved accordingly. She arranged for the murder of Alexander’s other wife, Stateira. She also gained the protection of Olympias from Cassander, the warrior most likely to succeed in Alexander’s empire. But this was not enough to save their lives, especially after Olympias was sent to her eternal reward.

Roxane and her twelve-year-old son were poisoned by Cassander in 309 BCE, thus marking the end of Alexander’s bloodline.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Don’t marry a man in love with another man.