NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 35family. Olympias did none of those things. First-
century A.D. Greek historian Plutarch wrote ex-
tensively about her, using her as a foil in his por-
trayal of Alexander. In Plutarch’s work, Alexander
controls his passions (not something Alexander
much did), where Olympias is driven by them,
creating a somewhat biased but vivid portrait of
this trailblazing Greek woman.
Marriage Alliance
Olympias was born in the northern kingdom of
Molossia in the region of Epirus around the late
370s b.c. Molossia, in what is today northwestern
Greece, was a remote place, bounded by moun-
tains on many sides. It was greener, cooler, and
more watered than central and southern Greece,
and famous for its oracle of Zeus at Dodona.
Most of the southern and central Greek pen-
insula was divided into city-states, some of
them democracies and others more aristocratic
governments. In the north, Molossia and Mace-
donia retained hereditary monarchies. In both
governmental forms, women ordinarily played
no role, apart from religion.
Members of Olympias’s dynasty, the Aeacidae,
believed themselves to be the descendants of the
Greek hero Achilles. Olympias’s father, Neoptol-
emus, co-ruled with his brother Arybbas, who
became Olympias’s guardian after her father died.
The Molossians faced a threat from the Illyrians,
a people from the north. A marriage alliance with
another kingdom could help better protect the
state. Olympias and her uncle Arybbas traveled
to the distant island of Samothrace (off the coast
of Macedonia), apparently to arrange her engage-
ment to Philip II, king of Macedonia.
Philip, then about age 23, became king in 359.
The Illyrians had also invaded Macedonia and
killed his brother, Perdiccas III, along with 4,000
other Macedonians. Philip defeated them, droveSPLENDOR
IN EPIRUS
An impressive
theater (above), was
dedicated to Zeus
at Dodona, in Epirus
in northern Greece,
where Olympias was
born. The god would
play a key role in the
myths surrounding
the conception of
her son Alexander.
R. MARTINA/AGE FOTOSTOCK