killed the queen of that country, in an engagement which ensued, with her own hand.[1] This lady had applied herself vigorously to military exercises, and similarly trained up her daughter Eurydice in the school of arms. As the wife of the imbecile Arrhidaeus, one of the successors of Alexander, Eurydice advanced into Asia to meet Olympias, the mother of that monarch, in a contest which was to decide the fate of Macedonia. While the young queen, as we are told, displayed herself with all the attributes of a female warrior, the dowager chose to accompany her forces with a train of attendants, who seemed rather to be acting their part in a Bacchanalian procession.[2] This war, however, proved ultimately fatal to all three women, who were merely moved as puppets by the firmer hands of Alexander's generals in their rivalry for shares at the dissolution of his empire.[3] After the partition of the extensive dominions of Alexander among his numerous heirs, the number of Grecian women who enjoyed, or were allied to, sovereign power, was proportionately increased; and the names of many princesses of varied distinction in that age have been recorded historically, and even perpetuated popularly to the present day by towns designated in their honour, and spread over the three continents.[4] While some of these ladies won an unusual share of marital respect and affection, not only by the graces of their person, but by their capacity for taking part in the
- ↑ Polyaenus, Stratagems, viii, 60.
- ↑ Athenaeus, xiii, 10.
- ↑ Diodorus Sic., xix, 52; 11; 51; Justin, xiv, 5, 6, etc.
- ↑ Laodicea in Phrygia (and elsewhere), by Seleucus after his mother Laodice; Thessalonica by Cassander, and Nice (Nicaea) in Bithynia, of ecclesiastical fame, by Lysimachus, from their wives. These were generals and successors of Alexander, c. 320 B.C.
