t
with one wife; they either kept concubines, or married a second wife, as
did Philip and Alexander, while the first was living. This practice led
to jealousy, envy, and hatred, and the attendant ills of constant and
bloody tragedies in the royal families. We find henceforth a
combination of Greek manners and Macedonian nature. In the life of the
courts, women as well as men, in spite of their Greek culture, show the
Thracian traits of passion and cruelty. Owing to the intense respect in
which women were held, the royal princesses occupied an exalted station
and hence found willing instruments for the carrying-out of their cruel
practices. Every king was either murdered or conspired against by his
family. Women entered into matrimonial alliances with a view to
increasing their power and extending their influence. Hence, the women
who played so prominent a part in the great struggles that attended
Philip's extension of his power over all Hellas, Alexander's conquest of
the world, and the founding of independent dynasties by the Diadochi and
their descendants, were not women who attained the Thucydidean ideal of
excellence; namely, that those are the best women who are never
mentioned among men for good or for evil. They were, on the contrary,
powerful and haughty princesses, who possessed royal rights and
privileges, who had resources of their own in money and soldiery, who
could address their troops with fiery speeches and go forth to battle at
the head of their armies, who made offers of marriage to men, and who
finally got rid of their rivals with sinister coolness and cruelty.

Philip the Great followed the Oriental fashion of marrying many wives;
according to Athenaeus, he was continually marrying new wives in war
times, and seven more or less regular marriages are attributed to him.
Of his numerous wives or mistresses, the strong-minded Olympias was the
chief; and, as she survived both her husband Philip and her son
Alexander, she played a dominant part in Macedonian history and was the
most prominent woman of those stormy times. Olympias was the daughter
of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus, who traced his lineage back to
Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Philip is said to have fallen in love with
Olympias while both were being initiated into some religious mysteries
in Samothrace, at a time when he was still a stripling and she an
orphan. He was ardent in his suit, and, gaining the consent of her
brother Arymbas, he shortl