e of Epirus took opposite sides, the affairs of the
great kingdom were often the means of bringing into the smaller one an
infinite degree of trouble and confusion.

[Footnote A: See the opposite map.]

The period of Pyrrhus's career was immediately subsequent to that of
Alexander the Great, the birth of Pyrrhus having taken place about
four years after the death of Alexander. At this time it happened that
the relations which subsisted between the royal families of the two
kingdoms were very intimate. This intimacy arose from an extremely
important intermarriage which had taken place between the two families
in the preceding generation--namely, the marriage of Philip of
Macedon with Olympias, the daughter of a king of Epirus. Philip and
Olympias were the father and mother of Alexander the Great. Of course,
during the whole period of the great conqueror's history, the people
of Epirus, as well as those of Macedon, felt a special interest in his
career. They considered him as a descendant of their own royal line,
as well as of that of Macedon, and so, very naturally, appropriated to
themselves some portion of the glory which he acquired. Olympias, too,
who sometimes, after her marriage with Philip, resided at Epirus, and
sometimes at Macedon, maintained an intimate and close connection,
both with her own and with Philip's family; and thus, through various
results of her agency, as well as through the fame of Alexander's
exploits, the governments of the two countries were continually
commingled.

It must not, however, by any means be supposed that the relations
which were established through the influence of Olympias, between the
courts of Epirus and of Macedon, were always of a friendly character.
They were, in fact, often the very reverse. Olympias was a woman of a
very passionate and ungovernable temper, and of a very determined
will; and as Philip was himself as impetuous and as resolute as she,
the domestic life of this distinguished pair was a constant succession
of storms. At the commencement of her married life, Olympias was, of
course, generally successful in accomplishing her purposes. Among
other measures, she induced Philip to establish her brother upon the
throne of Epirus, in the place of another prince who was more directly
in the line of succession. As, however, the true heir did not, on this
account, relinquish his claims, two parties were formed in the
country, adhering respectively to the two branches