Alexander I (Epirus)

Alexander I , also known as Alexander the Molossian ( ancient Greek Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μολοσσός ; * around 370 BC in the Epirus region ; † 331 BC near Pandosia ) from the Molossian dynasty of the Aiakids was from around 350 BC. Until his death king of the Molossians. Alexander was the brother of Olympias , the mother of Alexander the great .

Life

When his father Neoptolemus died in 360, Alexander was too young to succeed him himself. So his uncle Arybbas first became king. This consolidated his rule by establishing close ties with Philip II of Macedonia. Arybbas married his niece Olympias to the Macedonian king. The young Alexander went to the court of Philip with his sister.

After the Macedonian king had successfully expanded his power in the 50s of the 4th century and had become the hegemon of Greece, he fell out with his Epirotian ally Arybbas. Philip undertook a brief campaign in the Molossis - probably in the year 350 - and installed Alexander as king in Arrybba's place. The ancient sources give no precise information about the internal political circumstances that led to Philip's intervention in Epirus.

Little is known about Alexander's rule either. What is certain is that besides the Molossians, he was also able to subjugate the other Epirotian tribes and bring them to recognition of his kingship. In 337 Alexander took in his sister Olympias, who had fallen out with Philip II and left his court. Relations with Macedonia remained good and a year later Alexander married Cleopatra , a daughter of Philip. During the wedding celebrations, the Macedonian king was killed by his bodyguard Pausanias .

While the new Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great immediately turned to the conquest of the Orient, the Molossian king Alexander waged war on the western edge of the Greek world in the shadow of these world historical events. His fleet took action against the pirates in the Ionian Sea. In 334, Alexander followed a call for help from the Greek colony of Taranto in southern Italy, which was threatened by the Samnites . The Roman historian Livy also reports that Alexander hastened to go to Italy as a mercenary from Taranto because the oracle of Dodona had prophesied that he would die near Pandosia on the banks of the Acheron . The city and river of this name exist in the south of Epirus and the king wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

Alexander conquered Herakleia , a colony of Taranto, which had been occupied by the coalition of the Bruttians , Samnites and Lucanians , he stormed the pirate base at Sipontum and then also occupied Cosenza and Terina. In the meantime Alexander fell out with the Greeks of Taranto, he took Lukan troops into his army and it seems as if he wanted to acquire an empire in Italy for himself. In 332 or 331, Alexander negotiated with the Romans about an alliance against the Samnites. But this, if it came about at all, gained no practical effect, because in 331 Alexander's armed force was unexpectedly attacked by the Lucanians and Grossians near the brutal city of Pandosia . In this battle, the Molossian ruler was killed by one of his Lucan allies. This, at least as Livy writes, fulfilled the aforementioned prophecy, for there was a small river called Acheron near Pandosia.

meaning

The campaigns of Alexander von Molossis temporarily strengthened the Greek cities in southern Italy and weakened the Italian tribes, which also favored the further rise of Rome. With the sudden death of the king in Italy, Epirus, where the monarchy was already on weak feet, fell into a time of turmoil. Only King Pyrrhus I could at the beginning of the 3rd century BC BC give the aiakid kingship more power and prestige again.

literature

• Peter Robert Franke : Old Epirus and the kingship of the Molossians. Kallmütz & Lassleben, 1955.
• Julius Kaerst : Alexandros 6) . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 1409 f.
• Charles Peter Mason: Alexander I, king of Epirus . In: William Smith (Ed.): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . tape 1 : Abaeus – Dysponteus . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1870, p. 116 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Web links

• Article about Alexander I of Epirus at Livius.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Livy, Book VIII. Chap. 24 Livy: Book VIII

predecessor	Office	successor
Arybbas	King of the Molossians Hegemon of Epirus 343 / 342–331 BC Chr.	Aiakides