Cleopatra of Macedonia

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Cleopatra of Macedonia (* around 355 BC; † 308 BC in Sardis ) was the sister of Alexander the Great and played an important role during the Diadoch Wars .

Life until the death of Alexander the great

Cleopatra was the daughter of the Macedonian King Philip II and his wife Olympias , thus the only full sister of Alexander the Great. But her father had children of several concubines, so that they Thessalonike of Macedonia and Cynane to half-sisters and Philip III. Arrhidaios had as a half-brother.

After his repudiation of Olympias (337 BC), Philip II entered into a new marriage with a very young woman from the high Macedonian nobility, also called Cleopatra . The humiliated Olympias therefore quartered with her brother, the Molossian king Alexander I of Epirus . On the other hand, Cleopatra stayed with her father. The Macedonian king tried to weaken Olympias' influence on her brother and therefore offered him in the summer of 336 BC. Chr. Cleopatra's hand on. During the celebrations of this splendidly held wedding in Aigai in Macedonia, Philip II was murdered by an assassination attempt by Pausanias .

The newlywed couple moved back from Macedonia to Epirus. The marriage had two children, a daughter named Kadmeia and the son Neoptolemus II , who would later become ruler of the Molossians. Cleopatra acted since 334 BC. As regent of Epirus, while her husband Alexander I fought the Lucanians and other tribes in Italy . After the Macedonians had captured Gaza on their successful Asian campaign (332 BC), Alexander the Great sent his mother and sister a share of the booty they had captured. As of 331 BC When there was a famine, Cleopatra imported 50,000 Medimnoi wheat from Cyrene . She also gave orders for Epirotic grain to be shipped to Leukas and Corinth . Alexander I fell in 331 BC In Italy. His body was transferred to his widow Cleopatra in Epirus. Athens sent Ctesiphon as envoy with a message of condolences.

Because of the minority of her son, Cleopatra continued to serve as regent of Epirus. She was not only the political, but apparently also the religious head of the Molossians. Since about 330 BC Olympias lived at the court of her daughter in Epirus. Both were enemies with Antipater , who acted as imperial administrator in Macedonia and Greece on behalf of Alexander the Great . Olympias took control of Epirus from her daughter's hands, so that Cleopatra in 325 BC. Moved to Pella in Macedonia with her children . 324 BC In BC Alexander the Great issued a decree that allowed exiled Greeks to return home. The tyrant Dionysius of Herakleia , who turned to Cleopatra for help, feared the effects of the decree . She also stood up for Dionysios with her brother.

Role in the Diadoch Wars

After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), a marriage with his full sister Cleopatra was the ideal opportunity for the diadochi, who were fighting for power, to legitimize themselves as Alexander's successors. Therefore, in the course of time, many diadochi courted their hand. In order to secure support against Antipater, Cleopatra initially wanted to marry the new governor of the Hellespontic Phrygia , Leonnatos . She informed him by letter of her plans and invited him to Pella. Leonnatos wanted to comply with this marriage proposal, but made the mistake of communicating his intentions to Eumenes von Kardia , who immediately reported them to the imperial administrator Perdiccas . Soon after, Leonnatos fell at Lamia (322 BC). Now Olympias wanted to marry her daughter to Perdiccas. Cleopatra was therefore supposed to go to Asia Minor to propose marriage to the imperial administrator. Although he sympathized with the idea of ​​a marriage with the high-ranking Macedonian, he was already engaged to Nikaia , a daughter of Antipater. If he broke up this relationship because of a marriage to Cleopatra, Perdiccas feared that this would turn Antipatros into an enemy. In order to no longer be in the sphere of influence of Antipater and at the same time in the vicinity of the imperial administrator, Cleopatra stayed in Sardis despite his hesitant attitude from now on. Meanwhile , Antigonus informed Antipater about the lofty plans of the imperial administrator, especially his striving for the title of king. Therefore, Antipater joined an alliance of satraps against Perdiccas. This countered now with the repudiation of Nikaias and the delivery of gifts and a marriage proposal to Cleopatra, who was staying in Sardis, by his general Eumenes (beginning of 321 BC). However, Perdiccas first launched an offensive against Ptolemy I in Egypt and was murdered during this enterprise.

At around the time of Perdiccas' fatal campaign, Eumenes succeeded in escaping an enclosure of Antigonus, who was advancing from Ephesus to Sardis, on the basis of a warning sent by Cleopatra . The 320 BC BC satraps who met in Triparadeisos ostracized Eumenes, who was still operating successfully after Perdiccas' death and who was now aiming for a decisive battle with the new imperial administrator Antipatros in the plain of Sardis, where he could play out his superior cavalry. He hoped that Cleopatra would speak out in public in his favor, because such a statement by the sister of Alexander the Great would have made his plans seem legitimate. But Cleopatra did not want to get into conflict with Antipater and asked Eumenes to withdraw from Lydia . In spite of this, Antipater visited her personally in Sardis and criticized her proximity to Perdiccas and Eumenes, but she knew how to dispel the accusations eloquently; both sides apparently parted amicably.

After the death of Antipater (319 BC), Antigonus in particular held a very powerful position. Even if he treated Cleopatra very honorably, he had her kept in Sardis for ten years. Finally she succeeded in 309/308 BC. To escape from Sardis. She wanted to flee to the Egyptian king Ptolemy I, who was an opponent of Antigonus and was then on Kos . She probably had hopes of marrying him. But she did not get very far, because an Epimelet of Antigonus was able to put her on the run and interned her again in Sardis. Not much later she was murdered by some slaves there. Antigonus was suspected of being the instigator of this act. Probably to cover up his murder assignment, he had the guilty slaves executed and a splendid funeral for Cleopatra.

The flute player Telephanes from Samos was commissioned by Cleopatra to have a grave built on the road from Megara to Corinth.

Mentions in the Alexander novel

Cleopatra is wrongly made the half-sister of Alexander the Great in the Heidelberg Epitome, whom the Egyptian king took as his wife after the death of Perdiccas. This legend is further developed in Alexander's fictitious testament , who supposedly installed Ptolemy I as king of Egypt or Libya and promised him Cleopatra as his wife.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Satyros von Kallatis in C. Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (FHG), III 161, fragment 5 = Athenaios 13,557d; Diodorus 18.23.1.
  2. ↑ Satyros von Kallatis, FHG III 161, fragment 5 in Athenaios 13,557d – e; Plutarch , Alexander 9.6-11; Justin 9,5,9; 9,7,3-5.
  3. ↑ Diodorus 16,91,4; Justin 9,6,1; 13,6,4; among others
  4. ↑ Plutarch, Pyrrhos 5.
  5. ↑ Plutarch, Alexander 25.
  6. ↑ Lykurgos , Against Leocrates 25; SEG IX 2.10.
  7. ↑ Livy 8:24, 17.
  8. ↑ Aeschines 3,242.
  9. ↑ Plutarch, Alexander 68.
  10. ↑ Memnon in Felix Jacoby , The Fragments of the Greek Historians (FGrH), No. 434, F 4,37.
  11. ↑ Plutarch, Eumenes 3.
  12. ^ Arrian , Ta meta Alexandron , Fragment 21 in Photios , p. 70a 37f. ed. Bekker; Diodorus 18,23,1 and 3; Justin 13: 6,4-6.
  13. ↑ Diodorus 18,25,3.
  14. ^ Arrian, Ta meta Alexandron , Fragment 26 in Photios, p. 70b 23 ed. Bekker.
  15. ↑ Arrian, Ta meta Alexandron , fragment Vat. 7-10.
  16. ^ Arrian, Ta meta Alexandron , fragment 40 in Photios, p. 72a 37 and 72b 1-4 ed. Bekker; Justin 14.1.7 f .; Plutarch, Eumenes 8.
  17. ↑ Diodorus 20, 37, 3-6; Parian Chronicle , FGrH No. 239 B 19.
  18. ↑ Pausanias 1,44,6. It is possible that a rectangular building structure exposed southwest of Megara in 1889 is this grave: John Travlos : Pictorial dictionary for the topography of the ancient attic. Wasmuth, Tübingen 1988, ISBN 3-8030-1036-5 , p. 259.
  19. ↑ Pseudo-Callisthenes 3.33; Iulius Valerius, Res gestae Alex. 3.58; Metzer epitome 117.
personal data
SURNAME Cleopatra of Macedonia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sister of Alexander the Great, played a role during the Diadoch Wars
DATE OF BIRTH around 355 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 308 BC Chr.
Place of death Sardis