Olympias II of Epirus: Regent and Dynastic Figure in Ancient Epirus

Introduction

Olympias II of Epirus (3rd century BC) was a member of the Aeacid dynasty, daughter of King Pyrrhus I and his first wife Antigone, wife of her half-brother Alexander II, and regent of Epirus after Alexander’s death circa 242 BC. She held the royal guardianship and administered the kingdom on behalf of her sons Pyrrhus II and Ptolemy until the elder son reached majority, when she transferred power to him.

To counter Aetolian pressure over Acarnanian territory taken by Alexander II, Olympias arranged a dynastic alliance with Macedonia, giving her daughter Phthia in marriage to Demetrius II before 239 BC; Demetrius accepted the match and made Phthia queen. The Macedonian marriage secured her position at court and helped preserve Epirote sovereignty during her regency.

Both of her sons died in quick succession—Pyrrhus II around 238 BC and Ptolemy around 235 BC—and ancient authors give differing accounts of Olympias’s end. Justin reports that she died of grief after their deaths; Athenaeus relays an alternative tradition in which Olympias poisoned a Leucadian hetaera named Tigris and was in turn poisoned by her son. After the collapse of the male line, sources record that the succession passed through her family to her granddaughter Deidameia.