Deidamia II and the Aeacid Dynasty

Introduction

Deidamia II (also rendered Deidameia or Laodamia; died 233 BC) was queen regnant of Epirus in 234–233 BC and the last direct representative of the Aeacid dynasty. She was a daughter of Pyrrhus II and came to the throne after the deaths of her father and her uncle Ptolemy, at a moment when Epirus was fractured between royalists and republican insurgents.

Her brief rule was defined by an attempt to reassert dynastic authority. With the aid of 800 Gallic mercenaries sent by her sister Nereis and by support from part of the Molossian populace, she recovered the capital Ambracia from the rebels. She offered peace to the Epirots only on the condition that they acknowledge her hereditary claim and the honours of her ancestors. In practice her control appears to have been limited largely to Ambracia while republican forces held much of the country.

Deidamia faced immediate internal opposition. Conspirators sought her assassination and bribed one of her guards, Nestor, who ultimately refused to kill her. She sought sanctuary in the temple of Artemis Hegemone but was slain on the altar by a man named Milon, who had previously been accused of killing his own mother. Ancient accounts place the murder during the reign of Demetrius II of Macedon (239–229 BC); the exact dating is uncertain in the sources.

The assassination ended Aeacid royal rule in Epirus; authority passed to the Epirote commonwealth, sometimes described as a republic. Ancient writers such as Justinus and Pausanias regarded Deidamia’s death as the start of Epirus’s subsequent troubles. Her murder therefore marks both the end of a dynasty and a turning point in Epirote political organization.