Donne di potere nel mondo antico: Euridice, moglie di Aminta III

The tradition on Eurydikes, the Illyrian princess married to Amyntas III of Macedon about 393 BC, mother of his sons Alexander (II), Perdikkas (III) ad Philip (II), is twofold. Justin knows a “black legend” on her: according to him, she conjured against her husband, murdered her sons Alexander and Perdikkas and married her son-in-law Ptolemaeus of Aloros. Aeschines (On the false legation), on the contrary, presents Eurydikes as a good wife and mother, a politically active queen who, after the death of her husband, was engaged in safeguarding life and succession of her sons. The black legend is probably not reliable and originated from a palace conspiracy, which intended to represent the foreign widow-queen, “Illyrian and tribarbaros”, as an adulteress and a murderess, in order to delegitimize her offsprings and support the royal ambitions of Archelaos and his brothers, sons of the Macedonian princess Gigea, Amyntas’ first wife. Nevertheless, Eurydikes was able to contrast this campaign and safeguard her good reputation. Her self-defence is also attested by a series of epigraphic documents, probably dated at the end of the fifties, in which she presents herself as devoted to her family and involved in the familiar cult of Artemis Eukleia. The presence of Eurydikes’ statue in the Philippeion of Olympias confirms her steady leading role in the royal family.