Queen of Swords Sola-Busca
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A queen holding a sword in her right hand. She is barefooted, sitting on a throne. The inscription reads OLINPIA. Olympias was the mother of Alexander the Great.
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[edit] Fazio degli Uberti Dittamondo
Book 4 - Chapter 3
Vedeva Olimpia a l'ultima tristizia 70
forte e viril del cuor; quivi parea
Cassander d'ira pieno e di nequizia.
I saw Olympias before her last sadness
strong and viril in her heart; here I saw
Cassander full of rage and mischief.
[edit] Plutarch's Lives
But the disorders of his family, chiefly caused by his new marriages and attachments, (the troubles that began in the women's chambers spreading, so to say, to the whole kingdom,) raised various complaints and differences between them, which the violence of Olympias, a woman of a jealous and implacable temper, made wider, by exasperating Alexander against his father.
[edit] Giovanni Boccaccio - De Claris Mulieribus (Of Illustrious Women)
About Oympiades, Queen of Macedon. Chapter LIX.
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She had a son, called Alexander, who was king of Macedon after the death of his father Philip: the deeds of Alexander were so marvellous that after him nobody was born that surpassed him in such vain glory. This increased greatly the splendour of Olympiades: if having given birth to children of such fame can increase the splendour of the mothers. But, in spite of such bright splendour, she was sometime object of infamy. In the flower of her youth, she was suspect of adultery and moreover, that which increases her disonour, some suspect that the same Alexander was born of such adultery.
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In agreement with Alexander, she convinced Pausanias, a young gentleman of the family of Orestes, to kill Philip, her husband: and the prove of this is that after Pausanias was hanged for such murder, the morning of the day after, it was found that she had put a goledn crown on his head. A few days after, Olympiades ordered that he was unhanged, put on the hashes of Philip, and magnificently burned there, according to the customs of Macedon. Then he was buried whith great pomp.
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After her son Alexander was poisonend near Babylon, she obtained for herself the whole kingdom of Macedon.
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But she seemed to be each day more cruel, almost bathing in blood.
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She was beseiged by Cassander in the city of Epidua....and in the end she surrendered to Cassander.
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When Cassander sent his men to where she was emprisoned to have her killed, she, recognizing those men, and seeing that she was to die of their hands, rised with the help of two of her damsels, without showing any sign of fear.
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Walking before those that were to put her to death, she presented herself before death, as if she wanted to show, with such a courageus act, that she was not afraid of that of which may men, strong and of great heart, have been afraid. So that everybody could see that she really was the mother of a great Emperor as his son Alexander was.
[edit] External links
- [1] Life of Alexander By Plutarch
