Olympias tomb in Pydna??

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Callisto
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Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:14 pm

Olympias tomb in Pydna??

Post by Callisto »

Hello all,

First post here and this place seems really great.

As we all know Olympias was murdered in Pydna. During last century a couple of incriptions were found in the vicinity of Pydna which refer to the tomb of Olympias and her descedants.

One example is on June of 1937, where Charles Edson discovered the following inscription in Makris Giallos, Greece.

Image

Its greek writing in better view:

Image

Its translation from greek to English is :

"Aeacid is my race, Neoptolemus is my father , my name is Alcimachus, of those coming from Olympias.
As a child whose intelligence was equal to that of men, Fate placed me at the age of three a corpse beneath this tomb."

Alcimachus therefore was a descendant of Alexander the great from his mother side and in addition, the rest of inscriptions found around Pydna, indicate that members of Epirote royal house were living in at Pydna in the 2nd century BC after the roman conquest of Macedonia (source: Encyclopedia Of Ancient Greece
By Nigel Wilson).

It is possible to assume that since Alexander's maternal Aeacid descendants were burried in Pydna, so was Olympias. After all it was the place where she lost her life.

Has anyone got any more thoughts/infos about the issue?

Regards
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amyntoros
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Post by amyntoros »

Hi Callisto and welcome to Pothos! :)

My first instinct on reading your post was to write and say that Olympias couldnGÇÖt
possibly have been buried in Pydna because Cassander refused to give her a burial.
Thought IGÇÖd take the time to follow up on this though, because IGÇÖm not altogether
familiar with everything that happened after the death of Alexander. ItGÇÖs good that
I did because it seems that Olympias was buried at Pdyna.

Elizabeth Carney in Chapter 6; OlympiasGÇÖ afterlife, of her book
Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great discusses some inscriptions,
including the one that you posted, and OlympiasGÇÖ burial at Pydna. She proposes
that the kin of Neoptolemus, a possible relative to Olympias also, may have been
the ones to gather up OlympiasGÇÖ body and give her a proper burial. If not that
particular family, there were other Macedonian Aecids in Pydna who obviously
cared enough for Olympias to have secretly buried her.

What appalled me while reading Carney is finding out that some of the other
inscriptions found at Pydna have been lost and we only know of them through
the records of those who actually saw them. One of these inscriptions, as
reconstructed by Oikonomedes (1982) refers to Olympias: GÇ£Olympias; whose
corpse the noble GÇô enos, one of the brave clan of Aikos, concealed in the
embrace of measureless earth.GÇ¥

ThereGÇÖs more in the book, including footnotes that refer to various debates
about the inscriptions. I know it must seem like I get a commission for promoting
books on Pothos (I donGÇÖt, but Pothos does if you buy a book on Amazon via a
link from these pages!) but I simply must recommend CarneyGÇÖs book again to
anyone who has an interest in Olympias. That includes those who donGÇÖt like her!
Olympias, that is GÇô not Elizabeth Carney. :wink:

Best regards,
Amyntoros

Pothos Lunch Room Monitor
Lutka

Post by Lutka »

Thanks for the post Callisto,and Amyntoros for the additional info. I had heard about Pydna being the possible burial site for Olympia,and,although as Amyntoros said,Cassander was an obstacle to her getting a proper burial,I also think that once Cassander had Olympia out of the scene,he couldn't have cared less of what would become of her
Amyntoros the book you mention sound interesting,me myself I've always been pretty interested in Olympia herself, unfortunately I don't have a credit card which means 99% of the books that have not been published in Italy are out of my reach :roll: well,I'll have to wait
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