"murder most foul!"

[Kate]

Hi everyone,I've just been reading Elizabeth Carney's book on Women and Monarchy in Macedonia and it suddenly struck me how many of Alexander's relatives were murdered. His father, his mother, his sister, his two half-sisters, his son, his illegitimate son, his (half) niece...the list seems endless. As far as I can make out only his grandfather, Amyntas III died of natural causes and possibly his grandmother, Eurydice, though I couldn't find out exactly how she met her end. Does anyone know her fate or whether any of Alexander's family died peacefully in their beds. Anyway, with this background, it brought home to me why people at the time might have thought Alexander had been poisoned.Cheers,
Kate

[susan]

I don't think Eurydice was publicly murdered or it probably would have been mentioned by one of the historians - probably Justin who has a lot of hostile stories about her.As for relatives, the only ones that I can think of that aren't accounted for are the children of Cleopatra, Alexander's full sister. I don't know what happened to them - but as they would have been such useful dynastic prizes I don't expect that they survived long after his death, or they would have been mentioned and used in marriage alliances.RegardsSusan

[ruthaki]

Kleopatra had two children, a boy and a girl. When she left Epiros for Syria in hopes of marrying Perdikkas, her young son Neoptolemus, became client king but Olympias (who was living there in exile) soon took charge of things. I am not sure how long these children lived, but several of Olympias's sister's children went on to share the throne there.
I have the family geneology charts. I must check and see what I can find.

[Tre]

Olympias' sister? Or am I misinterpreting?

[susan]

Troas - she married Arybbas, their uncle. Her grandson was Pyrrhus born 319, and grand-daughters Deidamia and Troas. Deidamia was betrothed to Alexander IV then married Demetrius Poliorcetes who seemed to have married into almost every line.I think it's a fairly safe bet that Cleopatra's children were not around by then.
It strikes me that after a few generations of all this , the families would be pretty interbred.Susan