Maternal bloodline

[Manny E.]

Friends:If the bloodline of Alexander on Philip's side is a dead end, might we not find a quiet but hopeful genetic twig lurking in the genealogical bushes of Epirus instead? Olympias's land of birth did not figure that much in the rise of Macedon to world power, afterall, (compared to Attica or Sparta or thebes, that is) so maybe Cassander did not completely succeed in ridding the world of Alexander's genes. Was Olympias (nee Myrtale) an only child? Did anyone up to second degree of consanguinity (with Olympias)survive the blood purges after Alexander's death? By "survive" I mean not mentioned by the primary sources at all as having been liquidated because of simple blood relations with Olympias?Hoping against all reasonable genetic hope,
Manny D. Quack

[susan]

Hi MannyIt's good to hear from you again. Can you send me a contact address, I've got something to send you that I know you'll appreciate.Olympias had a brother, Alexander (married to Cleopatra), and a sister Troas. Alexander & Cleopatra's son, Neoptolemus, died in 297 - presumably in his thirties, so he could have had children. He had a sibling as well - I think it was a sister.Troas married her uncle Arybbas, King of Epirus - but I don't think that they could have had surviving male children, because on his death, Troas' brother Alexander became king in his place. All the best ( and please send me a contact address !)Susan

[ruthaki]

I have a geneology which I will post soon as I can retrieve it from my archives.

[marcus]

Hi Susan,There might have been offspring, of course... it could be that Alexander supplanted his nephew/cousin (whichever - I can never work out those relationships) in the same way that Philip supplanted his nephew in Macedonia.All the bestMarcus

[susan]

I've just looked at Plutarch's Pyrrhus, and it shows:
Troas, Alexander's aunt , married her uncle Arybbas. They had a son Aeacides, who married Phthia, daughter of Menon of Thessaly, a leading figure in the lamian war (he was on the Greek side).
They had two daughters, Deidamia & Troas, and a sin , Pyrrhus.
Deidameia was betrothed to Alexander IV, and went on to marry Demetrius Poliorcetes, and they had a son Alexander. I don't know what happened to the others, but it's likely that there were descendants of some of these branches.Susan

[marcus]

Susan,"and a sin, Pyrrhos." Was that a deliberate error? :-)M

[ruthaki]

Susan has explained most of it. I have these geneology tables that came from A History of Macedonia by R. Malcolm Errington (U of Calif Press 1990)There's geneologies from all the important families of that era.
For Epirus, there is listed first Alcetas I
whose two sons were Neoptolemus I (Olympias father) and Arybbas (her uncle) In Olympias family there was Alexander I who married Kleopatra (Alexander's sister), and Troas, O's sister.
Kleopatra and Alexander I had Neoptolemus II and Cadmeia.
Arrybas had two childrend, Acacides who married Phthia, and Alcetas II
Acacides & Phthia's children were Deidameia, Pyrrhus I, Antigone and Troas (second cousins of Olympias)
Pyrrhus was later said (by Hannibal) to be the best general since Alexander. Deidameia was engaged as a child to Alexander IV and later married Dimitrios Poliokratis.
The chart shows the line going on to the 200's with various offspring of Olympia's uncle's family.

[DIMITRIOS POLIORKETES]

Oympias as a EPIROTI-MOLOSSIANS ARISTOCRAT CLAIMED
the blood lines of Achilles.
MOLOSSIAN's (Epirotic tribe) claimedThe kings, or rather chieftains, of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and trans,mitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. NOTE -Aristotle even placed in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes via the Oracle at Dodona located just south of the city of Ionnia in present day Greece . Alexander's ancestral ties to Achilles was a central focal point of his make up.He felt he had to compete with and surpass his ancestor ACHILLES bloodlines via heroric acts.Thus ATG was strongly influenced by his Maternal ancestry.

[marcus]

I always knew Achilles' son as Neoptolemus. Was he also known as Pyrrhus, then?All the bestMarcus

[yiannis]

Marcus, Neopltolemus or Pyrrhus is the same person. See here why he was called as such: http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Neoptolemus.html Got you, at last:-)Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus)
The son of Achilles from his adolescent adventure. Joined the Greek army at Troy after his father's death, proving himself a ruthless and formidable warrior. He killed king Priam. Having aroused the animosity of Apollo, he was killed and buried at Delphi.

[smittysmitty]

Hi Yannis,
I couldn't quite get the jist of that!, I understand that they are one in the same person, but why was he known as Neoptolemus?
cheers!

[marcus]

Actually, Smitty, my question is why he was known as Pyrrhus... because everything I had read previously always called him Neoptolemus.Still, a number of mythological characters appear to have been given more than one name - Paris, for example, who is also called Alexander by Homer. Then there is Agamemnon (and Menelaus, too) who is referred to as Atreides a lot in the Iliad - I know that's slightly different, because it means "son of Atreus", so it's not an actual name... but it's still dead confusing! All the bestMarcus

[yiannis]

You see, his actual name was Neoptolemus (Acchiles son I mean) but because when Acchiles was hiding in the palace dressed as a woman to avoid war, he used the female name of Pyrrha, his son (from the king's daughter) was nicknamed as Pyrrus (short of a nickname that stuck). Hense he was called either Neoptolemos or Pyrrhus and in the course of time both names became connected.

[marcus]

Aaaahhhh! Now I understand. Thanks, Yiannis.And the king whose palace he hid in was Lykomedes of Skyros... who was supposed to have given Theseus his final refuge - and pushed him off a cliff...It's all interconnected!All the bestMarcus

[ruthaki]

Fascinating!