Historical biographies are always interesting, and C. has produced several. After Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great (2006) and Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: a Royal Life (2013), C. has now published a biography of Eurydice, wife of Amyntas III, mother of Philip II and grandmother of Alexander III. All three biographies concern royal women who played an important role at the Macedonian court, being daughters, mothers, wives or co-rulers of kings. The history of Macedonian monarchy and the role of women in Macedonian policy have been at the core of the research interests of C., a topic she has developed and written extensively on.
The book aims at providing a synthesis of all the available evidence on Eurydice and at studying ‘Eurydice's public role, the factors that contributed to the expansion of her role and how that expansion related to the growth of Macedonian power’ (p. 1). The interest of the book lies in the inclusion, not only of the written sources, but also of the important archaeological discoveries. In her introduction C. provides a short overview of the early history of the Macedonian kingdom, its geography, resources and institutions. Without entering into discussion on much debated matters, she takes the view that Macedonian monarchy was personal and succession was not institutionalised, but followed rather irregular practices and personal preferences. Her interest lies in the role of women in court politics and succession, and the analysis of Macedonian institutions that she provides naturally leads to a ‘personal’ interpretation of their role. The absence of a title for the wives or mothers of kings on contemporary inscriptions is seen as an indication that their role was not institutional. However, in Macedonia the kings before Alexander the Great are often referred to by only their name and, sometimes, their patronymic, both on inscriptions and on coins (N.G.L. Hammond, The Macedonian State [1989], pp. 69–70 with references). So perhaps this argument should not be stressed too much.
Chapters 2 (‘The Marriage of Eurydice and her Husband's Rule’) and 3 (‘Τhe rule of Eurydice's sons. Alexander II, Perdiccas III and Philip II’) provide the historical context in which Eurydice lived and acted, presenting the general outlines of the kingdom's history from the death of Archelaus and the difficult years of his succession before the establishment of Amyntas III until the early years of Philip's reign. The discussion of the controversial sources on the reign of Amyntas, although not extensive, is clear and thorough and provides an eloquent picture of the historiographical problems of his reign. The numismatic evidence, however, is somewhat understated and misunderstood. M. Lykiardopoulou and S. Psoma (Obolos 4 [2000], 321–39) have shown the relation between the debased silver issues of Amyntas and the difficulties he had to overcome in controlling the kingdom. This historical outline concentrates mainly on matters of succession, relationships within the court and relation to foreign powers; it inevitably touches upon events concerning Eurydice that are treated more extensively in the next chapter, so an unavoidable overlapping appears. In this context the first controversy concerning Eurydice is discussed, namely her descent: her Lyncestian descent is beyond doubt and accepted by most scholars, but C. takes the view that she probably also had some Illyrian blood (contra Hammond, History of Macedonia, vol. 2, pp. 16 and 182). Eurydice's reputed Illyrian descent should now be definitely rejected since epigraphic evidence attests beyond doubt that the name of her father, Sirras, was Macedonian (L. Gounaropoulou, P. Paschidis, M.B. Hatzopoulos, Ἐπιγραφές Κάτω Μακεδονίας, τεῦχος 2, μέρος 1 [2015], p. 83 for references).
Chapter 4, ‘Eurydice and Her Sons’, introduces the main theme of the book, which is the evidence on Eurydice and the double legacy preserved for her in the written sources. As most modern scholars before her, and following K. Mortensen's brilliant article (AHB 6 [1992], 156–71), C. very reasonably rejects Justin's story of Eurydice as adulterer and murderer of her son Alexander II. The more ambiguous questions of her eventual marriage to Ptolemy Alorites, of her role after the death of her first son, including the evaluation and interpretation of the famous Iphicrates episode as preserved by Aeschines (2.26), are treated with great caution, and the a very balanced analysis of the literary evidence is provided. Despite the paucity and inconsistencies of the sources, C. manages to draw a vivid picture of the queen and convincingly argues for the importance of her public role. As most scholars before her, C. traces the tradition on the ‘bad reputation’ of Eurydice found in later authors, back to contemporary, fourth-century bc, rivalling factions at the palace.
The last two chapters are welcome additions to a biography and present the archaeological evidence connected to Eurydice. Chapter 5, ‘Eurydice's Public Image during her Lifetime’, discusses the archaeological finds related to her lifetime, whereas Chapter 6, ‘Eurydice's Public Image after Her Death’, gathers the evidence of posthumous monuments. The most important contribution of these chapters is that they put together material deriving from various scattered publications, not always easily accessible to the academic community and especially to historians that have limited access to archaeological reports, often written in Greek. The overview and discussion of the dedicatory inscriptions and sculptures found at the sanctuary of Eucleia at Aegae / Vergina is worthwhile, and C.'s connection between Eurydice's dedications to the goddess of ‘good repute’ and her own disputed fame is interesting. However, the amended version of the epigram on Eurydice's education delivered by Plutarch (Mor. 14c) that C. cites is probably not the most accurate, and C. omits some of the oldest and most probable interpretations of the text (see Gounaropoulou, Paschidis, Hatzopoulos, Ἐπιγραφές Κάτω Μακεδονίας, τεῦχος 2, μέρος 1, p. 84, for the text, and S. Le Bohec-Bouhet, ‘Réflexions sur la place de la femme dans la Macedoine antique’, in M. Guimier-Sorbets et al. [edd.], Rois, cités, nécropoles. Institutions, rites et monuments en Macedoine, [2006], p. 191). Finally, the last chapter includes a detailed presentation of the archaeological remains of the well-known, but still not fully published, tomb considered by M. Andronikos (‘Ανασκαφή Βεργίνας 1987’, AEMTh 1 [1987], 81–8, esp. pp. 82–4, figs 7–11; see also R. Lane-Fox in Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedon [2011], pp. 7–8) to belong to Eurydice, although C. retains some doubts on its attribution to the mother of Philip. Finally, C. stresses the importance of the presence of female members of the royal family (Eurydice and Olympias) at the Philippeion, a monument erected at Olympia after the Battle of Chaeronea and discusses the endurance of the name ‘Eurydice’ and its adoption by later queens.
C.'s monograph is the only extended biography of Eurydice published to date, and as the surviving evidence is rather limited, inevitably a large part of the book is devoted to the historical background. The discussion of the historical context is based mainly on the literary evidence, whereas the epigraphic and numismatic sources are somewhat underrepresented. All the available sources concerning the queen herself have been gathered meticulously and discussed in detail, with a careful and thorough treatment of uncertainties and ambiguities. The bibliography is extensive. As one would expect for a biography, the book does not aim at originality. Its strength lies in its synthesis, in other words in the fact that all the literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence has been presented together for the first time, and it undoubtedly offers an overall broad perspective of the topic. On the whole, the book is very well written and documented, and achieves its aim to illuminate court practices and demonstrate the important role of Eurydice in Macedonian politics.
