.,
and Philip, the last of whom was the one so well known to fame; and
Eurydice, the mother of these three valiant sons, was the first of that
series of remarkable women, noted for their power, their beauty, or
their crimes, who from this time on fill the annals of Macedonian
history.

In her barbarous instincts, Eurydice gives evidence of the non-Hellenic
blood in her veins. Her career in crime was such as to place her among
the Messalinas and Lucrezia Borgias of history. To begin with, she was
implicated in a conspiracy with a paramour, Ptolemaeus of Alorus, against
her husband's life; but when the plot was detected, she was, out of
regard for their three sons, mercifully spared by her husband.
Alexander, the eldest, succeeded his father, but, after reigning two
years, was assassinated by Ptolemaeus, with his own mother as an
accomplice of the murderer. When Perdiccas grew to manhood, he avenged
his brother's death and his mother's disgrace by slaying Ptolemaeus; but
he himself, a few years later, fell in battle against the Illyrians, or,
as was asserted, at the hand of an assassin hired by his mother
Eurydice. Philip, the next in succession, then ascended the throne, and
succeeded in securing himself against the attempts of his mother and in
conciliating all factions. Eurydice then disappears from the scene, and
the manner of her death is unknown. Heredity, without doubt, had much to
do with the cruelty in Philip's nature, and in spite of her crimes he
seems to have had much respect for his sanguinary mother, for he placed
a figure of her among the gold-and-ivory statues embellishing the
monument he erected to commemorate his victory over the Athenians and
Thebans at Chaeronea.

We are not concerned here with the rise of Philip's power over Hellas,
nor with the history of his son Alexander and the empire he established,
except in so far as the spread of Hellenism and the union of the world
under one dominion brought about changes in social conditions which
affected the status of woman. We shall, for the present, confine our
attention to the consideration of those women, chiefly royal princesses,
whose names group themselves about the careers of Philip and Alexander
and their immediate successors, and who by their strong personalities
greatly influenced the course of events.

A few general reflections will prepare us for the sombre history which
we are about to read. The Macedonian kings were, as a rule, not conten