d with what they were desired to
do; and though she herself was not then present, nor had any person
there to plead her cause, yet the Macedonians condemned her to die.
Cassander therefore sent some of his friends to Olympias and advised her
to get out of the way, and promised to procure for her a ship and to
cause her to be conveyed safely to Athens. He did not do this for her
preservation, but that, as one confessing her own guilt by her flight,
it might be judged a just vengeance upon her if she was cut off as she
was on her voyage; for he was afraid as well of the fickle disposition
of the Macedonians as of the dignity of her person. But Olympias refused
to fly, and said she was ready to defend her cause before all the
Macedonians. Cassander therefore, fearing lest the people should change
their minds and so take upon them to defend the queen, sent to her a
band of two hundred soldiers with orders to despatch her forthwith, who,
rushing on a sudden into the palace, as soon as they saw her, in
reverence to her person, drew back without executing the command. But
the kindred of those she had put to death, both to ingratiate themselves
with Cassander, and likewise to gratify their own revenge for the death
of their relations, cut her throat, she not in the least crying out in
any womanish terror or fear to spare her. In this manner died Olympias,
the greatest and most honorable woman in the age wherein she lived,
daughter of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus; sister of Pyrrhus, who made the
expedition into Italy; wife of Philip, the greatest and most victorious
prince of all that ever lived before in Europe; and lastly the mother of
Alexander, who never was exceeded by any for the many great and
wonderful things that were done by him."

So Olympias showed herself in her death, as in her life, every inch a
queen; and, in spite of her temper and her bloodthirstiness, she
deserves a high place in the history of womanhood, because of her
untiring devotion to her son and to his helpless widow and child against
the machinations of cruel and powerful men.

Philip had three daughters who appear prominently in Macedonian history:
Cynane, by an Illyrian princess, who figures in the history of her
daughter Eurydice, which we shall recount later; Thessalonica, whom
Cassander married after he had slain Olympias and all the heirs of
Alexander, and after whom he named the famous city which he built; and
Cleopatra, full sister of Alexander