ally accrue to the
sister of Alexander. She differed most strongly from her mother and
other Macedonian princesses of the day, in that no murders could be laid
at her door.

When we come to Cynane, the third daughter of Philip, we find another
type of womanhood. She showed her Illyrian blood in her fondness for
outdoor exercise, being a skilled horsewoman, and she would even enter
into battle at the head of her troops. She was first married by Philip
to her cousin Amyntas. Left a widow, she devoted herself to the
education of her daughter, Eurydice, whom she trained in the same
martial exercises for which she herself was famous. When Philip
Arrhidaeus, the imbecile half-brother of Alexander, son of a female
dancer, Philinna of Larissa, was proclaimed joint heir with the
posthumous son of Roxana to Alexander's dominions, Cynane determined to
marry him to her daughter, and started over to Asia to accomplish this
end. As her influence was great, Perdiccas and Antipater determined to
forestall such a contingency by the murder of the mother, and Perdiccas
sent his brother Alcetas to meet her on the way and put her to death. By
her valor and her eloquence, however, she won over the Macedonian
warriors, so that the schemes of the generals could not be publicly
carried out; but, in defiance of the feelings of the soldiery, Alcetas
secretly consummated the ruthless plot, and Cynane met her doom with
dauntless spirit. After the death of the mother, the discontent of the
Macedonian troops and the respect with which they looked on Eurydice, as
one of the few surviving members of the royal house, induced Perdiccas
not only to spare Eurydice's life, but also to give her in marriage to
the unhappy King Philip Arrhidasus, whose weakened intellectual powers
were due to the drugs of Olympias--the queen who never ceased to wreak
her vengeance upon her rivals in Philip's affections and upon their
ill-fated offspring.

Then began the long and bitter struggle for mastery between the new
queen, Eurydice, and the old queen, Olympias, who took the part of
Roxana and her son; and only the superior claims of Olympias, as the
mother of Alexander, to the respect of the Macedonian soldiery led to
her final victory over her gifted and powerful rival. These hostile
factions in the royal party of Macedon were to lead to the extinction of
all the legitimate heirs to the throne. After the death of her mortal
enemy Antipater, Eurydice determined to make