Note 537 — Chapter LXXIX · FROM THE FOUNDATION OF MESSENE AND MEGALOPOLIS TO THE DEATH OF PELOPIDAS.

Æschines, Fals. Legat. c. 13, 14, p. 249, 250; Justin, vii, 6.

Æschines mentions Ptolemy as regent, on behalf of Eurydikê and her younger sons. Æschines also mentions Alexander as having recently died, but says nothing about his assassination. Nevertheless there is no reason to doubt that he was assassinated, which we know both from Demosthenes and Diodorus; and assassinated by Ptolemy, which we know from Plutarch (Pelop. c. 27), Marsyas (ap. Athenæum, xiv. p. 629), and Diodorus. Justin states that Eurydikê conspired both against her husband Amyntas, and against her children, in concert with a paramour. The statements of Æschines rather tend to disprove the charge of her having been concerned in the death of Amyntas, but to support that of her having been accomplice with Ptolemy in the murder of Alexander.

Assassination was a fate which frequently befel the Macedonian kings. When we come to the history of Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, it will be seen that Macedonian queens were capable of greater crimes than those imputed to Eurydikê.