#myrtale

In the Source Link, you will find a gif pack of Kosha Engler in miniseries, Alexander: The Making of a God.

The miniseries was about Alexander the Great's life and rise to become one of the world's most famous military commanders. Kosha played the role of Alexander's mother Olympias. Olympias was the eldest daughter of King Neoptolemus I of Epirus and as such was a Princess of the Molossians. She was also known as Polyxena, Myrtale and Stratonice. She was one of several wives of King Phillip II of Macedon, along with Alexander, she also bore a daughter, Cleopatra.

I should be more forthright. This is my reading of them, for the novels, as we don’t know a lot about the real Hephaistion, personality-wise.

In Dancing with the Lion: Becoming, part of why Alexandros latches onto Hephaistion so quickly owes to the fact he feels vaguely familiar. I don’t mean that in a creepy way, and specify as much because Oliver Stone has said, in interviews, that he cast Rosario Dawson as Roxana because she resembled Angelina Jolie in certain respects, and he wanted the Oedipal Thing.

I manifestly do NOT, nor do I think it applicable (see this post for an explanation of why).

Even so, we are drawn to people who remind us of those we love (and understand).

My Hephaistion and Myrtalē are both FIERCE in their devotion to those they love. They’re also intense and so, a bit scary. And they both have a jealous bone. Also like Hephaistion, Myrtalē as I envision her got on very well with and cares deeply about her siblings. I think readers can pick up a sense of that between the sisters at least, when Myrtalē is exiled in Epiros in DwtL: Rise.

I also see Myrtalē and Hephaistion as having similar styles of psychological manipulation (of those they perceive to be enemies). That was what I had a little fun with in the short story, “Two Scorpions.” Myrtalē/Olympias goes after him because she sees him as a threat to Alexandros. He tries to fight back, but is essentially dealing with an older, more experienced version of himself. So, we see her drop him to the (virtual) mat a few times. In the end, he “kinda” wins, but only because he walks out before she can get in a retort. LOL The confrontation is written in his POV, but I hope it’s still evident she is (overall) getting the better of him.

In “Two Scorpions,” both act out of love for Alexandros, and what they perceive as the best for him. Myrtalē/Olympias isn’t jealous of nor “hates” Hephaistion. She tells him, quite bluntly, that she didn’t really have much of an opinion about him until he made himself Alexandros’s lover. And she explains why (she perceives) that to be dangerous. She’s brutal, but she’s completely transparent—and knows how to use that honesty to undermine her opponent, just as she has a knack for guessing her opponent’s weak spots. Hephaistion often employs the same tactics. And both pair that with an apparently unflappable façade. But she’s better at it than he is. 😉 Because she’s almost fifteen years older than he is.

Too often, Olympias in literature is portrayed as irrational, vindictive, and jealous. But that’s an ancient Greek male projection of what drives “meddling” women who get above themselves by trying to “do” politics. How dare they?!

Oh, dear heavens, no!

How Olympias Got the Name ‘Olympias’

Philip wasn’t in Pella when Alexander was born. He was off fighting a battle. So he received three pieces of good news on the same day: Parmenion had won a major campaign, his chariot had won at Olympia, and his wife had borne him a son. All this news no doubt came with one message ship/runner, but that doesn’t mean they all happened at the same time. He just heard about it all at the same time. In antiquity, news traveled slowly.

To celebrate the news, he awarded the mother of his new son a “throne name”: Olympias. Macedonian women sometimes took, or were given, new names. Olympias herself had FOUR, in her lifetime (Polyxena, Myrtale, Olympias, and Stratonike). Hadea, daughter of Kynanne took the throne name Eurydike, as, apparently, did Philip’s last wife, also born a Kleopatra. Both choices were to honor Philip’s mother, Eurydike, although we don’t know if that was her given name, or one she assumed. In short, it’s unclear when “throne names” took off. They’re popular more in the Hellenistic period.

Also, “throne name” is a bit of a misnomer in Philippos’s day. Macedonians didn’t use thrones until Alexander…maybe Philip. In the novels, I mention Philippos has one; Hephaistion thinks it’s Asian, and cheeky. Only gods (and their priest/esses) sat in thrones, in Greece. It was an Asian “conceit.” Also, up to at least Philippos, these were “wives of the king,” NOT “queens.” Carney has shown definitively that “basileia” is a Hellenistic term.

ANYway, in the novel, I have Alexander’s mother REJECT “Olympias” because Philippos gave it to her, and continue to prefer “Myrtale” because the God (e.g., Dionysos) gave her that one. And gods are higher than kings. Only those not close to her call her “Olympias” in the novels (including Hephaistion).

That was deliberate, of course. One’s name is one’s identity. Myrtale struggles to maintain her sense of herself (as physician, midwife, and priestess) against Philippos’s erasing her identity to make her just another wife, and renaming her.

It’s not unlike the quandary facing modern women: to take their husband’s last name, to hyphenate it with their own, or just to keep their own. If they choose anything but the former, they’re often made fun of for “daring” to be their own person.

My Myrtale dares to be her own person. ;)

Regarding Philip, I’ve actually addressed that in one of my blog-tour posts, so let me hold off, on that. Although I will say that I don’t think Alexander hated Philip (at east not all the time), or that Philip hated Alexander. I do think they had a fraught relationship, but people can both love and hate the same person, and I believe that was true for Alex.

As for what constituted abuse, that can be problematic. Their world was much harsher. But just because something was considered “normal” doesn’t make it less harmful. In at least one place, it’s mentioned that Hephaistion was also punished harshly on a few occasions (”The worst beating the boy got, he got for bringing a lighted torch into a barn full of hay,” [paraphrased] albeit speaking of his brother Agathon giving the beating, not Amyntor). But it’s also clear such events didn’t leave him with permanent issues.

I will add–although it’s also in the blog–that my portrayal of Philip at times hitting Alexander (and Olympias) is fictional, using the “Wedding Incident” as inspiration. But we don’t actually have any historical evidence that Philip beat his wife (any of them) or his children. We can probably assume that he did give corporal punishment, as that was normal, but I exaggerated it for the novel for thematic reasons. I’ve also tried to indicate that while he and Olympias do feud periodically, at other times, they work well together.

In short, I want to portray complex relationships.

Olympias is trying to survive. To do that, Alexander has to become heir, and eventually king. We do know from later testimony that she could be ruthless to her enemies, but no more so than most of the men at the court (as Beth Carney frequently points out). I think she was certainly demanding, and I think could be verbally abusive, but not on the same scale as Philip.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OGtu91HvZ0)