Question: Who Were the 2 Women Who Led Armies Against Each Other?

Answer:

In the aftermath of the unexpected early death of Alexander the Great, his friends and family fought against each other for supremacy and control over the vast new Hellenistic Empire. Among the battles fought was one that is the first known in history and could even be the only one where woman led forces against woman. The two women so involved were relatives of Alexander the Great.

One was Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, who was protecting the interests of her grandson Alexander IV, son of the Bactrian princess Roxane (Rhoxane). The other was Adea or Eurydice, the wife of the half-brother of Alexander the Great, Arrhidaeus, by this time known as Philip (III), the mentally challenged son of Philip II and Philinna of Larissa, and so a stepson of Olympias. Adea had a share in the rule of Macedonia, serving almost as regent for her husband. She lost because her forces would not fight against the revered mother of Alexander the Great. She died in 317 B.C. in prison where she had been instructed to choose her method of suicide.

Here is the relevant section from Book 19.11 of Diodorus Siculus' Library of History

"In Macedonia, when Eurydice, who had assumed the administration of the regency, heard that Olympias was making preparations for a return, she sent a courier into the Peloponnesus to Cassander, begging him to come to her aid as soon as possible; and, by plying the most active of the Macedonians with gifts and great promises, she was trying to make them personally loyal to herself. 2 But Polyperchon, with Aeacides of Epirus as his ally, collected an army and restored Olympias and the son of Alexander to the throne. So, as soon as he heard that Eurydice was at Euia6 in Macedonia with her army, he hastened against her with the intention of deciding the campaign in a single battle. When, however, the armies were drawn up facing each other, the Macedonians, out of respect for the position of Olympias and remembering the benefits that they had received from Alexander, changed their allegiance. 3 King Philip with his court was captured at once, while Eurydice was taken as she was making her way to Amphipolis with Polycles, one of her counsellors. 4 But after Olympias had thus captured the royal persons and had seized the kingdom without a fight, she did not carry her good fortune as a human being should, but first she placed Eurydice and her husband Philip under guard and began to maltreat them. Indeed she walled them up in a small space and supplied them with what was necessary through a single narrow opening. 5 But after she had for many days unlawfully treated the unfortunate captives, she ordered certain Thracians to stab Philip to death, who had been king for six years and four months; but she judged that Eurydice, who was expressing herself without restraint and declaring that the kingdom belonged to herself rather than to Olympias, was worthy of greater punishment. 6 She therefore sent to her a sword, a noose, and some hemlock, and ordered her to employ whichever of these she pleased as a means of death, neither displaying any respect whatever for the former dignity of the victim whom she was unlawfully treating, nor moved to pity for the fate that is common to all. 7 Accordingly, when she herself met with a similar reversal, she experienced a death that was worthy of her cruelty. Eurydice, indeed, in the presence of the attendant prayed that like gifts might fall to the lot of Olympias. She next laid out the body of her husband, cleansing its wounds as well as circumstances permitted, then ended her life by hanging herself with her girdle, neither weeping for her own fate nor humbled by the weight of her misfortunes."