[1] Olympias nurtured the familial bond in her children, ensuring they were raised in a "consistent political, moral, and cultural education and experience.
It is believed that the couple had two children, Neoptolemus II of Epirus and Cadmeia (named for her brother's defeat of the Theban revolt which began by attacking the garrison on the Cadmea).
[4][2] In 334 BC, Cleopatra's husband crossed the Adriatic Sea to the Italian peninsula to campaign against several Italic tribes, the Lucanians and Bruttii, on behalf of the Greek colony Taras, leaving her as regent of Epirus.
It was an Epirote custom that the woman of a family became head of household when her husband died and their son(s) were too young, unlike the rest of Greece.
While, Alexander the Great expressed uncertainty about the Macedonians being willing to be reigned by a woman, most sources highlight his endorsement of Cleopatra's agency.
[4] Cleopatra's hand was sought in marriage by several of his generals, who thought to strengthen their influence with the Macedonians by a connection with the sister of Alexander the Great.
[10] Leonnatus is first mentioned as putting forward a claim to her hand, telling Eumenes that he received a lettered promise of marriage if he came to Pella.
Cleopatra had extended her hand because she knew Leonnatus had the ambition and ability to overthrow the new mentally unfit king Philip III of Macedon.
Meanwhile Leonnatus, before he arrived for the wedding and in an attempt to enhance his claim to the throne, stopped to lift the siege from the rebellious Greeks in Lamia and rescue Antipater.
Cleopatra arrived in Sardis in 322/321 BC to marry Perdiccas, but found that he had already proposed to Antipater's daughter, Nicaea.
[4] Cleopatra remained in Sardis under mysterious circumstances, through the deaths of Antipater, Olympias, Eumenes, Thessalonike's marriage, and her nephews' murders.