Eurydice I of Macedon

[1][2] She was the daughter of Sirras and through her mother, Irra, she was the grand-daughter of the Lynkestian king Arrhabaeus, member of the Doric Greek Bacchiadae family.

[2][3] Literary, inscriptional and archaeological evidence indicates that she played an important public role in Macedonian life and acted aggressively in the political arena.

[21][22] Ten years later king Amyntas III was forced to entrust a portion of his kingdom to the Greek Chalcidians, who refused to relinquish it, and by 382 BC had extended their control westward, including Macedon’s capital Pella.

Nevertheless, for the first time events in the life of a royal woman were also central to the political arena of Macedonia in that period and Eurydice was, however, the most important factor in the change.

But the queen's daughter, Eurynoe, foiled the plot by revealing it to her father, Amyntas, who, nevertheless, spared Eurydice from punishment because of their common children.

In 368 BC, Ptolemy of Aloros killed Alexander II, despite an earlier settlement between them, worked out by Pelopidas, a Theban statesman and general.

Even if she was prompted by Ptolemy, her successful intervention in political and military affairs remains remarkably bold and without any known precedent, an extraordinary act for a royal woman.

Perdiccas reigned until 359 BC, and already weakened by struggles against Athens, he confronted the Illyrian ruler Bardylis and died along with 4000 of his men in a disastrous battle.

They were placed in the Philippeion, a circular building in the Altis at Olympia, erected by Philip II of Macedon in celebration of his victory at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC).

[29][30] In order to defend Eurydices' son Philip II from ancient allegation that Macedonians were non-Greeks, Aeschines had publicly described Phillip as being "entirely Greek".

[31] Strabo claims that, through her mother, Eurydice descended from a branch of the Doric Greek Bacchiadae clan, originally of Corinth,[15] which historically established itself as the ruling dynasty of Lynkestis in the 5th century BC.

[4][36] Some modern historians see this characterization as "slander",[37][38] arguing that it originated from Athens, which sought to discredit her son, Philip, by defaming him as having non-Greek ancestry.

[4] Ian Worthington also makes a case for her Lynkestian ancestry by stating the following argument concerning the Illyrian hypothesis: "However, this is unlikely in light of a comment that Attalus made at the wedding of Philip in 337, intended as a slur on Alexander's legitimacy, for his mother (Olympias) was from Epirus.