[4] According to the 1st century AD biographer, Plutarch, she was a devout member of the orgiastic snake-worshiping cult of Dionysus, and he suggests that she slept with snakes in her bed.

Philip had allegedly fallen in love with Olympias when both were initiated into the mysteries of Cabeiri at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, on the island of Samothrace,[12] though their marriage was largely political in nature in order to seal the alliance between Macedonia and Epirus.

[13] One year later, in 356 BC, Philip's race horse won in the Olympic Games; for this victory, his wife, who was known then as Myrtale,[14] received the name Olympias.

As Plutarch describes, the night before the consummation of their marriage, Olympias dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her womb and a great fire was kindled, its flames dispersed all about and then were extinguished.

According to primary sources, their marriage was very stormy due to Philip's volatility and Olympias' ambition and jealousy, which led to their growing estrangement.

In 330 BC, she returned to Epirus and served as a regent to her cousin Aeacides in the Epirote state, as her brother Alexander I had died during a campaign in southern Italy.

At the beginning, Olympias had not been involved in this conflict, but she soon realized that in the case of Cassander's rule, her grandson would lose the crown, so she allied with Polyperchon in 317 BC.

The Macedonian soldiers supported her return and the united armies of Polyperchon and Olympias, with the house of Aeacides, invaded Macedonia to drive Cassander out from power.

After winning in battle by convincing the army of Adea Eurydice, the wife of Philip III, to side with her own, Olympias captured and executed the two in October 317 BC.

When the fortress of Pydna fell, Cassander ordered Olympias killed, but the soldiers refused to harm the mother of Alexander the Great.

Justinus says she went out to meet her enemies in royal attire with two maids and forced them to stab her publicly, "so that you could see Alexander even in his dying mother."

[19] A medal bearing the name "Olympias" was found in 1902 at Abu Qir, Egypt that dates back to AD 225–250,[20] and belongs to the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.