ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the first exceptional Argead (the dynasty that ruled Macedonia from the seventh century bce until 309 bce) couple, Philip II and Olympias, although it also examines a second, perhaps even more exceptional Argead couple, Philip III and Adea Eurydice. It considers why and how the role of royal women in the late Argead and early Hellenistic monarchy changed in a way that made such public couples something of a norm and also an important way monarchy and dynasty were understood. Initially, monarchy in Macedonia was not conceptualised as a series of royal couples but rather as a series of reigning males, each somehow descended from an earlier male Argead. The careers of Olympias and Adea Eurydice served as a transition from the role played by earlier women in the Argead dynasty to the developing role of women in the Hellenistic dynasties. Royal women began to serve a legitimizing role in monarchy, particularly in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties, primarily because of close kin marriages like that of Adea Eurydice and Philip III.
