Thessalonike of Macedon (c. 345-295 BCE) was the daughter of Philip II of Macedon (r. 359-336 BCE) and one of his several consorts, Nikesipolis of Pherae (also spelt Nicesipolis). Born to the Argead family of Macedonian rulers like her half-brother Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE), Thessalonike married Cassander (r. 305-297 BCE), and after his death, she probably acted as regent for their sons.
In contrast with such a high profile, historical details about Thessalonike's life are relatively rare. And yet, her character still casts resounding echoes in both myths and history, in her legendary personification as a mermaid and as the eponym of Greek's second largest, emporium city, Thessaloniki.
Birth & Family
The uncertainties around Thessalonike's historical background start with her date of birth. In the absence of direct hints in ancient writings, scholars have tried to use the meaning of her name as a clue. Stephanus of Byzantium, a 6th-century grammarian, in his geographical encyclopedia, Ethnica, notes that 'Thessalian Victory' was an expression to celebrate Philip II's victory (nike) in Thessaly (Ethnica, v. 'Thessalonike'). Philip’s first grand victory in Thessaly, at the Battle of Crocus Field, effectively awarded the king of Macedon with the life-long archonship of this major Greek city-state right at the south of his kingdom. The title was granted to him by the Thessalians themselves, who had initially called for his help to fend off the Phocians. Philip has been openly applauded by both ancient and modern historians for his numerous political and military achievements in Greece. And yet, this enormous boost of his power as the ruler of Thessaly – and, in effect, of all city-state members of the Amphictyonic League – was nothing less than the dawn of Macedonian glory in the Hellenic world, where the Macedonians were always regarded with contempt.
Philip's victory over the Phocians and their allies, a formidable and ferocious force fighting against the Amphictyonic League in the Third Sacred War (354-346 BCE), scored the first auspicious, game-changing point for the League after a series of inconclusive battles. Philip could also reduce the Phocians' capability by securing an alliance with their main supporter in Thessaly, the city of Pherae, by taking Nikesipolis, a young lady from the family of Jason of Pherae – an ex-ruler of Thessaly – most likely as his second wife (marriage is not verbally mentioned to have taken place, although it is hardly doubtful given the context and later events). Therefore, many scholars connect the birth of Philip's new princess - purportedly an immediate outcome of her mother’s union with him - with the Battle of Crocus Field in 353/2 BCE.
This dating, however, may not match comfortably with the other turning points of Thessalonike's life. Philip II was assassinated in 336 BCE at the wedding of his elder daughter, Cleopatra, with her maternal uncle, Alexander I of Epirus (r. 343/2-331 BCE). The marriage was arranged by Philip himself – a common practice in the ancient Greek world, and many other nations' upper classes throughout history, to secure treaties, mitigate hostilities, pay tributes, or forge alliances. However, by the time of his death, Philip had not revealed any plans for Thessalonike's marital future, presumably because she was still very young. She was believed to be only a child when his half-brother, Alexander the Great, succeeded their father and took the lead in Philip's intended crushing campaign against the Persian Empire. Historians have established that royal women of the Argead court became marriageable in their mid-teens. Thessalonike's half-sisters, Cynane and Cleopatra, were given to the men chosen by their father in their late teens. Therefore, it is unlikely that Philip II in 336 BCE had not already introduced a potential son-in-law for a 17-year-old daughter.
A second date that may question 353/2 BCE for Thessalonike's birth is her marriage in 317 BCE or shortly after to Cassander (Kassandros, c. 355-297 BCE), a commander of Alexander the Great and one of the ferocious belligerents in the Wars of the Diadochi, the succession struggle after the death of Alexander the Great. Cassander secured his claim on the Macedonian throne by turning out to be the ultimate winner of the Second War of the Diadochi when he took the strategically important harbour city of Pydna and put the chief claimants of Alexander's crown, his mother Olympias, his Persian wife Roxana (Roxanne) and their son Alexander IV, to death. Still, like the other Diadochi, Cassander also wished for a familial link with the Argeads to justify his succession of Alexander. And Thessalonike, one of the two surviving daughters of Philip II, was ideally close at hand. She was in Pydna with Olympias, who had raised her ever since Nikesipolis' death only 20 days after childbirth.
Apart from obtaining justification, scholars believe that Cassander must have hoped to father a new branch of the Argead dynasty with Thessalonike. This could raise at least a few comments from ancient writers had he been marrying a 36-year-old woman. Moreover, in the heat of the Diadochi wars, it would have been even less likely for Olympias to leave her stepdaughter unmarried for such a long time without trying to use her in the fabrication of an empowering alliance with a king and/or commander. Again, relying on her name to figure out a terminus post quem, a date after which she must have been born, scholars now generally agree that Thessalonike was most likely born around 346/5 BCE, after her father's decisive victory that uprooted the Phocian power once and for all and thus terminated the Third Sacred War. Based on this date, she would be around 9 years old on Philip's assassination and in her late twenties at the time of her marriage to Cassander.
Marriage & Political Influence
Ancient writers on the Diadochi wars, including Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Polyaenus, and Justin, with their complete concentration on Greek warfare and politics, rarely bothered with women. Therefore, it is hard to tell how Thessalonike might have felt about her marriage to Cassander. As noted earlier, prearranged marriages in the Argead royal family were never unexpected. Having witnessed the execution of her stepmother Olympias and the confinement of her sister-in-law Roxanne and her 7-year-old son under Cassander (both sent to Amphipolis to be secretly killed c. 310 BCE), perhaps she could not afford to be unhappy about her chance to live and marry the victorious, even though deadly, prince.
That said, the relationship between the couple does not seem to have been void of emotional exchanges, even if within the frame of common interests. They had at least three children together, born successively and in a relatively short time. Moreover, Cassander built the city of Thessaloniki about the same period c. 315-310 BCE. Some recent sources try to romanticise this act and make it sound like a gift from a loving husband. Before the establishment of Thessaloniki, however, Cassander had founded another port city in an equally strategic location that bore his name – Cassandreia in the Pallene peninsula, a grand revival of the ancient Corinthian colony of Potidaea (Diodorus Siculus, 19.52.1-5). There is now little doubt that these cities, one a commercial and the other a naval centre, were kingly gestures performed by Cassander before he could finally proceed to declare himself King of Macedon. He was waiting for the other Diadochi to go first, perhaps wary of risking his bittersweet alliance with them.
Cassander started as the regent (of Alexander IV) and ended as the king of the core part of Alexander the Great's empire covering the modern countries of Greece and North Macedonia. Having removed all his (legitimate) rivals – Olympias and her grandson Alexander IV – and secured a blood link to the Argeads, he safely declared himself the successor of their throne by murdering Heracles of Macedon, said to be the illegitimate, half-Persian son of Alexander the Great, in 305 BCE. Still, there was one more opponent to be dealt with. Antigonus I Monophthalmus (the 'One-Eyed', 382-301 BCE), a veteran commander of Philip II and Alexander III, was unsatisfied with his share of Alexander's conquered lands and now fighting the Diadochi to earn more, even all if possible, together with his son Demetrius I Poliorcetes ("the Conqueror of Cities"; 337-283 BCE). Their main supporter was Antipater (c. 400-319 BCE), Cassander's father, who ruled Macedonia when Philip and later Alexander were away on their campaigns.
To defeat these relentless opponents, Cassander persuaded the other Diadochi, Seleucus I Nicator, Ptolemy I, and Lysimachus, each now apparently content with their share of Alexander's Empire, to join forces with him. Together, they defeated Antigonus and his son in the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE, with Antigonus falling on the battlefield and Demetrius retiring to Ephesus. Cassander, however, had but a few years to enjoy his achievements. He died of dropsy in 297 BCE.
Although we know next to nothing about Thessalonike's contributions to Cassander's reign, she could likely exercise substantial power in his court. This is understood from her numerous and long terms of regency as queen-mother. She most likely had to run the affairs on behalf of her eldest son, Philip IV, who became king following Cassander's death but was a sickly young man and did not last longer than four months on the throne. As historian Elizabeth D. Carney points out, Macedonian princesses were liable to receive a good level of political education and experience, not least because they often had to step in as regents of the underaged heirs to their husbands, sons, or even grandsons' throne when the kings were away to campaigns or died. Therefore, although Macedonian queens could never become independent rulers, many of them turned out to be politically influential and active since at least Philip II's mother, Eurydice of Macedon (co-r. 393-369 BCE).
Death
Thessalonike's sons, almost like their mother, were born on unknown dates, although it is safe to surmise that Philip IV, died, like his father, in 297/8 BCE. He was perhaps just finishing his teenage years, supposing that his parents married immediately after the siege of Pydna in 317 BCE. His two younger brothers, Antipater I and Alexander V, too, must have been in their teens, and scholars have reasons to believe that their very small age difference (they might even have been twins) played a great part in their open and escalating clash over succession. It is known that Antipater I took the throne as the elder between the two, and at first did not express any objection against sharing power with his brother, who is assumed by some historians to be Thessalonike's favourite. At any rate, it is likely that Thessalonike's status, influence, and administrative capabilities, not to say her parental supervision over her young sons, imposed unbearable limits on the young king's free will and actions because Antipater soon had his mother murdered in 295 BCE.
The two brothers lasted but one more year, trying to drive each other out of power. Alexander V, living in fear after his mother's murder, turned for help to Demetrius I Poliorcetes and his close ally, Pyrrhus. Plutarch, in his Life of Demetrius (36-37), tells us that Pyrrhus responded immediately and managed to settle the matters between the two ruling brothers, but this made Demetrius, who arrived later and presumably not without his own intentions, an unwelcome visitor. When Alexander V tried to send him away as peacefully as possible, Demetrius killed him in a set-up farewell feast and then went on to overthrow Antipater I, who was already hated in Macedonia for his matricide. Antipater then escaped to his father-in-law Lysimachus, one of the Diadochi who was ruling over Thrace and Asia Minor, only to be killed by him. With the demise of the last descendants of Philip II in 294 BCE, the Argead dynasty was completely ruined and replaced by Demetrius I and the Antigonids, who ruled Macedonia and Hellenistic Greece until they were defeated by the Romans in 168 BCE.
Legacy
Although there are no two opinions about the fact that the whole house of Argead, not to say the whole history of ancient Macedonia and Hellenistic Greece, survived the millennia almost exclusively under the shining glamour of Alexander the Great, Thessalonike of Macedon was one of his satellite figures who could claim some glitter of her own. Her namesake city of Thessaloniki, initially built to take the place of silt-blocked Pella as the capital harbour of Macedonia, thrived and prospered throughout the coming ages of Roman, Byzantine, Slavic, and Ottoman supremacy. It is an enormous hub for culture and trade to this day.
Thessalonike also lived on in popular folk legends around her illustrious half-brother. In the post-Byzantine romance, The Novella of Alexander the Great (Ἡ Φυλλάδα του Μεγαλέξαντρου), she is pictured as a beautiful mermaid, transfigured after drowning herself out of grief for Alexander. She expects no less love and respect for him from every voyager passing her way. She would ask, "Is King Alexander alive?" and the unchangeable answer must be "He lives and reigns and conquers the world" to guarantee a safe passage. Any alternative reply would displease her, and turn her into a furious monster that would not hesitate to destroy the ship and all who are on board.
