Olym'pias
2. Daughter of Pyrrhus I. king of Epeirus, and wife of her own brother Alexander II.
After his death she assumed the regency of the kingdom on behalf of her two sons, Pyrrhus and Ptolemy; and in order to strengthen herself against the Aetolians gave her daughter Phthia in marriage to Demetrius II. king of Macedonia.
By this alliance she secured herself in the possession of the sovereignty, which she continued to administer till her sons were grown up to manhood, when she resigned it into the hands of Pvrrhus.
But the deaths of that prince and his brother Ptolemy followed in quick succession, and Olympias herself died of grief for her double loss. (
Just. 28.3.) Such is Justin's statement : according to another account Olympias had poisoned a Leucadian damsel named Tigris, to whoml her son Pyrrlus was attached, and was herself poisoned by him in revenge. (
Athen. 13.589f; Helladius, apud
Phot. p. 530a.)
