Cynane

Cynane (, Kynane or , Cyna or , Cynna; 357 – 323 BC) was half-sister to Alexander the Great, and daughter of Philip II by Audata, an Illyrian princess. She is estimated to have been born in 357 BC.

Biography According to Polyaenus, Audata trained her daughter in "the arts of war" in the Illyrian tradition. Cynane's father gave her in marriage to her cousin Amyntas, by whom she had a daughter and by whose death she was left a widow in 336 BC. In the following year Alexander promised her hand, as a reward for his services, to Langarus, king of the Agrianians, but the intended bridegroom became ill and died.

Cynane continued unmarried and employed herself in the education of her daughter, Adea or Eurydice, whom she is said to have trained, after the manner of her own education, in martial exercises. It was Eurydice who took command of Cynane's troops after her death. When her half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus was chosen king in 323 BC, Cynane determined to marry Eurydice to him, and crossed over to Asia accordingly.

Out of all royal Macedonian women in the Hellenistic Period, Cynane was one of only three to fight on the front lines. Macurdy claims that Cynane killed an Illyrian queen in battle and is, in fact, one of the only women recorded to have killed an enemy in battle. She also defeated an army of the now dead Alexander the Great when facing Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas (the regent).

Cynane's ambition to marry her daughter Adea to Philip III alarmed Perdiccas, who sent his brother Alcetas to intercept her march into Asia. She was killed, the circumstances of which are unknown, but this shocked the Macedonian troops accompanying him for whom murdering a daughter of Philip II was a profound violation of their loyalties. The resulting mutiny effectively forced Perdiccas to capitulate, and Adea's marriage to Philip III proceeded. Adea and Philip III were eventually killed by Olympias in 317 BC. Following his defeat of Olympias, Cassander gave them proper royal burial at Aegae alongside Cynane herself, reuniting mother and daughter in death.

Polyaenus, half a millennium later, in the second century C.E., wrote: