Eurydice I of Macedon

Early life Eurydice was born at approximately 410–407 BC. Sirras' origin is disputed, mainly between an Illyrian and a Lynkestian descent, not mutually exclusive. Her mother was the daughter of the Lynkestian king Arrhabaeus, who claimed membership to the Doric Greek Bacchiadae family.

Queen of Macedon King Amyntas III of Macedon married the young princess Eurydice in about 390 BC, probably in a Macedonian effort to strengthen the alliance with both the Illyrians and Lynkestians, or to detach the Lynkestians from their historical alliance with the Illyrians, after he was defeated by Illyrians or an Illyrian-Lynkestian coalition in 393 BC. Ten years later king Amyntas III was forced to entrust a portion of his kingdom to the Greek Chalcidians, who refused to relinquish it, and by 382 BC had extended their control westward, including Macedon’s capital Pella. Sparta, the most powerful of the Greek states at that time, intervened and restored Amyntas to his capital in 379 BC, but Macedonia had to accept subservience to Sparta. probably due to being part of a culture that still was heavily oral in nature and where literacy was not fundamental to knowledge, even more in the case of those who had the wealth and leisure to be read to.

Later on Eurydice married Ptolemy. It is unlikely that Eurydice voluntarily married her eldest son's murderer, most probably she acted to ensure the succession of her remaining sons. A new pretender of the throne, Pausanias was very popular and was attracting support in Macedonia. Queen Eurydice asked the Athenian general Iphicrates (their father's adoptive son) to protect the throne for her two sons. Iphicrates drove out Pausanias. There is no evidence that Ptolemy had any role in this matter, or suggests that anyone other than Eurydice would have influenced Iphicrates. Even if she was prompted by Ptolemy, her successful intervention in political and military affairs remains remarkably bold and without any known precedent, an extraordinary act for a royal woman.

Eurydice's tomb was found and identified by the Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos in 1987 in Vergina (ancient Aigai), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with other royal Macedonian tombs. In the summer of 2001, between August 13 and September 9 the tomb of Eurydice was robbed and seven marble figurines had been taken.

Ancestry and plot disputes In order to defend Eurydices' son Philip II from ancient allegation that Macedonians were non-Greeks, Aeschines had publicly described Phillip as being "entirely Greek". Both Demosthenes and Attalus implied that Phillip was a pure-blooded Macedonian, with no mention of any supposed non-Macedonian ancestry. Plutarch explicitly states that Eurydice was an Illyrian, so does Libanius and thus is stated in the massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopaedia, Suda. Some modern historians see this characterization as "slander", arguing that it originated from Athens, which sought to discredit her son, Philip, by defaming him as having non-Greek ancestry.

As for Sirras, among modern scholars and historians, Robert Malcolm Errington, N. G. L. Hammond, and Charles F. Edson support a Lynkestian ancestry, while Eugene N. Borza, A. B. Bosworth and Kate Mortensen, support an Illyrian ancestry.

Stories of Eurydice's plots against her husband and her sons are at odds with other historical evidence and may be fabricated. Recent scholars have noted the many implausibilities in Justin’s narrative and have acknowledged Eurydice's near-contemporary evidences of Aeschines towards her. whereas a Plutarch's passage describes Eurydice as a good model in the education of children.