Time to reconnect with Princess Amastris

Amastris is much less known than her cousins, Barsine/Stateira and Drypetis, although she too was the granddaughter of Queen Mother Sisygambis.

She was born as the daughter of Oxyathres, a younger brother of Darius, the later King Darius III. At the Susa Wedding in 324 BC, Alexander married her to Craterus. She was of true royal descent and as an infant, she had already been promised in marriage to ruling King Artaxerxes III, who died shortly afterward.

[Picture from Archaeology News Network]

As Craterus’ wife, she could look forward to a powerful life since the general had been appointed by Alexander to replace the old Antipater as Regent of Greece. We’ll remember that Craterus had not yet arrived in Pella when Alexander died, and Antipater may well have seized the opportunity to convince the general to consider their king’s plan voided by his death. Under the influence of Antipater, who wanted to have closer control over Craterus, he agreed to marry one of his daughters, Phila. Amastris had her pride and she refused to be pushed aside as a mere Persian concubine.

We don’t know exactly which strings she pulled, but Amastris married King Dionysios of Herakleia Pontus in 322 BC. Dionysios reportedly was a friend of Alexander’s sister Cleopatra who had pleaded for the king’s protection with her brother. After Dionysios’ death seventeen years later, Amastris ruled with excellence over the kingdom in Bithynia as a widowed queen.

With the War of Alexander’s Successors still raging, Lysimachos, by now king of Thracia, proposed to Amastris in 302 BC and she accepted. Not for long though. When Lysimachos decided to marry Arsinoe, daughter of Ptolemy Soter (or Ptolemy Philadelphus), Amastris left her husband and returned to Herakleia Pontus. It was at this time that she founded the city of Amastris on the coast of the Black Sea. The town was created through the fusion of four Ionian colonies, Sesamus, Cromma, Cytorus, and Tium (which detached itself from Amastris again later on). By 300 BC or so, she minted her own coins – no small matter for a woman!

This city of Amastris has been in the news recently when archaeologists discovered some columns and pillars that may have belonged to the queen’s sanctuary. Pending in-depth excavations, it has been established so far that the sanctuary was about five to six meters high. It will be quite interesting to see what treasures the archaeologists will uncover at this site of which so little is known but where great history was written.

Queen Amastris was killed by her own sons Dionysios, Clearchus, and Oxyathres, who coveted their mother’s power. They arranged for her to be drowned around 284 BC. It must be said, however, that Lysimachos avenged his former wife by killing the matricides, if not out of love or admiration for her, then to add Herakleia Pontus to his own adjacent realm.