Olympias's story is affected more by the agency of the lesser-known, ancient Greek goddesses. The story of Alexander (to come in another drama) will be more influenced by the agency of the major Olympian gods.
Olympias's religious, political, social, and personal conditions, her fate, who she was, what she inherited, what was handed to her subsequently, her present circumstances, all come together in one person at her time some 2300 years ago in the last moments of her life. What she emotes should reflect her in her times and not mirror the standards of our times, as much as that is possible.
The relevance of the themes in this play to contemporary audiences is to be found in the archetypal metaphors signified by the names and functions of the lesser goddesses of ancient Greece and embodied in elements of the characters and action. If Cassander is viewed as the antagonist, what character would represent the protagonist? If Olympias is viewed as a thoroughly reprehensible character, then she is an iniquitous, but pitiable, lead character as the protagonist, representing little positive or ennobling.
The thesis, showing "how devastating, both to the immediate sufferer herself and to society at large, is passion uncontrolled by reason" (as Kitto says in his discussion of Euripides' Medea, in The Greeks, Pelican Books, 1965, p. 202). Olympias is not a mythical character, but the lesser goddesses are. They are incorporated to underlay a mythical ground to her story.
On the other hand, Olympias may not have been a thoroughly reprehensible character, but a victim of the status quo. A double standard was operating for ancient monarchs. If she had been a man as monarch, what she did would have been expected, if not acceptable. Alexander, as all monarchs, killed all rivals when his father was assassinated, even those with the most remote ambitions to the throne. What Olympias did was at fault because she was a woman, and in addition, one who had no preparation for command. She was elevated simply because of the charismatic authority that accrues to her by virtue of her being the mother of Alexander.
However, the large scale and wide target of the executions she ordered entered territory beyond political expediency. Alas, she tips any scale of understanding away from sympathy, by any standard ancient or modern. She was appointed guardian, not ruler, but she acted as a ruler. Her rule was rejected when she acted with arrogance and exceeded the powers that were granted her. She appeared to have no impersonal motive to act. She inherited some charismatic power from that of her son. She depended on it with impunity, but she nullified it with more arrogance.
In that double standard and her personal tragedy is the relevance of the story of Olympias to contemporary audiences. No concept of double standard existed, from which to make appeal. The status of women was a given, part of the lot of women, and it did not include political power. Women's inferior position was noumenal in that era. Things have changed somewhat, but much remains. Olympias's spiritual experience did not prepare her for political leadership.
She indulged her pleasures. She did not act with patience and take the time to investigate completely what happened to her son in Babylon. Her passionate nature allowed her hate for her perceived enemies to overrule any thought of reasonable deliberation. The pleasures of sating her revenge held sway. The forces of retribution came down upon her, and, left unguarded, her grandson and all in Alexander's line perished.
In sum, the primary forces of revenge, regret and redemption move Olympias through the drama.
The Olympias pages:
Some of the ideas behind the plays are discussed in the Peroration page, which is a general summing up.
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