Deidamia II of Epirus

Deidamia or Deidameia (Greek: Δηϊδάμεια) or Laodamia (Greek: Λαοδάμεια) (died c. 233 BC[1]) was a princess, daughter[2] of Pyrrhus II of Epirus, king of Epirus. She had a sister, Nereis, who married Gelo of Syracuse. During a rebellion in Epirus her sister send her 800 mercenaries from Gaul. Part of the Molossians[3] supported her, and with the aid of the mercenaries she briefly took Ambracia. After the death of her father and that of her uncle Ptolemy, she was the last surviving representative of the royal Aeacid dynasty.[4] She threw herself into Ambracia, but was induced by the offer of an honourable capitulation to surrender. The Epirotes, however, determining to secure their liberty by extirpating the whole royal family, resolved to put her to death; she fled for refuge to the temple of Artemis, but was murdered[5] in the sanctuary itself by Milo, a man already responsible of matricide, who shortly after this crime committed suicide.[6] The date of this event cannot be accurately fixed, but it occurred during the reign of Demetrius II in Macedonia (239–229 BC), and probably in the early part of it.

Another Deidamia[7] was a daughter of Lycomedes, king of Scyros, and mother of Pyrrhus by Achilles.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Robert Malcolm Errington, A History of Macedonia (1990), p. 174.
  2. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece
  3. ^ M. B. Hatzopoulos, Epirus, 4000 Years of Greek History and Civilization (1997, ISBN 9602133775), p. 80.
  4. ^ Errington, A History of Macedonia, p. 174.
  5. ^ Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière, The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 7, Part 1 (Hammond, 1970: ISBN 052123445X), p. 452.
  6. ^ Polyaenus, Ruses de guerre, viii. 52; Justin, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, xxviii. 3; Pausanias, Description of Greece, iv. 35
  7. ^ Apollodorus, Library

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).

Preceded by
Ptolemy		 Queen of Epirus
235 BC – c. 231 BC		 Succeeded by
Epirote Republic