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Alexander I of Epirus "Alexander of
Molossis". also known as Alexander Molossus, was a king of Epirus
(343/2–331) of the Aeacid dynasty.[1][2] As the son of Neoptolemus I and
brother of Olympias, Alexander I was an uncle of Alexander the Great. He was
also an uncle of Pyrrhus of Epirus.
Life:
Neoptolemus I ruled jointly with his brother Arybbas. When Neoptolemus died in
c. 357, his son Alexander was only a child and Arrybas became the sole king. In
c. 350, Alexander was brought to the court of Philip II of Macedon in order to
protect him. In 342/3 in his late 20s, Philip made him king of Epirus, after
dethroning his uncle Arybbas. When Olympias was repudiated by her husband in
337, she went to her brother, and endeavoured to induce him to make war on
Philip. Alexander, however, declined the contest, and formed a second alliance
with Philip by agreeing to marry the daughter of Philip (Alexander's niece)
Cleopatra. During the wedding in 336, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias of
Orestis. In 334, Alexander I, at the request of the Greek colony of Taras (in
Magna Graecia), crossed over into Italy, to aid them in battle against several
Italic tribes, including the Lucanians and Bruttii. After a victory over the
Samnites and Lucanians near Paestum in 332, he made a treaty with the Romans.
He then took Heraclea from the Lucanians, and Terina and Sipontum from the
Bruttii. Through the treachery of some Lucanian exiles, he was compelled to
engage under unfavourable circumstances in the Battle of Pandosia and was
killed by a Lucanian. He left a son, Neoptolemus, and a daughter, Cadmea.
In a famous passage, Livy speculates on what would have been the outcome of a
military showdown between Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic. He
reports that as Alexander of Epirus lay mortally wounded on the battlefield at
Pandosia he compared his fortunes to those of his famous nephew and said that
the latter "waged war against women"
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