Early in his reign, Philip took for a wife, a barbarian Celtic girl named Audata. It is unlikely that he knew, or cared to know, the girl; the point was to create an alliance with one of the friendly Celtic tribes of Illyria which would act as a buffer on his northwestern frontier. The prestige to the tribe was great and the cost to Macedon, small. Audata was taken to the palace in Pella. She died there in childbirth about a year later leaving a girl child, half sister to Alexander named, Kynane.

As a legal daughter of Philip, Kynane would have been raised at court, possibly by Olympias. She presented absolutely no threat to the dynasty. Her only value and reason for being was the opportunity she represented for a marriage which would be politically advantageous to Philip. She was fed and clothed and educated for that purpose and that purpose only.

Kynane was a year older than Alexander and she would, most certainly have known her half brother as a child for the fifteen or so years she was allowed of youth. She would have known Olympias, her half sisters, Cleopatra and Thessalonike, and her father, Philip, as well. These, would have been to Kynane, her family.

At the earliest opportunity, Philip gave Kynane in marriage to his brother’s son, Amyntas. This was not an unfavorable alliance; it was a royal marriage on both sides and Philip would have thought he had done well by his daughter as well as binding his brother, who had some claim to the throne, more closely to him.

Kynane bore Amyntas a daughter, Adea Eurydice and we hear no more of her until the assassination of Philip and the accesscion of Alexander.

Alexander, like all kings of Macedon, began his reign by strengthening his position upon the throne. Many men suspected of disloyalty were executed or fled; Kynane’s husband, Amyntas was among them. Accused of plotting the overthrow of Alexander, Amyntas fled to the court of The Great King in Persia leaving behind Kynane and her daughter, Adae Eurydice.

Typically, Alexander lost no time in making use of his half sister who was by now 22. Again Kynane became a pawn in the political power game of Macedon. Even before Amyntas had fled Macedon, Alexander gave his sister to Langarus, the King of The Agrianians, a wild Celtic tribe on the northern borders of Macedon. Like father, like son. Langarus had provided aid to Alexander in his Illyrian campaigns and Kynane was the prize. She and her infant daughter were duly packed off to the forests of Illyria where she would become queen of a Celtic tribe. We hear no more of her for some 14 years.

After the death of Alexander, who should appear out of nowhere but Kynane all of a sudden in Asia Minor toting her now marriageable daughter, Adea Eurydice. Kynane had learned the marriage game well and hoped to marry her daughter to none other than her old and retarded uncle Arrhidaeus, now Philip III, king of Macedon.

This could not have occurred against the wishes of Olympias who probably wanted to install a tractable ally as queen and used Kynane, as she had been used all her life, as a tool.

In Asia Minor, the women were under the direct control of the strongest man, Antigonos The One Eyed, who was officially Governor of the major part of Asia Minor. Antigonos opposed this grotesque marriage and saw in it a danger to his own ever changing power. He ordered the arrest of the two women and had a subordinate, Alketas sent to do the job. In the ensuing fight between the men of Alketas and the attendants of Kynane and Adea Eurydice, Kynane, the half sister of Alexander, was killed.

All of her life she had been nothing more than a tool used by Philip and his family in their incessant power struggles. She died as she had lived, simply a pawn.

Kynane achieved what she had been sent to Asia Minor to do. Hearing that Alexander’s sister had been murdered, The Macedonian soldiers at once rebelled. They remained loyal to Alexander long after he was gone.
Antigonos was forced to allow the marriage he did not want. Adea Eurydice, daughter of Kynane, was married to Philip III and became Queen of Macedon and she was not then the tractable little girl Olympias had counted upon. Olympias was in for a big surprise, but that is another tale.