Stratonice (wife of Antigonus)

Stratonike (Greek Στρατονίκη; † after 297 BC) was the wife of the Macedonian generals and Diadochenherrschers Antigonus Monophthalmos and the mother of Demetrius Poliorketes and Philippos. Thus, it is also the ancestress of the last Macedonian royal house, the Antigonid.

Among the ancient authors it has only the Roman biographer Plutarch Korrhagos with a father's name ( patronymic ) to. He also reported the rumor that Stratonike would have been first married to a brother of Antigonus Monophthalmos named Demetrius and thus particularly the paternity of Demetrius Poliorketes is controversial. However, both figures apply in historical research as implausible, especially since they were mentioned in any of the other ancient historians. A Macedonian military leader named Korrhagos is named for the year 331 BC, which with an advance team in the Peloponnese against the Spartans of Agis III. subject.

Stratonike lived after the start of the Asia campaign of Alexander the Great in 334 BC with her husband in Asia Minor, the satrap as several provinces managed there in Kelainai page. After the death of Alexander and the beginning of the first Diadochenkrieges she fled 321 BC with her husband and their children to Macedonia in order to escape the grasp of the kingdom regent Perdiccas. After this but was defeated in the following year, she was able to return to Asia Minor, where her husband took up the struggle for the succession of Alexander the Great. In the following lengthy battles Stratonike occurred only once in appearance. In the year 316 BC, revolted several captured by Antigonus placed military leaders in their dungeon, a rock castle in Phrygia, and brought it under their control. Since her husband was bound elsewhere in this period, Stratonike at the head of an army and took on the siege of the castle. They also led negotiations with some of the ringleaders of which they mainly Dokimos and Philotas gave freedom after they had expressed their submission to Antigonus Monophthalmos. After several months of siege, let Stratonike storm the castle and the remaining resistance fighters under the leadership of Attalus, the brother of Perdiccas, massacre.

While her husband was in the decisive battle of Ipsos 301 BC to Stratonike held on in Cilicia. There she was received by the fleet of her son Demetrios Poliorketes and brought to Cyprus in the still safe Salamis. In the year 297 BC, but conquered the ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy, after an invasion of the island and took Stratonike as well as her daughter-in Phila and their children in captivity. Ptolemy gave himself nobly and let the family immediately released again by having them forwarded it to the end because in Greece Demetrios Poliorketes. From Stratonike then nothing more is reported.