Cratesipolis

Who is Cratesipolis?

Cratesipolis, wife of Alexander, the son of Polyperchon, was highly distinguished for her beauty, talents, and energy. On the murder of her husband at Sicyon, in 314 BC, she kept together his forces, with whom her kindness to the men had made her extremely popular, and when the Sicyonians, hoping for an easy conquest over a woman, rose against the garrison for the purpose of establishing an independent government, she quelled the sedition, and, having crucified thirty of the popular leaders, held the town firmly in subjection for Cassander. In 308 BC, however, she was induced by Ptolemy, the ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, to betray Corinth and Sicyon to him, these being the only places, except Athens, yet possessed by Cassander in Greece. Cratesipolis was at Corinth at the time, and, as her troops would not have consented to the surrender, she introduced a body of Ptolemy's forces into the town, pretending that they were a reinforcement which she had sent for from Sicyon. She then withdrew to Patras in Achaea, where she was living, when, in the following year, she held with Demetrius Poliorcetes the remarkable interview to which each party was attracted by the fame of the other.