Mother of Alexander the Great

Mother of Alexander the Great, Olimpias was quite a blood thirsty woman. In the movie, Angelina Jolie plays Olympias as all dreamy, dabbling in magic, sensitive lady. Well, in real life she was a real witch, to say the least! Contemporaries claim, that she was the one who provoked Pausanias to kill her husband and Alexander's father king Philip II. She was angered by Philip's marriage to Cleopatra Eurydice. Although Philip already had multiple wives, he fell in love with Cleopatra so much that he even divorced Olympias and disowned their son, Alexander.

As you probably know, Alexander the Great crucified Pausanias and left his body on public display for many days. But later, the head of the body of Pausanias was found to have on it a golden crown, supposedly put there by Olympias. She even dedicated a memorial to Pausanias. The sword used by Pausanias to kill Philip was hung in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, per Olympia's special orders.

Eventually, Olympias got to Cleopatra Eurydice too. In fact, she murdered Caranus, son of Philip and his sister Europa. Obviously, this was not enough for her, because she also forced Cleopatra Eurydice to hang herself. Olympias also killed many others but in the end she was brought to trial for the numerous and cruel executions. She was condemned without hearing and put to death by the friends of those that she killed in 316 BC.