A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

or IOLAUS (Ἰόλας or Ἰόλλας), son of Antipater, and brother of Cassander, king of Macedonia. He was one of the royal youths who, according to the Macedonian custom, held offices about the king's person, and was cup-bearer to Alexander at the period of his last illness. Those writers who adopt the idea of the king having been poisoned, represent Iollas as the person who actually administered the fatal draught, at the banquet given to Alexander by Medius, who, according to this story, was an intimate friend of Iollas, and had been induced by him to take part in the plot. (Arrian, Arr. Anab. 7.27; Plut. Alex. 77; Curt. 10.10.14; Just. 12.14; Vitr. 8.3.16.) It is unnecessary to point out the absurdity and inconsistency of this tale. (See Stahr's Aristotelia vol. i. p. 136, &c.; and Blakesley's Life of Aristotle, p. 85, &c.) Plutarch himself tells us expressly that it was never heard of until six years afterwards, when Olympias availed herself of this pretext as an excuse for the cruelties she exercised upon the friends and adherents of Antipater. Iollas was then dead, but she caused his grave to be opened, and desecrated with every mark of indignity. (Plut. Alex. 77; Diod. 19.11.) The period or occasion of his death is nowhere mentioned : the last we hear of him is in B. C. 322, when he accompanied his sister Nicaea to Asia, where she was married to Perdiccas. (Arrian, apud Phot. p. 70a, ed. Bekk.) The story of Hyperides having proposed the voting a reward to Iollas as the murderer of Alexander ( Vit. X. (Oratt. p. 849), which is in direct contradiction to the statement of Plutarch already cited, is unquestionably a mere invention of later times. (See Droysen, Hellenism. vol. i. p. 705.)

[E.H.B]