Once a serpent was seen stretched out next to the body of Olympias as she slept, and this, more than anything else, they say, abated the ardor of Philip’s passion for her. Accordingly, he no longer came often to sleep next to her, either because he feared some spells and charms might be put on him by her or thought that she had intercourse with some superior being. But there was another story about these matters: All the women in this region were addicted to Orphic rites and the orgies of Dionysus from extreme antiquity…Olympias, who affected these divine inspirations more enthusiastically than other women, and performed them in more barbaric fashion, would provide the revelers with large tame snakes which often would crawl out from the ivy and the mystic winnowing baskets and wind themselves around the wands and garlands of the women, thus terrifying the men.

– Plutarch