History Forum / General / Ancient History / December 2004

.....................................

Like Athenians and Spartans!
Macedonians named after Greek names AAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL the cities they
built or renamed. Thus they were  always Greeks or a very peculiar people.
Yannis
Macedonia, Greece

WTF is a ZHIVKO? is that a vodka on the rocks drinker.

Zhivko,  

I can excuse you for not knowing history.  What I cannot excuse is you
making comments based on your ignorance of history.  

Greek did not become widespread in Eastern Meditteranea until well
after the conquests of Alexander the Great.  Prior the arrival of
Alexander at Palestine, Aramaic, Babylonian and Persian were the
languages spoken.  Prior to the arrival of the Greeks in the area (and
the incorporation of Palestine mainly in the Ptolemaic kingdom), there
was not a single Greek colony in these parts and even in Egypt, Greeks
were limited to conducting commerce into the city of Navkratis.
Therefore, there was hardly an aquaintance of Greek prior the
establishement of Greek colonies and the Greek dynasties in that part
of the world.  

In fact, even during the Hellenistic times, Greek did not spread that
much away from the cities.  It was Christianity and the Bible and
imperial edicts that forced Hellenization much later on.

The undeniable fact of the story of Josephus is that the priesthood of
Jerusalem identified Alexander as a Greek and Alexander, of course,
accepted this characterization.  If Alexander was not demonstrably a
Greek, why would the priests have made such statements?  

So, chill...and think of some better excuses.

ADR

Zhivko,
1. Back in 1955, one of our professors gave us the task to write an essay on
Macedonia.
We were told that Slavs from present-day-FYROM in Canada, U.S. and Australia
were
propagandizing that Macedonians were not Greeks and that Macedonia is not
Greek.
No mention, then, about being descendants of the ancient Macedonians and
Alexander the Great. It all started later. New improved edition.

We searched encyclopaedias, Greek and English, and we came up with certain
passages that helped us present our arguments and disprove their
allegations.
Searching the Internet, today, I came up with a few passages that we had
discovered then, in books and encyclopaedias

A. Read the following. The webpage address is given for easy reference:

http://www.anemos.com/Diaspora/macedonia/Macedonia_FAQ.html
"Euripides lived many years and died in Macedonia. Many of his tragedies
were written and played while he was in Macedonia. This would have been
impossible, had the Macedonians been 'barbarians' (non-Greek). This is
because in one of these tragedies, 'Iphigeneia in Aulis', the Greek
superiority over the barbarians is emphasized.
The following epigram in memory of Euripides which is attributed by some
authors to Thucydides may give us more light to the actual beliefs of the
people of that time (and possibly Thucydides)
"MNHMA MEN ELLAS APAS' EYRIPIDOU, OSTEA D' ISXEI GH MAKEDVN, H GAR DEJATO
TERMA BIOU".
In brief, Macedonia, the land that holds the bones of Euripides is
considered part of Greece".

B. MIT classics is elightening on this subject, where Iphigenia is talking
to her mother
Clytaemnestra (in Euripides' Iphigenia at Avlis):

IPHIGENIA: And it is but right, mother, that Hellenes should rule
barbarians,
but not barbarians Hellenes, those being slaves, while these are free.

http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/iphi_aul.pl.txt

C. Take a look at what Strabo said at a time when there was no FYROM and no
dispute
over the name:
"And Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece."
(Strabo VII, Frg. 9 [Loeb, H.L. Jones])

IN CONCLUSION: Strabo says it very clearly, i.e. Macedonia is a part of
Greece.

Now, on Euripides. How could he dare say that Greeks should rule the
barbarians,
if Macedonians were not Greeks, i.e barbarians? Those days, it was a common
belief that
anyone not Greek was a barbarian. And, he presented his argument through his
tragedy (Iphigenia at Avlis) in front of the Macedonian King Archelaos (?)
and the
theater full of Macedonians.

Did I forget Herodotus, the father of History, whom you sometimes consider
a reliable source, but if he does not suit your objective, unreliable and
not to be trusted.

Regards,
Panayiotis

You have ZERO case, Bulgar, only hot air. Any full reading of ALL
ancient historians identify the Macedonians as Greeks. Also, ALL
well read modern historians had no choice but to come to the same
conclusion.

For fair use only:

"The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their
traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify."
John Bagnell Bury, "A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the
Great", The Modern Library, New Uork, 1913

"It seems more and more certain that the Macedonians were a Greek tribe
related to the Dorians. However, as they stayed high up in the distant
north, they could not participate in the progress of civilization of the
Greek people that migrated southward...".
Ul. Wilcken, Alexandre le Grand, op. cit., p. 33:

"A strong Illyrian and Thracian influence can thus be recognized in
Macedonian speech and manners. These however are only trifles compared
with the Greek character of the Macedonian nationality; for example the
names of the true full blooded Macedonians, especially of the princes
and nobles, are purely Greek in their formation and sounds."
Ulrich Wilcken, "Alexander the Great", Norton & Company, 1967

"And yet when we take into account the political conditions, religion and
morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a
Greek race akin to the Dorians."
Ulrich Wilcken, "Alexander the Great", Norton publications, 1967.

"the majority of the new generation of historians ......
agree, and rightly so, that the Macedonians were Greeks".
Herman Bengtson, Griechische Geschichte4, Muenchen 1969, p. 305:

"That the Macedonians were of Greek stock seems certain. The claim
made by the Argead dynasty to be of Argive descent may be no more
than a generally accepted myth, but Macedonian proper names, such as
Ptolemaios or Philippos, are good Greek names, and the names of the
Macedonian months, although differed from those of Athens or Sparta,
were also Greek. The language spoken by the Macedonians, which
Greeks of the classical period found intelligible, appears to have been
a primitive north-west Greek dialect,
much influenced by the languages of the neighboring barbarians."
J.R. Hamilton, "Alexander the Great", London, 1973

"These plains would be the envy of any Greek visitor who crossed their
southern border by the narrow vale of Tempe and the foot of Mount Olympus.
He would pass the frontier post of Heraclion, town of Heracles, and stop at
the harbour town of Dion, named after the Greek god Zeus, ancestor of the
Macedonian kings, and site of a yearly nine-day festival of the arts in
honour of Zeus and the nine Greek Muses. There he would walk through city
gates in a wall of brick, down the paved length of a sacred way, between the
theatre, gymnasiums and a temple with Doric pillars: suitably, the nearby
villages were linked with the myth of Orpheus, the famous bard of Greek
legend. He was still in a world of Greek gods and sacrifices, of Greek plays
and Greek language, though the natives might speak Greek with a northern
accent which hardened 'ch' into 'g'. 'th' into 'd' and pronounced King
Philip as 'Bilip'. Bearing on up the coast, he would find the plain no less
abundant and the towns more defiantly Greek."
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", The Dial Press Publications, 1974

"In favour of the Greek identity of the Macedonians is what we know of their
language: the place-names, names of the months and personal names,
which are without exception Greek in roots and form. This suggests that
they did not merely use Greek as a lingua franca, but spoke it as natives
(though with a local accent which turns Philip into Bilip, for example).
The Macedonians' own traditions derived their royal house from one
Argeas, son of Macedon, son of Zeus, and asserted that a new dynasty,
the Temenids, had its origin in the sixth century from emigrants from Argos
in Greece, the first of these kings was Perdiccas. This tradition became
a most important part of the cultural identity of Macedon.  It enabled
Alexander I to compete at the Olympic Games (which only true Hellenes
were allowed to do).... The Macedonians, then, were racially Greek."
Richard Stoneman, "Alexander the Great", Routiledge, London and
New York, 1977

"Modern scholarship, after many generations of argument, now almost
unanimously recognizes them as Greeks, a branch of the Dorians and
"Northwest Greeks" who, after long residence in the north Pindus region,
migrated eastward. The Macedonian language has not survived in any written
text, but the names of individuals, places, gods, months and the like
suggest strongly that it was a Greek dialect. Macedonians institutes, both
secular and religious, had marked Hellenic characteristics, and legends
identify or link the people with the Dorians."
John V.A. Fine, "The Ancient Greeks a Critical History", Harvard University
Press, Massachusetts, 1983

Taken from N. G. L. Hammond's "The Macedonian State:
The Origins, Institution and History," Calrendon Press, Oxford,
1989, pp. 413.pp. 12-14:"
4. The Language of the Macedonians.
What language did these 'Macedones' speak? The name itself
is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means
'highlanders,' and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such
as 'Orestai' amd 'Oreitai,' meaning 'mountain-men.' A reputedly
earlier variant, 'Maketai,' has the same root, which means 'high,'
as in the Greek adjective 'makednos' or the noun mekos.'
The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod
recorded (p. 3 above) has a bearing on the question of Greek
speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes;
as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic
dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to
suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect.
Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins
of Hellen's three sons -- Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus -- who
were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely
Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recored this
relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh
century, that the Macedones were a Greek-speaking people.
The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the
sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples
of their province in Europe, and one of them was the
'yauna takabara,' which meant the 'Greeks wearing the hat.'
[27] There were Greeks in Greek city-states here
and there in the province, but they were of various origins
and not distinguished by a common hat, the 'kausia.'
We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to
be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth
century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and
modified Hesiod's genealogy by bringing Macedon and his
descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking
family.
[28] Hesiod, Persia, Hellanicus had no motive for making
a false statement about the language of the Macedonians,
who were then an obscure and not a powerful people.
Their independent testimonies should be accepted as
conclusive. That, however, is not the opinion of most scholars.
They disregard or fail to assess the evidence which I have cited,
[29] and they turn instead to 'Macedonian' words and names,
or/and to literary references. Philologists have studied words
which have been cited as 'Macedonian' in ancient lexica and
glossaries, and they have come to no certain conclusion; for
some of the words are clearly Greek, and some are clearly not
Greek. That is not surprising; for as the territory of the
Macedonians expanded, they overlaid and lived with peoples
who spoke Illyrian, Paeonian, Thracian and Phrygian, and they
certainly borrowed words from them which excited the authors
of lexica and glossaries. The philological studies result in a
verdict, in my opinion, of 'non liquet.' [30]
The toponyms of the Macedonian homeland are
the most significant. Nearly all of them are Greek: Pieria, Lebaea,
Heracleum, Dium, Petra, Leibethra, Aegae, Aegydium, Acesae,
Acesamenae; the rivers Helicon, Aeson, Leucus, Baphyras, Sardon,
Elpe'u's, Mitys; lake Ascuris and the region Lapathus.
The mountain names Olympus and Titarium may be pre-Greek;
Edessa, the earlier name for the place where Aegae was founded,
and its river Ascordus were Phrygian. [31]
The deities worshipped by the Macedones and the names
which they gave to the months were predominantly Greek,
and there is no doubt that these were not borrowings.
To Greek literary writers before the Hellenistic period the
Macedonians were 'barbarians.' The term referred to their way
of life and their institutions, which were those of the 'ethne' and
not of the city-state, and it did not refer to their speech. We can
see this in the case of Epirus. There Thucydides called the tribes
'barbarians.' But inscriptions found in Epirus have shown conclusively
that the Epirote tribes in Thucydides' lifetime were speaking Greek
and used names which were Greek. [32]
In the following century 'barbarian' was only one of the abusive
terms applied by Demosthenes to Philip of Macedon and his people.[33]
In passages which refer to the Macedonian soldiers of Alexander
the Great and the early successors there are mentions of
a Macedonian dialect, such as was likely to have been spoken in the
original Macedonian homeland. On one occassion Alexander
'called out to his guardsmen in Macedonian ('Makedonisti'),
as this [viz. the use of 'Macedonian'] was a signal ('symbolon') that
there was a serious riot.' Normally Alexander and his soldiers
spoke standard Greek, the 'koine,' and that was what the Persians
who were to fight alongside the Macedonians were taught. So the
order 'in Macedonian' was unique, in that all other orders were in
the 'koine.' [34] it is satisfactorily explained as an order in broad
dialect, just as in the Highland Regiment a special order for a particular
purpose could be given in broad Scots by a Scottish officer who
usually spoke the King's English.The use of this dialect among
themselves was a characteristic of the Macedonian soldiers
(rather that the officers) of the King's Army. This point is made
clear in the report -- not in itself dependable -- of the trial of
a Macedonian officer before an Assembly of Macedonians, in
which the officer (Philotas) was mocked for not speaking in dialect. [35]
In 321 when a non-Macedonian general, Eumenes, wanted
to make contact with a hostile group of Macedonian infantrymen,
he sent a Macedonian to speak to them in the Macedonian dialect,
in order to win their confidence. Subsequently, when they and the
other Macdonian soldiers were serving with Eumenes, they
expresed their affection for him by hailing him in the Macedonian dialect
('Makedonisti'). [36] He was to be one of themselves. As Curtius
observed, 'not a man among the Macedonians could bear to part
with a jot of his ancestral customs.' The use of this dialect was one
way in which the Macedonians expressed their apartness from the
world of the Greek city-states. [27] See J. M. Balcer in 'Historia' 37
(1988) 7.[28] FGrH 4 F 74 [29] Most recently E. Badian in
Barr-Sharrar 33-51 disregards the evidence as set out
in e.g. HM 2.39-54, when it goes against his view that the
Macedonians (whom he does not define) spoke a language other
than Greek. [30] The matter is dicussed at some length
in HM 2. 39-54 with reference especially to O. Hoffmann,
'Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache und ihre Volkstun' (Goettingen, 1906)
and J. Kalleris, Les Anciens Macedoniens I (Athens, 1954);
see also Kalleris II and R. A. Crossland in the CAH 3.1.843ff.
[31] For Edessa see HM 1.165 and for the Phrygians
in Macedonia 407-14. Olympus occurs as a Phrygian personal
name. [32] See Hammond, 'Epirus' 419ff. and 525ff.
[33] As Badian, loc. cit. 42, rightly observes: 'this, of course,
is simple abuse.'[34] Plu. 'Alex.'51.6[35] Curtius 6.8.34-6.
[36] PSI XII 2(1951) no. 1284, Plu. Eun.14.11.
Badian, loc. cit. 41 and 50 n.66, discusses the former
and not the latter, which hardly bears out his theory that
Eumenes 'could not directly communicate with Macedonian
soldiers,' and presumably they with him. Badian says in his
note that he is not concerned with the argument as to whether
Macedonian was a 'dialect' or 'a language.' Such an argument
seems to me to be at the heart of the matter. We have a
similar problem in regard to Epirus, where some had thought
the language of the people was Illyrian. In Plu.'Pyrrh.'1.3
reference was made to 'the local 'phone,'' which to me means
'dialect' of Greek; it is so in this instance because Plutarch
is saying that Achilles was called 'in the local 'phone' Aspestos.'
The word 'Aspestos' elsewhere was peculiar to Greek epic,
but it survived in Epirus in normal speech. It is of course
a Greek and not an Illyrian word. See Hammond, 'Epirus' 525ff.,
for the Greek being the language of central Epirus
in the fifth century B.C.      "

"That the Macedonians and their kings did in fact
speak a dialect of Greek and bore Greek names
may be regarded nowadays as certain."
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia",
Univ. of California Press, LA, 1990 Pg 3

Who Are The Macedonians 1995
Pgs 15/16
"Also, following Alexander's death, the rapid spread of Koine
based on Attic Greek made any distinction between Greek
and the language of 'the Macedonians' an academic one which
opposing camps continue to fight over. That Greek so easily
subsumed the local Macedonian dialect would indicate that
the dialect in Philip's time was not far removed from Greek
after all."

A.B. Boworth, "Conquest and Empire", Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998,
Canto Edition
"Alexander ruled the world as his father had ruled Macedon, concentrating
power in his own hands and office to his Companions. In nationality the
Companions remained overwhemingly Hellenic."

---From Cambridge, Ancient Histories.
The evidence for the language of the Macedonians has been reviewed
and discussed by Kalleris and Hammond, Griffith, and many others, all
contending that it was a dialect of Greek.  The increasing volume of
surviving public and private inscriptions makes it quite clear that there
was no written language but Greek. There may be room for argument
over spoken forms, or at least over local survivals of earlier occupancy,
but it is hard to imagine what kind of authority might sustain that. There
is no evidence for a different "Macedonian" language that cannot be
as easily explained in terms of dialect or accent.

"Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greeks all had their
origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now,
political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aischines once even
found it necessary, in order to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented
by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a
meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'Entirely Greek'.
Demosthenes' allegations were lent on appearance of credibility by the fact,
apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being
determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different
from that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common
to western Greeks of Epeiros, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the
Macedonians, and their fundamental Greek nationality was never doubted.
Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was
the issue raised at all."
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", Univ. of California Press,
LA, 1990

"The Molossians were the strongest and, decisive for Macedonia, most
easterly of the three most important Epeirot tribes, which, like Macedonia
but unlike the Thesprotians and the Chaonians, still retained their
monarchy. They were Greeks, spoke a similar dialect to that of Macedonia,
suffered just as much from the depredations of the Illyrians and were in
principle the natural partners of the Macedonian king who wished to tackle
the Illyrian problem at its roots."
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", California University Press,
1990.

"A new force began to make itself felt on the northern fringe of Hellas, the
kingdom of Macedon.  Some people -Macedonians for the most part- claimed
it to be a Greek state and part of the Greek world. The Macedonians spoke
Greek and attended Hellenic festivals; their kings claimed to be descented
from Greek families- from Achilles, the great Achaean hero of the Iliad, no
less."
J.M. Roberts, "A Short History of the World", Oxford University Press, New
York, 1993

"Philip was born a Greek of the most aristocratic, indeed of divine,
descent... Philip was both a Greek and a Macedonian, even as
Demosthenes was a Greek and an Athenian...The Macedonians
over whom Philip was to rule were an outlying family member
of the Greek-speaking peoples."
NGL Hammond, "Philip of Macedon", Duckworth & Co. Ltd.,
London, 1994

"As subjects of the king the Upper Macedonians were henceforth on the
same footing as the original Macedonians, in that they could qualify for
service in the King's Forces and thereby obtain the elite citizenship. At
one bound the territory, the population and wealth of the kingdom were
doubled. Moreover since the great majority of the new subjects were
speakers of the West Greek dialect, the enlarged army was
Greek-speaking throughout."
NGL Hammond, "Philip of Macedon", Gerald Duckword & Ltd, London,
1994

MACEDON
"Outlying Greek kingdom north of Thessaly, inland from the Thermaic Gulf,
on the northwest Aegean coast...Its name came from an ancient Greek
word meaning highlanders...Macedon was inhabited by various peoples
of Dorian-Greek, Illyrian, and Thracian descent, who spoke a Greek dialect
and worshipped Greek gods...Unification and modernization came gradually,
at the hands of kings of Dorian descent."
David Sacks, "A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World.", Oxford, 1995

"Certainly the Thracians and the Illyrians were non-Greek speakers,
but in the northwest, the peoples of Molossis {Epirot province}, Orestis
and Lynkestis spoke West Greek. It is also accepted that the Macedonians
spoke a dialect of Greek and although they absorbed other groups into
their territory, they were essentially Greeks."
Robert Morkot, "The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece",
Penguin Publ., 1996

from:  Spirit of Truth

(using June's e-mail to communicate to you)!

you too pato/maricon chulo

There is no doubt. They are clearly identified as Greek.

http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E
/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html

For fair use only

" On the following day Antony feasted her in his turn, and was ambitious to
surpass her splendour and elegance, but in both regards he was left behind,
and vanquished in these very points, and was first to rail at the meagreness
and rusticity of his own arrangements. Cleopatra observed in the jests of
Antony much of the soldier and the common man, and adopted this manner also
towards him, without restraint now, and boldly. For her beauty, as we are
told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those
who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her
presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the
character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had
something stimulating about it. There was sweetness also in the tones of her
voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily
turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with
Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies
to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians,
Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. Nay, it is said
that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of
Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language,
and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect."

from:  Spirit of Truth

(using June's e-mail to communicate to you)!