The Origin of Ancient Macedonians and OTHER Greeks

[Andrew]

The Bibliography in which is based the following text is :
1) Nicholas GL Hammond , A History of Macedonia (mainly volumes I,II) (O.U.P)
2) Hermann Bengtson , Griechische Geschichte: Aus den Anfaengen bis die roemische Kaiserzeit , Italian 1989 Edition by Il Mulino , Bologna
3) Andrew Robert Burn , A Traveller's History of Greece , Italian edition by Arnoldo Mondadori 1991).
4) N.G.L Hammond ,The Macedonian State : genesis,institutions,history (O.U.P. 1989 ,greek edition by Papazisis , 1999)
5) A.F. Christides &col , History of Ancient Greek: from the beginnings to late antiquity, (C.U.P. , greek edition by the Manolis Triantafyllides Foundation, 2001)

For any possible errors in english , please excuse me ...I'm doing my best

To understand what is the exact relationship of the Macedonians with the other Greeks one must ask two fundamental questions : Who is considered Greek in antiquity and who is Macedonian ? In "mathematic" terms , the Macedonians are Greeks only and only if their cultural components form a subset of the Greek ones. In "Chemical" terms , two societies are equivalent only and only if during their forming procedures they used the same reagents under the same conditions. In the terms of the Greek historian Herodotus , two populations form a common nation only if they have in common language , blood , religion and customs as it is seen in [VIII.144] :

...αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα...

...there is the bond of Hellenic race, by which we are of one blood and of one speech, the common temples of the gods and the common sacrifices, the manners of life which are the same for all ...

Less than one century after Herodotus' statement , the Athenean Isocrates considers Greek only him who has an Athenean Education. Interestingly Herodotus before him [I.57] considers the Atheneans as originaly non Greeks that by time became hellenized by adopting the greek language:

...εἰ τούτοισι τεκμαιρόμενον δεῖ λέγειν, ἦσαν οἱ Πελασγοὶ βάρβαρον γλῶσσαν ἱέντες. εἰ τοίνυν ἦν καὶ πᾶν τοιοῦτο τὸ Πελασγικόν, τὸ Ἀττικὸν ἔθνος ἐὸν Πελασγικὸν ἅμα τῇ μεταβολῇ τῇ ἐς Ἕλληνας καὶ τὴν γλῶσσαν μετέμαθε

...if one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language. If therefore all the Pelasgian race was such as these, then the Attic race, being Pelasgian, at the same time when it changed and became Hellenic, unlearnt also its language.

Plato , on the other hand writing after Herodotus labels Athens as "The Greece of Greece".

I posted all these examples to introduce you to the difficulty of defining Grecity through antiquity and I continue this text by providing all the interesting evidence both archaeological and historical (modern & ancient) , but also linguistic that prove one thing only : that the ancient Macedonians were from the beginning the northern most part of what we label today as Ancient Greeks or as NGL Hammond brilliantly quotes in the beginning of his book "Philip of Macedon" : "Philip was Macedonian and Greek in the same manner that Demosthenes was Athenean and Greek".

The Ancient Greek History is the history of the people that spoke dialects of the Greek language in antiquity. These ancient Greeks are the result of a hybridation process between the Pre-Greeks and the Proto-Greeks , hybridation that occured around 2000 BC.From what we'll see in that hybridation the pre-Greeks offered the Aegean progressed Culture and the Aegean terminology and the Proto-Greeks offered the Indoeuropean structure of the greek language , the Patriarchic social structure (that in the Pre-Greeks is Metriarchal) and the polemophily that characterised the Mycenaeans (in contrast of the relatively peaceful pre-Greeks).

First settled the Pre-Greeks in multiple migrating waves. From the Pelasgians that came from Asia Minor around 7000 BC to the Carians , Abants and Leleges who came in the Aegean region around 3000 BC , was formed the so called Pre-Hellenic or Aegean Culture. Examples of these culture in the Aegean zone were the Cycladitic (first half of the 3rd millenium BC) and Cretan-Minoic (second half of the 3rd - first half of the 2nd millenium BC )cultures , meanwhile in continental Greece we have the Pelasgian cultures in Dimini e Sesklo in Thessaly , Nea Nikomedeia in Emathia etc. These populations spoke Pre-Greek languages akine to the Asia-Minor languages and later loaned in the greek language the endings in "-nthos"/"-ntha" (anatolian "-nda") and "-ssos"/"-ssa".

It is necessary here present the latest theory on the pre-Greeks . The pre-Greeks are now divided in a pre-IEan fraction (that came directly from Asia Minor in multiple waves over the period 6500-3000 BC and correspond to the first neolithic agriculturers of Europe) and in a IEan fraction constituted by the "Luwians" /"Anatolians" (Carians,Lydians etc) that invaded Greece and Asia Minor from Thrace (Ezero culture) around 2600 BC as a result of the Balkan Satem (Thracians ,Dacians ,Moesians ,etc) pressure. So the latest theory recognizes a pre-Greek IEan "anatolian" fraction that precided the coming of the proto-Greeks for a couple of centuries and was also responsible for many pre-Greek toponyms. For example the name of the greek mountain Parnassos is perfectly "anatolian" , since both the theme "parna" (meaning "house" in luwian) and the ending "-ssos" are anatolian.

An interesting discusion about the whole Indo-European migrations is made in the thread: http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...igrations.html

Around 2500 BC we have the arrival of the Proto-Greeks who were the indoeuropeans who brought the proto-greek language in Greece. These populations first settled in southcentral Albania , Epeirus and North Western Macedonia and even there were divided in tribes and subtribes with different dialects of greek. A commercial and cultural chain is formed by the bronze age archaeological locations like Sesklo,Dimini (Thessaly), Servia (Elymia) , Maliq in Albania and Pelagonia. All the findings dated before 2500 BC prove an influence of Thessaly to the other regions , but in those after 2000BC we find the others influencing Thessaly first artisticaly and later on burial manners that demonstrate migrations from north west to south east.

About the exact trajectory that the proto-Greeks took to reach Greece we must consider the original homeland of the Graeco-Aryan group and the archaeological "changing" waves that came from that homeland to Greece. Recently , most scholars believe that the original homeland of the Graeco-Aryan group was the South-Eastern part of the Globular Amphora Culture north of the danubian outflow and east of the Carpathians. From there due to the "Steppe" Satem pressure the group was divided and proto-Greeks probably with the proto-Phrygians came to central Balkans by the Iron Danubian Gorge (or by the paths immediately south of it since the gorge itself is relatively inaccessible) , meanwhile the Aryan group moved eastwards , where it was destined to satemize -since it remained in the steppe-homeland for a longer period- and after passing north the Caspian Sea it gave it's two branches , Iranian and Indic. Back to the central Balkans , the proto-Greeks moved to modern Kosovo-south Serbia zone (where they formed the so called Bubanj Hum II culture) meanwhile the Phrygians moved northwards in the Pannonian plain , and later reached the Lusatian/Lausitz region where they created the so-called "Lausitz" culture. Returning to the proto-Greeks , so far we said that they moved from Rumania to Kosovo and that seems to agree with the Archaeology of the Cerna Voda III and Bubanj Hum II&III cultures. In Kosovo , someone defended the pass to historical Paeonia (the pass between the Sar Planina mountain and the Zrna Gora mountains , pass of Kacanik) and that deviated the Greek trajectory more west to north Albania and from there to the Drin valley (or as N.G.L. Hammond postulates the proto-Greeks passed the pass of Kacanik and emediatetly deviated through the valleys of the rivers Tresca & Saletska) and reached lake Lychnidos (modern Ochrid) without passing from the vardar valley. From Lychnidos , the proto-Greeks were initialy disperced to southcentral Albania, North Epeirus and Western Macedonia , fact that is supported archaeologicaly by the similar cultures of Maliq II&III (modern south Albania) and Crnobuki/Suvodol(Pelagonia) and their irradiation.So the trajectory of the proto-Greeks to the Greek soil seems to be Crna Voda III -> Bubanj Hum II -> Maliq IIb-IIIa.

About the "Danubian" origin of the proto-Greeks , professor Michael Sakellariou has made an interesting observation in his book "Les Proto-Grecs" (1981) , which is also presented in the 1986 book "The end of the early bronze age in the Aegean" edited by Gerald Cadogan in the chapter "Who were the immigrants" writen by Sakellariou himself. He considers the mythological names Δαναός , Δανάη , Δαναΐδες and the name Δαναοί by which Homer names sometimes the Greeks among other names such as Ἀχαιοί (most frequent , watch a paragraph below dedicated on it's etymology) or Αργείοι (less frequent). In the Greek myth Danaus , brother of Aegyptus and son of the nymph Akhiroe and the river-god Neilus came from Egypt in Argos and instructed the Argives how to make the arid earth fertile by irrigation meanwhile the names of his daughters -the Danaids- are often associated with water springs. To make it short , Sakellariou proves that the stem "Danawa-" is indoeuropean (Mallory and Adams present the theme *deh(a)nu- as the PIE term for "river") , he associates it with the river-names Danube in the north Balkans, Dniester, Dnieper, Don, Donets in the Steppe zone , Rhodanus in West Europe and Apidanus , a tributary of Penios in Thessaly. He also presents "Avestan" and "Vedic" water-associated deities named by the same root "Danawa-". So he considers the "Danaans" as the IE proto-Greeks who came from the Danube. To explain the mythological origin from Egypt he brilliantly argues that the "brothers" Aegyptus & Danaus are the personification of the two great rivers that the Aegean populations knew , that is the Nile in Egypt and the Danube in the northern Balkans. The fact that the mother of the two Αχιρόη/Akhiroe , has a name etymologicaly related with "water flow" ("Αχ"< PIE*"akw" , watch below and "ροή/rhoe" meaning "flow" in Greek) endorses this approach. Of course , Sakellariou doesn't stay only to the name Danaans . He uses also archaeological information regarding the immigrants. Archaeology proves that the immigrants brought with them both Kurgan burial modalities (tumuli of Steppe origin) of the chiefs and northern Balkan styles in their "common life" settlements.

In the lakeland ("Tetralimnion" is a term I love , meaning "4 lakes" : the two Prespes , Lychnidos and Maliq) already begins the hybridation proccess. The proto-Greeks (Bubanj-Hum II culture) initialy mixed with the "Porodin" Pelagonian Neolithic cultures (Pelasgians ?) and later also recieved "anatolian" influence from the nearby Armenokhori culture. As the hybridation was going on the new styles of pottery were always more similar to the later "Minyan" ones.

For a more detailed reference on the archaeological evidence on the coming of the proto-Greeks , you can look the following thread :
http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...html#post89517

The only thing for inquiry is the identity of the population that blocked the entrance of the proto-Greeks from Kosovo to Paeonia. Later the "Vardar Valley" was inhabited by the Paeonians. Now the Paeonians are considered bearers of Bubanj Hum I culture and this means that they settled in their valley before the arrival of the proto-Greeks (Bubanj Hum II) in Kacanic. So they diffended the path near modern Skopje and forced the proto-Greeks to deviate from the valleys of the rivers Tresca & Saletska directly in the Lychnidos lake. What do we know about the Paeonian language ? Most scholars see it as a Satem Indo-European language related somehow with the Thraco-Daco-Moesian group. Athenaeus seems to have connected the Paeonian tongue to the Mysian language, itself barely attested. Since the Mysians and Bithynians are considered Thracians who have migrated to Asia Minor , Athenaeus' affermation seems to confirm the general idea .But all these are pure suggestions and speculations since we still don't have enough information nor about the Paeonian neither about the Mysian languages. But some have their reservations on inserting the Paeonian language with the Thracian ones (at least the "Thracian proprie dicti"), since it is also noted that the Moesian and Dacian languages share some isoglosses that separate them from the Thracian proper. Interestingly , Strabo reports a relation between the Mysians in Asia Minor and the Moesians in the Balkans. If to that we add Herodotus' quotation that the Paeonians were colonists of the Trojan Teucrians (maybe their Royal House since the stock was of Bubanj Hum I -central balkanian origin) and that the second name of the Trojans was Dardanians , immediately we understand that there is somekind of connection between the "central Balkanian group" (Moesians ,Dardanians , Paeonians) and the populations of northwest Asia Minor like the Trojans and the Mysians. The difficalty -as always- is the definition of the exact type of the relation. So , after all that another school of thought separates Paeonians,Dardanians, Moesians (and possibly Maedans) as a "Central Balkan group" , nor Illyrian , neither Thracian, but we can't say nothing for sure.

An interesting piece in favour of the relationship between Mysians and Moesians comes from Strabo :

[VII.2] Now the Greeks used to suppose that the Getae were Thracians; and the Getae lived on either side the Ister, as did also the Mysi, these also being Thracians and identical with the people who are now called Moesi; from these Mysi sprang also the Mysi who now live between the Lydians and the Phrygians and Trojans. And the Phrygians themselves are Brigians, a Thracian tribe, as are also the Mygdonians, the Bebricians, the Medobithynians, the Bithynians, and the Thynians, and, I think, also the Mariandynians. These peoples, to be sure, have all utterly quitted Europe, but the Mysi have remained there. And Poseidonius seems to me to be correct in his conjecture that Homer designates the Mysi in Europe (I mean those in Thrace) when he says, "But back he turned his shining eyes, and looked far away towards the land of the horse-tending Thracians, and of the Mysi, hand-to‑hand fighters" for surely, if one should take Homer to mean the Mysi in Asia, the statement would not hang together. Indeed, when Zeus turns his eyes away from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, it would be the act of a man who confuses the continents and does not understand the poet's phraseology to connect with Thrace the land of the Asiatic Mysi, who are not "far away," but have a common boundary with the Troad and are situated behind it and on either side of it, and are separated from Thrace by the broad Hellespont; for "back he turned" generally means "to the rear," and he who transfers his gaze from the Trojans to the people who are either in the rear of the Trojans or on their flanks, does indeed transfer his gaze rather far, but not at all "to the rear". Again, the appended phrase is testimony to this very view, because the poet connected with the Mysi the "Hippemolgi" and "Galactophagi" and "Abii," who are indeed the wagon-dwelling Scythians and Sarmatians. For at the present time these tribes, as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians (more indeed with those outside the Ister, but also with those inside). And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes — the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci. However, the Scordisci are by some called "Scordistae"; and the Taurisci are called also "Ligurisci" and "Tauristae".

After that little "Thracian" interval let's return to the Greeks.

The Ionians (Ίωνες) , first variant Iaones (Ιάονες) settled in the coastal Albania , developed navigation skills and named the sea Ionian (Iaonian Sea) and the Gulf of the later Corinthian colony Epidamnos Ionian Gulf(Ηρόδοτος (6.127.2) «ἐκ δὲ τοῦ κόλπου τοῦ Ἰονίου Ἀμφίμνηστος Ἐπιστρόφου Ἐπιδάμνιος»).In the continental zone of this proto-greek zone around the Tetralimnion were the other two major greek Tribes , the Aeolians and the North Western Greek Group.Interesting at this point has the name of the region Pelagonia. The etymology is under question since some say that it means plain-land ,but others correlate it to the North-Western greek word Πελιγάν which means "the old one" , so Pelagonia can also mean "the Old land" of the North Western Greeks. Interesting is also the etymology as "dark land" (Hippokratic Πελιδνός for υπομέλας , "becoming dark" or the name of Pelops ="black faced") and from it's river Εριγών έρ(εβος)+γη ?? and the modern slavic river name Crna Voda (Black/Dark water).

The first to invade south Greece were the Ionians by sea. The Gajtan II culture near Skodra in northern Albania - where NGL Hammond in "History of Macedonia" locates the proto-Ionians - was abbandoned around 1900 BC .They settled in the Ionian Islands (Leukada early Middle Helladic cultures) , Western Peloponnesus and later in Korinthia, Argolid (Lerna MH cultures) and from there Attica , Eubea and Saronic Islands. That the Ionians were initialy in Peloponnesus is suggested by Herodotus (1.145) when he says that the twelve states of the Ionians in Asia Minor were analogus of those they had in Peloponnese . Likewise, in the Odyssey we have the singular frase Ἴασων Ἄργος (Σ,246) that stands for "Ionian Peloponnese" and lastly we know that the more noble families of classical Athens (Alcmeonids and Peisistratids) were of Pylean ("Nestorid") discent ,removed by the arrival of the Dorians in Peloponnese and gone to Attica. The second greek invasion was made "via land" by the Achaeans . Following the Pindus Chain they settled in all over the Greek continent with high concentration in Central Greece and Peloponnese (later, the Dorians will constrain them in the mountainous Arcadia).This Achaean migrating vector is suggested by Homer. In fact , Achilles (Achaean heroe) prays to the Dodonian pelasgian Zeus , as the god of his ancestors , meanwhile his grandfather name Aeakus (greek Αἰακός) letterarly means "of/from the Aias" (like Khalkidike means of the Khalkideans , Bottike of the Bottieans and Attike (Αττική/Ατθική of the Attheans ,Ατθείς), and Aias is a Variant of the Epeirotan river Aous (That's why the tribe that inhabited by Aous is called Parauaeae (Παραυαίοι , παρά τον Αώο/Αία/ΑἴFα) and the Perrhaeboi are the aeolophon population inhabiting initialy at the beginning of the ΑίFας (πέρρας ΑίFου -> ΠερραιFοί -> Περραιβοί)).The name Aias (older form with a "digamma" ΑίFας as we've already said) is also curried by other two homeric heroes : the Telamonian Aias of Salamis (his father Telamonas is some times mentioned as brother of Peleus , father of Achilles) and the locrian Aias.All this insistance of the Aeolians-Achaeans for the river Aous/Aias is an element of their origin , like the Boeotian name Pindarus shows a correlation with the mountain Pindus (eastern most part of northern Pindus , Boion mountain in Macedonia , most probaby the homeland of the Βοιωτοί before they settle in Thessaly and later move to historical Boetia) . Another Homeric element that suggests Aeolian migration from Epeirus is in Iliad (II,748-755): "Guneus brought two and twenty ships from Cyphus, and he was followed by the Enienes and the valiant Perrhaebi, who dwelt about wintry Dodona, and held the lands round the lovely river Titaresius, which sends its waters into the Peneus. They do not mingle with the silver eddies of the Peneus, but flow on the top of them like oil; for the Titaresius is a branch of dread Orcus and of the river Styx".Intestingly, in historical times we find the Perrhaebi (Aelophons) inhabiting in South Olympus (ὅρος Δώτιον ) and the Enianes/Aenians (Ἐνιάνες/Αἰνιάνες ,northwestern greek speakers) in south Thessaly by the Upper Sperkhius river. The third group , the so called Northwestern Greeks "filled in the blanks" that the others left and were settled in Epeirus , south Albania and Upper (= Western , mountainοus) Macedonia.

Although it's widely known that Homer's basic designation of the Greeks in the days of the Trojan War is "Achaeans" (Ἀχαιοί or the earlier form ἈχαιFοί, a term that almost surely corresponds to the Hittite name Ahhiyawa) it's interesting that till today there's no widely accepted etymology of the word Ἀχαιός. So after already presenting the older form ἈχαιFoί and after presenting the "obsession" that Greeks had with the river Ἀώος/Αἴας/ΑἴFας one is tempted to to see ἈχαιFοί as "akw-AiFας" , that is relate the "Αχ-" with the PIE *akw meaning "water" (that would explain the river names Αχελώος and Αχερών)and so see the Achaeans as the Early Greeks "who drunk the water of the river ΑἴFας". At this point we have an interested parallelism between the homeric name of the Greeks "Achaeans" and their historical name "Hellenes". In Homer , Hellenes are only some of the followers of Achilles , because originaly Hellas was a region by the river Sperkheios.On the other hand , the whole "Achillean" territory is called "Achaean Phthiotis". The term Hellen from the other hand derives from the epeirotan names Selli and Sellopia/Hellopia. The Selli are the inhabitants of Epeirus who Achilles sees as his ancestors dwelling in Dodona and the lakeland near Dodona (modern Ioannina) was known as Sellopia/Hellopia. Recognizing the PIE* theme "ap,op,up" for "water" as a derivative of the PIE *akw for "water" (by the "canonical" greek transformation of the labiovelar kw in p) ,then Sellopia/Hellopia becames "water of Selli/Helli" or better "lake of the Selli/Helli". Selli on the other part is related with the greek and IE theme sel-/sol- for "light,brightness". The aspiration of "Se-" to "He-/ἑ-" is a common topic in greek linguistics and the best example is the greek word for "moon" Σελήνη and the female name Helena/Ἑλένη ("the bright one").All these show that the terms Achaeans and Hellenes have practicaly made the same trip from Epeirus to Phthia and from there only later recieved "universal" ethnical significance among the Greeks.On the etymology of the Achaeans one can see all the things that I've presented here with more details in the post:

http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...-achaeans.html

Now , those who have read the post that I've indicated above about the archaeological evidence on the "coming of the Greeks" , have noticed that the diffusion of the Greeks in the Greek peninsula is marked archaeologicaly by the irradiation of the Maliq IIb burial modalities and that two of them are located in Elymia (Servia) and Vergina from very early times (around 2100 BC). This of course doesn't mean that the greek tribe who dwelt this land back then were necessarily the Macedonians , but it shows that this region was for the greeks one of their very first "options" and that it was included from early times in the "greek cultural sphere". What seems very reasonable is that this early greek population must be responsible for the etymologicaly greek toponyms Pieria and Emathia mentioned by "Homer" (and all the "Homers" before him , since the oral epic poetry begins almost after the fall of Troy). So I'll provide some interesting verses from the Iliad and the Odyssey to make this point clear.

First of all Pieria means "prosperous land"/"land well chosen" (Πῖαρ = top milk , πιείρα =fertile, fat , prosperous) and those of you who are acquainted with the labiovelar trasformations in the Greek language (IE "kw"/"gw" frequently turn into "pt" which is simplified later in p(pp) or t , meanwhile rarely it delabializes into "k") would have no problem to relate the world Pieria/Pierion/Piar (attested also in Boetia and the Peloponnese) with the ancient Thessalian city Kierion (found in one inscription as Κουάριον , a remnant of the old labiovelar form and the name of the nearby river , Κουάριος , a tributary of Penios). On the etymology of Emathia (Ἠμαθία) I'm leaving you to the capable hands of Homer : In the Odyssey [I,214] he writes "at sandy Pylos" in the original as «ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα».

Now , having proved the greek etymology of these regional names let's see some verses from the Iliad. In [XIV 224-229] Hera starts from mt. Olympus and goes near Troy to seduce Zeus. Her path is :

Ἣ μὲν ἔβη πρὸς δῶμα Διὸς θυγάτηρ Ἀφροδίτη,
Ἥρη δ' ἀΐξασα λίπεν ῥίον Οὐλύμποιο,
Πιερίην δ' ἐπιβᾶσα καὶ Ἠμαθίην ἐρατεινὴν
σεύατ' ἐφ' ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν ὄρεα νιφόεντα
ἀκροτάτας κορυφάς· οὐδὲ χθόνα μάρπτε ποδοῖιν·
ἐξ Ἀθόω δ' ἐπὶ πόντον ἐβήσετο κυμαίνοντα,

She starts from Olympus , passes from Pieria and beautiful Emathia and then goes to the mountainous land of the Thracians and then to the Athos peninsula in Khalkidike from where she shifts passing above the Aegean Sea. So it's interesting that the land of the Thracians begins after Pieria and Emathia (probably after the river Axius) even though in "Homer's" times the Thracians are dwelling coastal Pieria. This "verse" must be a remnant from much earlier times when some greek tribe was dwelling Emathia and gave it it's greek name. For Pieria there's definitely no doubt. Even when the Thracians have settled in it's coastal part , it's western highlands and the regions west of them (South Elymia) where costantly parts of the mycenaean world (as we'll see in a couple of paragraphs below) and the focal point from where the Macedonians begun their expansion.

After the works of Porzig & Risch in the 50s we can classify the Greek dialects in a manner that will suggest also the "neighboring" of the varius Greek Tribes. When the proto-Greeks have reached to the northern coast of the lake Lychnidos they were devided.Some went westwards and some continued southwards. The ones moving westwards are linguisticaly classified as "southern Greek group" and include the proto-Ionians and the Acheans (and much later the Arkadocypriots and the Pamphylians). Attic-Ionic and Arkadocypriot share a number of isoglosses that separates them from the other dialects. Mycenaean Greek ,Attic-Ionic and Arkadocypriot made some common variations of the proto-Greek language. They changed the older ending -ti in -si (είκοσι , δίδωσι , Ποσειδών , instead οof Fίκατι,δίδωτι , Ποτίδας of the northern Greek group) and the temporal adverb ending -kwa in -te (οπότε instead it's northern counterpart -ka like όποκα).The ones that haven't moved westwards formed the later so-called "Northern Greek group" that includes the Northwestern Greeks and the Aeolians. They maintained the closest to proto-Greek forms like Fίκατι,δίδωτι,όποκα, Ποτίδας. So we have Ionians inhabiting the Albanian and Epeirotic coast and the ionian islands, "Mycenaeans" (Acheans- later Arkadocypriots) inhabiting the inner parts of the Albanian coast and Epeirus and the Northern Greeks inhabiting more east from them , in West Macedonia and East Epeirus.As we said the Ionians moved by Sea and the Mycenaean-Acheans moved from Pindos southwards sometime near 1900 BC. The Attic-Ionic dialect formed much of it's properties (/a:/->/ε:/="η") in postmycenaean period , sometime between 1200-900 BC. In the same manner the Aeolic (Boetian,Thessalian,Lesbian) dialects stemmed from the northern group as proto-Aeolic after 1200 BC.

For e better treatment on the greek dialects see the thread
http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...hristides.html
that contains notes from the book "A History of Ancient Greek" edited by A.F. Christidis.

Two other interesting mentions of Epeirus as the first station of the proto-Greeks come from Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy. Aristotle in his Meteorologika quotes :

Greek text:

«...ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ ὁ καλούμενος ἐπὶ Δευκαλίωνος κατακλυσμός καὶ γὰρ οὗτος περὶ τὸν Ἑλληνικὸν ἐγένετο τόπον μάλιστα, καὶ τούτου περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα τὴν ἀρχαίαν. αὕτη δ’ ἐστὶν ἡ περὶ Δωδώνην καὶ τὸν Ἀχελῷον οὗτος γὰρ πολλαχοῦ τὸ ῥεῦμα μεταβέβληκεν ᾤκουν γὰρ οἱ Σελλοὶ ἐνταῦθα καὶ οἱ καλούμενοι τότε μὲν Γραικοὶ νῦν δ’ Ἕλληνες...»

The deluge in the time of Deucalion, for instance, took place chiefly in the Greek world and in it especially about ancient Hellas , the country about Dodona and the Achelous, a river which has often changed its course. Here the Selli dwelt and those who were formerly called Graeci and now Hellenes.

Aristotle Meteorologika 1.352a

Interestingly , the name Graecus (Γραικός) is related with the greek word Γραία / Γηραιός meaning "old one" ...a good name for the people inhabiting Epeirus ...the first station of the Acheans and the Hellenes/Selli as we've seen above and "the oldest part of Greece" as Claudius Ptolemy below defines it.

Claudius Ptolemy later in his geography stated that "Greece starts from Orikos and epeirus is it's most ancient region".

άρχά Ἐλλάς ἀπό Ωρικυάς και ἀρχέγονος Ἐλλάς Ἥπειρος

At this point Ionians and Achaeans were more mixed and influenced by the advanced Pre-Greeks. The result was their progression in what was the Mycenaean Culture which was caused by the cultural assistance of the more advanced Aegean Culture. On the other hand , the North Western Greeks were isolated in the Inlands and Highlands and this caused lesser interaction with the evolved pre-Greek Aegean cultures. The result was their stagnancy in the nomadic transhumance, goatherding mountain manner of life. That stagnancy was still obvius during clasic times and that was the basic reason why the northwestern greeks were sometimes considered "barbarians" from the other more "sophisticated" Greeks. At this point it would not be a mistake at all if we postulate that the North Western Greeks of Epeirus and Macedonia were from all the greek tribes the most akine to the proto-Greeks that invaded Greece as we said above around 2200-1800 BC. One of the many proofs of that is the quote (V.88) of Herodotus:

[V.88] In truth however this fashion of dress is not Ionian originally but Carian, for the old Hellenic fashion of dress for women was universally the same as that which we now call Dorian.

[V.88] ἔστι δὲ ἀληθέι λόγῳ χρεωμένοισι οὐκ Ἰὰς αὕτη ἡ ἐσθὴς τὸ παλαιὸν ἀλλὰ Κάειρα, ἐπεὶ ἥ γε Ἑλληνικὴ ἐσθὴς πᾶσα ἡ ἀρχαίη τῶν γυναικῶν ἡ αὐτὴ ἦν τὴν νῦν Δωρίδα καλέομεν.

This little quote contains in a "concentrated" manner what we said above about the pre-Greek and proto-Greek interactions. Note that the original greek dressing style is the Doric one (North Western Greek , proto-Greek) and the Ionian women have adopted the Carian (pre-Greek , Aegean) dressing style.

The Mycenaean centers were at the summit of their culture during the period 1500-1300 BC. In this period we have the congestion of these centers that provoced a large scale colonization northwards in Continental Greece and eastwards in the Aegean islands like Crete,Rhodus ecc and the first settlements in the coasts of Asia Minor and Cyprus. Archaeologicaly it is proven that from that time and on Miletus enters in the Mycenaean sphere and it is more interesting that in the Hittite inscriptions the "Ahhiyawa are controlling Millawanda/Miluwata".

Related with the Mycenaean Era is the Linear B writting syllabar. It was a syllabic writting mode, invented by the need of commercial registry , that used graphems (writting symbols) to express syllables ,for instance qa-si-re-u [gwasileus] stands for βασιλεύς (king) and wo-no [wo-i-nos] stands for οῑνος (wine). The importance of the Linear B syllabar stands on its "degeneration". Degeneration means that many graphems (graphic signs) can reppresent different phonems (voice units). For example , we've already seen that the liquid consonants "l" and "r" had the same graphem. The same thing also happened with the sounds β[b],π[p],φ[ph] and κ[k],χ[kh],γ[g]. Interestingly , t=θ[th] ,but there was a different graphem for δ[d].

This is suggestive of the fact that two of the voiceless aspirated sounds [φ,x] were formed AFTER the invention of the Linear B writting (sometime after 1650 BC) and the third voiceless aspirated sound [θ] was formed in the south Greek group BEFORE the invention of the Linear B writting. If in all that we consider the fact that the Macedonians and the Locrians used respectively β instead of φ and β instead of π and that the Macedonians used δ instead of θ and the Laconians used to say αἰδωσσα,βέρνη,βώνημα instead of αίθουσα,φέρνη,φώνημα and even the Atheneans had some proto-Greek remnants like ,for instance κεβλήπυρις instead the kanonical κεφαλήπυρις (Aristophanes,Birds refering to the bird with the "red head") we can postulate that the sound changing in voiceless aspirates was made AFTER the settlement of the proto-Greeks in West Macedonia ,Albania and north Epeirus.At this point it's important to remember that the Mycenaean Greek was only one of the dialects of Greek during the 2nd millenium BC and that the Northern Greek dialects (NW greek , Aeolian ,Macedonian) do not originate from it , but only the southern Greek dialects (Attic-Ionic and Arkadocyprian) do so. This is in agreement with Bynon's opinion (1972) that "around 1350 BC mycenaean greek was in transitional state. Some of the IE words with the labiovelar -kw- had already shifted to -k- in Mycenaean , meanwhile others were in transition from -kw- to -pt- and from there -most frequently- in -p/pp- and less frequently in -t-". We'll have the opportunity to see the "labiovelar transformations" in greek in many examples below.

Related with all that is the thread : http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...html#post93662
where it is shown that the "Macedonian linguistic peculiarities" also existed in other greek dialects.

Related to our basic theme is the exact northern borders of the Mycenaean world. Today it is safely recognized that Elymia and West Pieria were part of this world and as we will see later on , they were the focal point from where the Macedonians have started to expand. In Aiane (Elymia) , archaeological discoveries have proven that the city belonged to the Mycenean world in all it's modalities : Ceramic , Burial and even a short phrase in Linear B Mycenaean writing has been found there. In Agios Demetrios (West Pieria) , a Mycenaean cemetery has been discovered and near there we can put the location of the city of Levaea as we will see below. The relation of the Macedonians with the Mycenaean world is also attested by the macedonian anthroponym Ikkotas (Ἰκκότας) as a variant of the common greek Ippotas (Ἱππότας). The deciphering of the mycenaean Linear B by Ventris & Chadwick gave the mycenaean word for "horse" as "i-qo" (pronounced i-kwos) , meanwhile the later greek word for "horse" was hippos (ἵππος). The proto-IE word for horse is "hekwus" (latin equus) and the transformation of the initial "e" to "i" is considered by some linguists as an exclusively greek property. Some IE languages have maintained the original "e-" (Old Irish Ech , latin Equus , ancient Thracian Ezben) , others transformed it into "a-" (Sanskrit Asva) , others have eliminated the initial vowel (Albanian Kuaj/Kale: , German Pferd , Old English hros >horse). Greek is the only language that transformed the original "e-" in aspirated "i-".The destiny of the labiovelar "-kw-" depends on the language group. Centum languages have made it k or p or they maintained it and Satem languages have made it a sibilant complex sv/zb. Now , the macedonian name Ἰκκότας is not the only remnant of the mycenaean i-qo. The name Ἴκκος is also attested in the Doric cities of Epidaurus and Taras. Ikkos the Tarantinian was a famous olympic athlete , gymnast and doctor-pythagorian philosopher who lived at the beginning of the 5th century BC and is mentioned several times by Plato :

«ἆρ' οὖν οὐκ ἴσμεν τὸν Ταραντῖνον Ἴκκον» , "...but don't we know Ikkos the Tarantinian..." (Plato, Laws VIII 839e-840a)

Later , around 1200 BC we have the Mycenaeo-Trojan Conflict. I choose the term conflict and not the widespread term "Trojan War" , because although we're certain that Homer's narration is largely imaginary and full of anachronisms , yet we're pretty sure than the Mycenaeans were fighting in the western anatolian coast against Luwians and Hittites from at least 1350 BC. Troy VI (Wilusa of the hittite texts , note the similarity with the greek term "Fίλιον"/[Wilion] , hence "Iliad") was a flourishing commercial center with commersial communication from Egypt to the Adriatic sea (Veneti/Eneti who are mentioned by Homer as Trojan allies and somehow "Homerically" related with the Paphlagones). Troy's sea trade was inhibited by the Mycenean Pirate Activity . So they answered by developing a terrestrial trade-path with the Adriatic sea. This trade-path was that on which later the Romans made the Via Egnatia. To secure the path from Greeks and other tribes they send Allies and Colonists in the hot-points of the path. So we have the arrival of Thracians in Pieria , Mysians and maybe a Trojan member entered in the Royal House of the Paeonians , since -as we've already said above - Herodotus labels the Paeonians as colonists of the Trojan Teucrians , meanwhile archaelogy proves that the Paeonian stock was of Bubanj Hum I origin. Here are two interesting quotes from Herodotus:

[V.13]«...εἴη δὲ ἡ Παιονίη ἐπὶ τῷ Στρυμόνι ποταμῷ πεπολισμένη, ὁ δὲ Στρυμὼν οὐ πρόσω τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου, εἴησαν δὲ Τευκρῶν τῶν ἐκ Τροίης ἄποικοι».

[V.13]"...that Paionia was a country situated upon the river Strymon, and that the Strymon was not far from the Hellespont, and finally that they were colonists from the Teucrians of Troy".

and

[VII.20.2] «…ἐσβαλόντες …τὸν Μυσῶν τε καὶ Τευκρῶν τὸν πρὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν γενόμενον , οἵ διαβάντες ἐς τὴν Εὐρώπην κατὰ Βόσπορον τούς τε Θρήικας κατεστρέψαντο πάντας καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰόνιον πόντον κατέβησαν μέχρι τε Πηνειοῦ ποταμοῦ τὸ πρὸς μεσαμβρίης ἤλασαν».

[VII.20.2] "...nor that of the Mysians and Teucrians, before the Trojan war, who passed over into Europe by the Bosphorus and not only subdued all the Thracians, but came down also as far as the Ionian Sea and marched southwards to the river Peneios."

This Trojan Operation in the Balkans is extremely interesting. Herodotus tells us that it happened "before the Trojan War" (πρὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν γενόμενον ) , that is sometime in the LHIIIB period (1200-1300 BC) and in the same period we have massive fortification constructions in Mycenae , Tyrins , Gla , Orchomenos , Athenean akropolis , but not in Messenia and Laconia , which indicates that the enemy of the Mycenaeans was from north-east.

After the fall of Troy , a new force invaded the Balkans (or they were already in the Balkans and started their expansion after the Trojan war?) wanting to take control of this commercial path. They are the Phrygians/Bryges , vehicles of the so-called Lausitz Culture (Lausitz is a region in the Germano-Polonian borders). The Phrygians are the importers of the Iron Age in the Balkans , although it is more correct to say that the arrival of the Phrygians and the arrival of Iron use in the south Balkans are two independent contemporany facts ,since Iron working was known earlier in Asia and probably came from there via Cyprus. We find them settled from Adriatic-Ionian sea , to Central Macedonia and Asia Minor. The center of their reign was Central Macedonia and their capital was the first Edessa ( from the phrygian word vedy=Water) that was on the later Macedonian Aegai. Professor Manolis Andronikos in Vergina has found three different , independent cemeteries: the oldest one was Phrygian , the middle one was Illyrian and the latest one Macedonian.There , the Phrygians have influenced and were influenced by the Bottieans (they adopted the minoan double-Ax/pelekys symbol )who were considered Minoic Cretan colonists that came to central macedonian plain near 1400 BC when the Achaeans invaded Crete.

The Phrygian presence in the central macedonian plain had a strong impact on the Macedonians and as we'll see it can help us extrapolate some conclusions on early macedonian history.

Since we are talking about Phrygians at this point it's interesting to consider some things about them. Traditionaly , we put the Phrygian expansion after the fall of Troy. Homer mentions the Phrygians as Trojan allies:

Phorcys, again, and noble Ascanius led the Phrygians from the far country of Ascania, and both were eager for the fray.

This Ascania is interesting because it is very akine to the Uscana , the capital of the Illyrian (?) Penestians northwest of Pelagonia , in modern day Kitsevo (FYROM).As we're about to see the Phrygians had to leave the Balkans and move to Asia leaving only some "relics". One of this "relics" were the Bryges/Briges who were dwelling in clasic times north of Pelagonia and neighbooring with the Penestians. So one is tempted to say that during the Troian War the Phrygians had all ready descended to the Balkans and as Troian commercial partners (?) and later allies lived in Uscana/Ascania. Also one is tempted to ask him self about the Penestians . Were they originaly Illyrians or Phrygians (or something else) that dwelling among Illyrians became "Illyrized" later ?

These Penestians are also found in Thessaly as descendants of the Aeolian Boetians who haven't migrated to Boetia when the NWG Thessalians arrived about 1200 BC. Here is what Archemachus (cited by Athenaeus, VI, 264), a 3rd century BC writer, believed about the Penestians:

"The Aeolian Boeotians who did not emigrate when their country Thessaly was conquered by the Thessalians, surrendered themselves to the victors on condition that they should not be carried out of the country, nor be put to death, but should cultivate the land for the new owners of the soil, paying by way of rent a portion of the produce of it, and many of them are richer than their masters."

All this indicates that the Penestians were certainly a pre-Illyrian tribe , but we can't tell if they were of Phrygian or Greek stock (or something else). Interestingly , both the two versions agree on the origin of the Armenians:

1) Herodotus considers the Armenians as Phrygian colonists in (VII,73):

73. The Phrygians had an equipment very like that of the Paphlagonians with some slight difference. Now the Phrygians, as the Macedonians say, used to be called Brigians during the time that they were natives of Europe and dwelt with the Macedonians; but after they had changed into Asia, with their country they changed also their name and were called Phrygians. The Armenians were armed just like the Phrygians, being settlers from the Phrygians.

73. Φρύγες δὲ ἀγχοτάτω τῆς Παφλαγονικῆς σκευὴν εἶχον, ὀλίγον παραλλάσσοντες. οἱ δὲ Φρύγες, ὡς Μακεδόνες λέγουσι, ἐκαλέοντο Βρίγες χρόνον ὅσον Εὐρωπήιοι ἐόντες σύνοικοι ἦσαν Μακεδόσι, μεταβάντες δὲ ἐς τὴν Ἀσίην ἅμα τῇ χώρῃ καὶ τὸ οὔνομα μετέβαλον ἐς Φρύγας. Ἀρμένιοι δὲ κατά περ Φρύγες ἐσεσάχατο, ἐόντες Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι.

2) Strabo in book XI gives us the opinion of two Thessalians that considered the Armenians of Thessalian descent :

[12] There is an ancient story of the Armenian race to this effect: that Armenus of Armenium, a Thessalian city, which lies between Pherae and Larisa on Lake Boebe, as I have already said, accompanied Jason into Armenia; and Cyrsilus the Pharsalian and Medius the Larisaean, who accompanied Alexander, say that Armenia was named after him, and that, of the followers of Armenus, some took up their abode in Acilisene, which in earlier times was subject to the Sopheni, whereas others took up their abode in Syspiritis, as far as Calachene and Adiabene, outside the Armenian mountains. They also say that the clothing of the Armenians is Thessalian, for example, the long tunics, which in tragedies are called Thessalian ...

As a conclusion we can see some interesting connections. In two independent testimonies the Armenians are of Balkanian descent and more specificaly of Phrygian or Thessalian (Aeolians from Thessaly not exactly NWG Thessalians) descent. In the same time the Penestians also project themselves in both the Phrygian and Thessalian (Aeolian-Boetian) sphere. So somekind of connection is more than obvius , the only thing remaining is to define the exact nature of this connection between Penestians,Phrygians and Aeolians of Thessaly.

Yet, I must admit that latest linguistic theories want the Armenian language descending from the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) branch and not form the Phrygian one. By that optical angle the Armenians are now related with the Cimmerians that invaded Anatolia from Caucasus and the Balkans from the Danubian mouth around 700 BC and originated from the Aryan branch when it was passing over Caucasus , from the Black Sea to the Caspian sea.It is widely accepted that the Cimmerians have irrupted in the south Balkans (leaving their trace in Macedonia , Epeirus and the Lakeland)and some go even further and connect them with the Cimbri irrupting in the Italian peninsula much later.The whole Cimmerian movement was prompted by the Scythians , who drove them away from the territory north of the Black Sea. As we'll see in a little bit , the Cimmerian irruption is the main factor of the contraction of the Illyrian force.

The phrygian culture was flourishing from 1050 to 900 BC. Their decline and migration in Asia Minor sometime between 1000-800 BC was the result of the Illyrian south Expansion (vehicle of the so called Glasinac culture , Glasinac is a locality in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a cemetery with more than 20.000 Illyrian graves has been discovered). This expansion was formitable but short lasted , because Greeks, Paeonians and Thracians (with Cimmerian help the last ones as we've said above) caused the Illyrian retreat in northwest direction in what was later the Illyrian region in classical times.The Illyrians left only burial modalities which have been found in Macedonia , Amphipolis, Western Thrace , the Thessalic Alo and even in the northwestern Peloponnese (morelikely they were there as Mercenaries).The tribe of the Maedi in western Thrace is considered an Illyrian Tribe left behind among the Thracian tribes.

After that ancient Balkanian "who's who" we can now speak about the origin of the Macedonians.

First of all , it is important to state that the conditions that caused the "hellenogenesis" (pre-Greek and proto-Greek hybridation) in south Greece, are also safely recognized in Epeirus and Macedonia and this means , for example , that Macedonia or Epeirus are not less "hellenogenetic" areas than Thessaly , since in both we have pre-Greek and proto-Greek interactions with occasional non-Greek migrations.To be more precise , Epeirus and Macedonia were much earlier Hellenogenetic than the other regions , since as we've seen above the "hellenogenesis" process begins on them almost a half millenium earlier than the rest of Greece. The only difference is that southern greek regions recieved more Aegean/pre-Greek cultural assistance. And if someone thinks that Epeirus and Macedonia are more predisposed by their geography for greek-not greek interactions and population mixing (for example the theories that want the Macedonians an Illyrian-Thracian-Greek mix), NGL Hammond starts (A History of Macedonia ,volume II) the paragraph titled "the phyletic systems of the Macedonians and their neighbors" by mentioning : "In North Greece and in the central Balkan region the elementary unit of organized life was the small tribe , and it seems that it maintained it's identity by ENDOGAMY (inbreeding)" ,meanwhile Hermann Bengtson finds the "mixing" theories of Paul Kretschmer and Julius Caerst "highly improbable". So nor nomad Greeks , neither noamd non-Greeks had mixing tendencies. Population mixing is far more accelerated in the Urban centers, because they provide ἰσοπολιτεία (equal political rights) , cooperation and some form of education that eliminates racial prejudice. The varius tribes and nations of mountainous transhumance nomads on the other hand are rarely educated , in constant movement and often competing amongst themselves for the few grazing spots. In post-medieval times , the same mountains of Epeirus and Macedonia have hosted two tranhumance pastoral tribes : the hellenophon Sarakatsanoi and the neolatinophon Vlachs. Both these tribes were strictly endogamic till modern times and have rarely intermixed. They practicaly begun to mix with the general Greek population after the WWII , when they were massively acquainted with the urban way of life , and it's not rare till today - although in constant attenuation and under comical tone - to hear about racial prejudices between them. Interestingly, Hammond in "The Macedonian State" states that the Vlachs inhabiting in the highlands of Pieria (Βλαχολίβαδο Ολύμπου) have formed a peculiar Vlach dialect , due to their isolation. That isolation is explained by Pieria's "autonomy". This autonomy (which Hammond accepts as the main factor of it's etymology as "well choosen land") means that in a relatively small area you have both the coastal plain as winter quarters for the flock and the Western highland as summer grazers. So a transhumance tribe in Pieria -unlike Pindus- is not forced to migrate over long distances and this favours it's isolation and reduces (but certainly doesn't eliminate) contacts with other tribes.

So we have an interesting analogy between the ancient Macedonians and the medieval Vlachs in Pieria. Both have formed a peculiar conservative dialect due to the isolation that Pieria offers.

Now , most scholars include the Macedonians on the North-Western Greek branch of the Greek-speaking tribes and it is true that the latest discoveries point out the strong "Dorisms" of the Macedonian dialect. So from here and on I'll continue on considering the Macedonian dialect a NW Greek dialect. Yet if someone is interesting on the "Aeolisms" that occasionaly have been seen in the Macedonian dialect an interesting theory with more details and a proposal on the exact position of the Macedonian dialect in the Greek language (since the majority of the modern scholars agree that it's a Deviant Greek dialect) is in the following post:

http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/for...html#post80809

It is clear so far that the northwestern and aeolic dialects of greek had a common precursor "active" until 1200 BC circa. That means that moving backwards through time the two dialects converge and so a conservative northwestern variant is hardy discriminable from a conservative aeolic one.This is the reason , in my opinion , why both ancient and modern scholars were and are oscillating about the Macedonian dialect being between the Aeolic and the Northwestern variants of Greek. It is it's undifferenciented and conservative form , just like in the case of the Boetian dialect , that makes it look "hybrid" and "floaty". Due to it's conservative nature and definitely due to somekind of influence from neighboring indoeuropean nations (Claude Brixhe's model of "phonological osmosis") who made different phonological options from the Greeks (Phrygians mostly , but Illyrians and Thracians also), the Macedonian dialect had some characteristics that seemed unfitting with standard Greek phonology.The basic example of this unfitting characteristic is the macedonian preference for voiced deaspirated forms instead of unvoiced aspirated ones (β for φ , γ for χ , δ for θ). As we've already said above (and in the indicated thread) the greek shift from voiced to unvoiced forms seems to be intra-mycenaean and the strange deaspirated forms are also found rarely in other greek dialects.

The Macedonians were one of the many North Western Greek Tribes initialy living in modern day Kastoria region. Their First name was "Maketes" and their first region was "Maketa" (maybe variation of Makeda = Make+da = high land , τ and δ are often interchanged in greek like the homeric τόπος/δάπος from which derives αλλοδαπός/ημεδαπὀς/τηλεδαπός). During the Phrygian invasion the North Western Greek tribes were pressed and forced to migrate. This is the reason why the Dorians and Epeians invaded the Peloponnese , the Thessalians from Epeirus came to the region that has their name (Thessaly), the Epeirotan tribes (Molossians,Khaonians, Thesprotians) forced to move south of the river Aous (a variant of the name Aous-Αώος is the form Αίας-Aias and that expains the name of the tribes Paraueae-Παραυαίοι = παρά τον Αία = those next to Aias/Aous and Perrhaebi as we've already seen)and the Orestes have driven out the Maketes from Maketa and named the region Orestis. The Maketes forced to migrate first to the middle valley of Haliakmon and the Boion mountain here probably have cohabited with the Dorians before their descent. This is probably the reason why Herodotus in (1.56) stated that the "Dorians were Makednoi that discended from Pindus".

[I,56] ... for in the reign of Deucalion this race dwelt in Pthiotis, and in the time of Doros the son of Hellen in the land lying below Ossa and Olympos, which is called Histiaiotis; and when it was driven from Histiaiotis by the sons of Cadmos, it dwelt in Pindos and was called Makednian; and thence it moved afterwards to Dryopis, and from Dryopis it came finally to Peloponnesus, and began to be called Dorian.

[I,56]... ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ Δευκαλίωνος βασιλέος οἴκεε γῆν τὴν Φθιῶτιν, ἐπὶ δὲ Δώρου τοῦ Ἕλληνος τὴν ὑπὸ τὴν Ὄσσαν τε καὶ τὸν Ὄλυμπον χώρην, καλεομένην δὲ Ἱστιαιῶτιν· ἐκ δὲ τῆς Ἱστιαιώτιδος ὡς ἐξανέστη ὑπὸ Καδμείων, οἴκεε ἐν Πίνδῳ Μακεδνὸν καλεόμενον· ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ αὖτις ἐς τὴν Δρυοπίδα μετέβη καὶ ἐκ τῆς Δρυοπίδος οὕτω ἐς Πελοπόννησον ἐλθὸν Δωρικὸν ἐκλήθη.

There , two other North-Western greek tribes , the Tympheans (from mount Tymphe in modern Metsovo) and the Elymians , always under Phrygian direct or indirect pressure have driven away another time the Makednoi from Makednia to the Pierian Mountains were they settled as Makedones (εκ Μακέδας ων = Μακεδάων = Μακεδών , "originating from the Highlands"). What was Makednia later was divided in Tymphaea and Elymia.

The Phrygian press on the North Western Greeks was transmitted by the last on the other Greeks and caused the First Greek Colonization. The Aeolians from Thessaly went to the islands of northern Aegean and in the Aeolia of Asia Minor and the Ionians settled in southcentral aegean islands and the Ionia region of Asia Minor. Later the Dorians also chose to colonize Crete,Rhodi and the southern coast of Asia Minor.The whole phenomenon is called by Hermann Bengtson the "Great Aegean Migration" and also caused the migration of the Tyrrenians/Etrourians from the Aegean region to Toscan , Italy for those who credit the "oriental origin of the Etruscans". For me personally this seems to be the case for two main reasons. First , the ones who consider the Etruscans as "pre-IEan Italic aborigines" base their opinion on the fact that there is no archaeological discontinuity in Etruria about that period to prove a migration. But the rule in archaeology is that the vast majority of the migrations are archaeologicaly "silent" and the best examples for this are the "coming of the Greeks" debate and the Dorian invasion in the Peloponnese later. Secondly , the position of the Etrurians in Italy as a "wedge" between the Veneti and other Italic groups is significant. The Italic IE groups have invated Italy from Hungary (Baden culture) in different waves. First did so the proto-Latin-Faliscans and later the proto-Oscan-Umbrians who pushed the first in the west. After these the Veneti-Liburnians moved westwards and have settled around the corner of the Adriatic. These migrations are now dated around 1400-1200 BC , which makes contemporaneous with the Descent of the Phrygians in the Balkans (so it could be the Phrygians again who prompted the migration of the Italic groups in Italy). The fact that the Etruscans are positioned between Veneti and the other Italic groups means that they came to Italy about the same time with the Veneti and somehow blocked their expansion southwards. since the Veneti were the last to come ,we can date their arrival around 1200 BC which is the same moment that the "Great Aegean Migration" begins.

Anyway , after this Italic interval let's return to the Macedonians. That the Macedonians were finaly pushed to the Pierian Mountains and lived there concentrated until the Temenids started their expansion is suggested by three mentions of Herodotus and one of Hesiod:

1)In (7.127) Herodotus names the region between coastal Pieria (inhabited from ca. 1300 BC to ca. 700 BC by Thracians) and Bottia [inhabited by Bottians (ca 1400-700 BC) , Phrygians (ca. 1150-900 BC) , Illyrians (ca. 900-650 BC) and Paeonians (ca. 550-511 BC)] "Makedonis".

«…μέχρι Λυδίεώ τε ποταμοῦ καὶ Αλιάκμονος , οἵ οὐρίζουσι γῆν τὴν Βοττιαιίδα τε καὶ Μακεδονίδα , ἐς τὠυτὸ ῥέεθρον τὸ ὕδωρ συμμίσγοντες»

2)In (7.131) he names the Pierian Mountains "Macedonian Mountain" (όρος το Μακεδονικόν).
«...Περὶ Πιερίην …ὄρος τὸ Μακεδονικὸν…»

3) Herodotus in 8.137 states that Perdikkas and his Brothers arrived in the city Levaea:

137. Now of this Alexander the seventh ancestor was that Perdiccas who first became despot of the Macedonians, and that in the manner which here follows:--From Argos there fled to the Illyrians three brothers of the descendents of Temenos, Gauanes, Aëropos, and Perdiccas; and passing over from the Illyrians into the upper parts of Macedonia they came to the city of Lebaia.

137. τοῦ δὲ Ἀλεξάνδρου τούτου ἕβδομος γενέτωρ Περδίκκης ἐστὶ ὁ κτησάμενος τῶν Μακεδόνων τὴν τυραννίδα τρόπῳ τοιῷδε. ἐξ Ἄργεος ἔφυγον ἐς Ἰλλυριοὺς τῶν Τημένου ἀπογόνων τρεῖς ἀδελφεοί, Γαυάνης τε καὶ Ἀέροπος καὶ Περδίκκης, ἐκ δὲ Ἰλλυριῶν ὑπερβαλόντες ἐς τὴν ἄνω Μακεδονίην ἀπίκοντο ἐς Λεβαίην πόλιν.

Now Hammond in his "The Macedonian State" states in page 5 of the english text and page 29 of the greek text:

Where was Lebaea?
An answer was provided recently by the discovery of an inscription which recorded the dedication of a liberated slave to "The autochthonous Mother of the Gods at Alebea, a village (attached) to Elimea", a city of which we know the location.
If Lebaea and Alebea are the same place, which is probable, we can put Lebaea in the western part of Pieria. This is consistent with our knowledge that the early home of the Macedonians was around Pieria and Olympus.

4) Hesiod (around 750 BC) states that mythological genarchs Makedon and Magnes were brothers , sons of Zeus and Thyia , the daughter of the genarch of all Greeks Deucalion ("he who was doused by the sea" ?, a good mythological name to remember the contact of the proto-Greeks with the sea).The exact quotation from Hesiod's is [Ηοίαι,7] :

"And she conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus".

«...Μάγνητα καὶ Μακηδόνα θ'ἱππιοχάρμην, οἵ περὶ Πιερίην καὶ Ὄλυμπον δώματ΄ἔναιον»

That fraternity wasn't tribal , since the Macedonians are now considered North-Western Greek speakers and the Magnetes were always considered Aeolophons , but cohabital (although as I've said above a conservative northwestern variant was hardly discriminated by a conservative aeolic one ,since both had a common undifferenciated precursor that Porzig & Risch label as Early Northern Greek and we can call it also "proto-continental" Greek).That means that for a certain period Macedonians and Magnetes must have cohabited in Pieria and the arrival of the Thracians , Paeonians and others during the great pre-Trojan War Trojan Operation in the Balkans , caused the migration of the Magnetes south of Penius and the isolation of the Macedonians in the highland of Pieria (Pierian Mountain , Macedonian Mountain).

Three other "proofs" of the close relationship between Macedonians and Magnetes are:

1) The common cult of Zeus Akraeus (Ζεύς Ἀκραίος)
2) The common festivity of the Heteridea (Ἑταιρίδια) , that is a feast dedicated to the homeric king's companions (ἑταῖροι).
3) Macedonians , Magnetes and the northwestern greek speakers Aenians had a common dance that was reppresenting "live stock theft". The Macedonians called it Καρπῆα ,meanwhile the other two named it Καρπαῖα.

In the Thread "Greek speaking poplulations in Thermaic Gulf before Macedonians ??" you can find some elements that suggest that the names of the regions Pieria , Emathia and maybe Mygdonia (this one probably is Phrygian) are SAFELY of Greek origin and probably were given by greek populations before the arrival of the Macedonians and their expansion , populations that probably were the Magnetes.

At this point I would like to make a conclusion based on what we've said so far.Although the mycenaean presence in Pieria is widely accepted even by "sceptical" scholars like E. Borza it is debated if they can be attributed to the Macedonians. Let's summarize some important things we've said so far:
i) Pieria is a small region of about 1000 sq. Km and it's western mountainous part is almost the half of it (around 600 sq. Km almost 25Kmx25Km).
ii) In this little and underpopulated region we have Mycenaean presence archaeologicaly documented about the same time that we consider the arrival of the Macedonians in it (1100-1300 BC).This mycenaean presence is seen in cemeteries and burial modalitites which tend to be conservative elements in every culture and not in things like pottery for example which can be imported or imitated relatively easily.
iii) We know that the Macedonians were heavily influenced by the Phrygians in tradition , culture , religion and pholology (Brixhe's model of "phonological osmosis") and that the Phrygians have abandoned the Central Plain sometime between 1000-800 BC. Now Herodotus states clearly that Macedonians and Phrygians have cohabited nearby eachother («σύνοικοι ἦσαν» ,VII.73) and , additionaly , to be strongly influenced by someone one must cohabit with him for at least more than a century , and we know afterall that it was the Phrygian descent that prompted the "dorian descent" and the arrival of the Macedonians in Pieria. So this only dates the arrival of the Macedonians in Pieria sometime between 1300-1100 BC and gives them the necessary interaction time until the Phrygian departure.
iv) Hesiod states clearly that Macedonians and Magnets were "brother-tribes" (and we've seen the similarities in their traditions) who used to cohabit in Pieria around mount Olympus. Herodotus also informs us about the great Trojan Operation in the Balkans that reached the river Penius and most probably caused the migration of the Magnetes in Thessaly. Since this Operation is "before the Trojan War" , that is in LHIIIB ,before 1200 BC , it informs us that the Magnetes and Macedonians were cohabiting in Pieria before 1200 BC.

Considering all that it's becoming almost certain that the Macedonians were living in Pieria by the time of the Mycenaean findings and the fact that they are traditionaly imparentated with another greek tribe , the Magnetes , who abandoned Pieria 1-2 centuries before the latest date of the mycenaean findings makes the conclusion almost unquestionable : The Mycenaean findings of Pieria must be attributed to the Macedonians.

Here is an interesting quote from NGL Hammond's "The Macedonian State" :

"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' and '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 thisrelationship, 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 shield-like hat" .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 Macedonians on the other hand had a distinctive hat , the "kausia" (against the CAUSTIC sun).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.

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, 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".

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, Elpeius, 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.

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.

Now here I'd like to express my personal opinion. What Hammond quoted above about the toponyms of the original homeland of the Macedonians (juxta-Pierian zone) is a very powerful argument over the original grecity of the Macedonians. The vast maggiority of the EARLY toponyms are undoubtedly of greek eymology and this countermoves every theory that wants the Macedonians as "later hellenized". The very few toponyms that are not greek are mainly of Phrygian etymology (river Ascordus near Aegae where the Phrygian first Edessa was) and Herodotus makes it clear that the Macedonians viewed the Phrygians as different than them , since as we've seen above in [VII.73] he says :

...Now the Phrygians, as the Macedonians say, used to be called Brigians during the time that they were natives of Europe and dwelt with the Macedonians...

...οἱ δὲ Φρύγες, ὡς Μακεδόνες λέγουσι, ἐκαλέοντο Βρίγες χρόνον ὅσον Εὐρωπήιοι ἐόντες σύνοικοι ἦσαν Μακεδόσι...

If we consider the nearby Thracians , a nation that was massively Hellenized in late antiquity, we find them maintaining their Thracian toponyms even after their Hellenization. The earlier name of the city Hadrianopolis (named so by emperor Hadrian during the 2nd century AD) was Uskudama even during the late antiquity when the vast majority of the Thracians were Hellenized. The same thing goes with all the clearly thracian toponyms ending in "-bria" (Thr. "city") , "-para" (Thr. "village") , "-diza" (Thr. "city walls") , "Byzas" (Thr. "he-goat" , hence Byzantion) etc. So it's more than obvius that IF the Macedonians were originaly a non-greek population that became hellenized later on , their early toponyms should reflect their non greek background. As NGL Hammond states above this is definitely not the case.To the same conclusion we arrived earlier when we examined the macedonian variant of the name Ippotas as Ikkotas. In a time when the vast majority of the Greeks (practicaly all of them except of the two singular cases of the name Ikkos found in Taras and Epidaurus) had forgotten the mycenaean form "i-qo" [ikwos] for "horse" and were using for centuries the word "hippos", it becomes highly improbable that some greek "loaned" this forgotten form to the Macedonians. This means that the macedonian variant Ikkotas was part of the macedonian heritage and -as we've seen above- this heritage goes back to the mycenaean times of the greek nation. Other mycenaean or homeric remnants in the Macedonian society were the monarchical institution itself and the king's companions the "Hetairoi".

The next step of the Macedonian History was the take over of the power by the Temenids from the Peloponnesian Argos. Temenus was the "Herakleid Dorian" who gained Argos during the Dorian Descent. Perdikkas I is the first known Temenid king of Macedonia, but another more mythological feature is King Caranus. The Argive descend of the Macedonian Royal family was widely accepted in antiquity , mentioned many times from Herodotus , Thucydides (II,98) and by other historians , so I give the most classic statement of Herodotus in (V,22)

[22] And that these descendants of Perdiccas are Hellenes, as they themselves say, I happen to know myself, and not only so, but I will prove in the succeeding history that they are Hellenes. Moreover the Hellanodicai, who manage the games at Olympia, decided that they were so: for when Alexander wished to contend in the games and had descended for this purpose into the arena, the Hellenes who were to run against him tried to exclude him, saying that the contest was not for Barbarians to contend in but for Hellenes: since however Alexander proved that he was of Argos, he was judged to be a Hellene, and when he entered the contest of the foot-race his lot came out with that of the first.

[22] [1] Ἕλληνας δὲ εἶναι τούτους τοὺς ἀπὸ Περδίκκεω γεγονότας, κατά περ αὐτοὶ λέγουσι, αὐτός τε οὕτω τυγχάνω ἐπιστάμενος καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐν τοῖσι ὄπισθε λόγοισι ἀποδέξω ὡς εἰσὶ Ἕλληνες, πρὸς δὲ καὶ οἱ τὸν ἐν Ὀλυμπίῃ διέποντες ἀγῶνα Ἑλληνοδίκαι οὕτω ἔγνωσαν εἶναι. [2] Ἀλεξάνδρου γὰρ ἀεθλεύειν ἑλομένου καὶ καταβάντος ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, οἱ ἀντιθευσόμενοι Ἑλλήνων ἐξεῖργόν μιν, φάμενοι οὐ βαρβάρων ἀγωνιστέων εἶναι τὸν ἀγῶνα ἀλλὰ Ἑλλήνων· Ἀλέξανδρος δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἀπέδεξε ὡς εἴη Ἀργεῖος, ἐκρίθη τε εἶναι Ἕλλην καὶ ἀγωνιζόμενος στάδιον συνεξέπιπτε τῷ πρώτῳ. ταῦτα μέν νυν οὕτω κῃ ἐγένετο.

Perdikkas was probably exciled from Argos and became king probably by marrying a daughter of the previus king . That previus king was part of the Argead family or Regal Subtribe of the Macedonians as NGL Hammond suggests knowing that Argead means "descendant of Argeas" (patronymic) and not "originating from Argos" (Αργείος ,toponymic). In archaic greek Argos means fertile plain (Argos in Argolid was plain , Thessaly before the arrival of the Thessalians is known as Argos Pelasgikon) and this suggests that the Argeads can be the first subtribe of the highlander Macedonians that adapted themselves in the plain-way of life (more sedentary and agriculturist) as they initialy occupied the southern part (below Haliakmon river) of the Bottian plain (Emathia , Makedonis) or they've done so earlier near Argos Orestikon ("Orestic Plain") when the Macedonians were still living in Maketa.This marriage is a good explanation of the double name of the royal family Temenids and Argeads. If it seems difficult to believe how an Argive can take the control of the Macedonians by marriage remember that Menelaus in Homer became king of Sparta by marrying Helena , the daughter of the Spartan King Tindareus , although Tindareus had living sons , the Dioscurians and that the Royal house of the Lynkestes in Upper Macedonia were Bakkhiads from Korinth and the Molossian Royal family in Epeirus were considered "Aeakids" , that is discending from Achilles' bloodline through his son Neoptolemus.

Extremely interesting at this point is this. The molossian Royal House was of Phthiotid Achean-Aeakid descent but we've seen earlier that the name of Achilles' grandfather Aeakus is related to the Epeirotan river Aous/Aias/Aiwas. At the same time , the Macedonian Royal house was of Doric Argive - Temenid descent and Herodotus (I.56) informs us that the Peloponnesian Dorians were of "Makednian" descent. So in both traditions we have an original bulk in the north of which one fraction descents to the south and becomes famous and then returns to the north to take control of the other remanent fraction. Numerous discussions have been made among historians weather or not these Royal traditions were true or false. As Hammond smartly stated , this is a modern accademic issue. In ancient times Alexander and Philip were acting as Temenids and were treated as such and Pyrrhus was acting as an Aeakid and was considered such.

As we said above with the Temenids starts the Macedonian Expansion . First they drove away Thracians from Pieria , and Bottians and other non greek populations from south Bottia (Emathia) were they built their Capital Aegai in what was the old Phrygian Capital Edessa. The people who were driven away founded a new Edessa in the south western margines of Barnous montain.In the next expanding step ,the Macedonians removed the Bottians from the rest of Bottia and forced them to migrate to Bottike in Khalkidike , removed the Almopians from the fertile close valley of Almopia ,and removed the Eordeans from Eordea. This kingdom , including Pieria , Emathia, Bottia, Almopia, Eordea is knows as the Old Macedonian kingdom (and it was exclusively inhabited by "Eteomacedonians" , that is "true Macedonians") and its limits were :
-in the North the Mountain Barnus
-in the East the river Axius
-in the West the lake Begoritis (or modern mountain Vitsi)
-in the South Penius river and South Olympus (όρος Δότιον)

Here's a map from Cambridge Ancient History indicating the "Old Macedonian Kingdom" , around 500 BC :


[url=http://g.imageshack.us/img521/cah500bcxn8.png/1/][IMG]http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/cah500bcxn8.png/1/w654.png[/IMG

Interestingly , Diodorus Siculus [VII.16] has preserved a Delphic oracle that adresses Perdikkas I where to built his capital:

«ἔστι κράτος βασίλειον ἀγαυοῖς Τημενίδαισι γαίης πλουτοφόροιο.Δίδωσι γὰρ αἰγίοχος Ζεύς. Ἀλλ’ἴθἐπειγόμενος Βουτηίδα πρὸς πολύμηλον.Ἔνθα δ’ἄν ἀργικέρωτας ἴδῃς χιονώδεας αἴγας εὐνηθέντας ὕπνῳ , κείνης χθόνος ἐν δαπέδοισι θῦε θεοῖς μακάρεσσι καὶ ἄστυ κτίζε πόληος»

"There is a strong kingdom for the noble Temenids in a very prosperous land , because it was given to them by Zeus the bearer of aegis (shield made by the goat's skin). Go to Bottia rich in live stock and where you'll see goats white like the snow with aglitter horns sleep , in that land sacrifice to the blessed gods and built your city."

Even if we eliminate the religius-mythological part of the oracle a basic truth remains intact. This might be a method used by the Greeks on selecting the land where to built a city. One can leave free a flock of goats and follow them to see where they'll rest. Now who is acquainted with animals knows that an animal always chooses for resting the best climet of the space that is in it's disposition. For example , in the summer a dog always rests in the most cool place of the house , meanwhile in the winter you'll find it resting in the most warm one. By the same way , we can assume that Perdikkas "used" a flock of goats as "good climet detectors" for his capital and for that he named it "Goats" , that is Αἰγαῖ in Greek. And being from that region (my hometown is 16Km north of Aegae) I can reassure you that the goats have choosen well , because Aegae has definately the best climet in the whole region. Afterall , the myth also wants Cadmus receiving a divine order to follow a cow and found Thebes where the cow "chooses" to rest.

Now , as we've seen above , Herodotus based on Hecateus (who wrote around 515 BC) in [VII.127] says that the northern limit of Macedonia was the union of the rivers Haliakmon and Loudias (immediately below the later city of Pella). During the period 550-511 BC the Paeonians were the most powerful nation of the region and controlled the territories from Lydias river to Thrace where Herodotus says that they have sieged Perinthus. In 511 BC the Persians had them annexed and trasfered great numbers of them in Asia. This was the end of the Paeonian power. So it must be 511 BC when the Macedonians -capitalizing on the Paeonian impotence- have drove them away from the Bottian plain and expanded their kingdom until the river Axius and maybe to the immediately adjacient areas in the East.Having acquired the whole Bottian plain they emediately vassalized themselves to the Persians (offering Earth and Water) in order to consolidate their newly acquired territories and gaining Persian sympathy for future expansions.

When the Macedonians gained the Bottian plain they changed their way of life. From mountain transhumance pastors they became plain settled agriculturers. This transition is attested by the ancient macedonian calendar. All the month names are of greek etymology and are also used by other Greek tribes. The most important for transhumance pastors are the months November and April. These two months have the exact same name in Macedonians, Boetians and Locrians. November is called Ἀπελλαῖος and April is called Ἀρτεμίσιος. The first derives from the greek verb ἀπελλάζειν meaning "gathering" (Laconian ἁπέλλα = "council" and the second Macedonian capital Πέλλα = "gathering center") and the second derives from the Greek godess of the hunting Artemis. Now , each November the tranhumance pastors were gathering themselves in the few plains of the Greek peninsula who were functioning as winter quarters for the stock. In April , the pastors were returning in the "wild mountains" , where hunting was made. The transition of the Macedonians in the agricultural way of life is attested by other two months , June and September. The Macedonians named them respectively Πάναμος and Ὑπερβερεταίος. Πάναμος means "the month that everybody (παν) sickles (Homeric ἀμάω= to sickle)" , meanwhile September is the month that "brings many agricultural productions" (ὑπερφέρων = "hyper-bringing" , with the Macedonian substitution of β instead of φ).

The Macedonians formed their first κώμες (villages) immediately after the end of the northern verge of the Pierian Mountains, at the southern part of the Bottian plain. Two names of these first villages Βάλλα and Φυλάκη. We know them because Haliakmon ruined them due to the southward migration of it's water course. The names of these two settlements are also indicative of the arrival of the Macedonians from the Pierian mountains. "Βάλλα" in Aeolic greek means "threshold" (lower point) (Attic βῆλος , Doric βάλος) and "Φυλάκη" means "guarding postation". So it's obvius that for a poplulation that has arrived from the Pierian heighlands the southern part of theBottian plain was a "threshold" and since -at least at the beginning- the rest of plain wasn't safe there was need of "guarding postations