Quotes from 'Macedonia: 4000 years of Greek History and Civilization'

[Ptolemy]

"He himself [Hellanikos], as a native of Mytilene, spoke Aiolic, and recognized in the Macedonian language a dialect resembling his own: it was for this reason that he made Makedon son of Aiolos. On the other hand, it is interesting that one of the authors of the second group, Ephoros, refers to the Pamphylians as barbarians though they were Greeks. This demonstrates that some Greeks came close to being thought barbarians by fellow Greeks. The backward institutions and coarseness of the macedonians will have been among the reasons why they seemed to other Greeks to be Barbarians. The rhetorical apostrophes of Thrasymachos and Demosthenes should, a fortiori, be considered unreliable: the former was
attempting to arouse the people of Larisa, the later the Athenians, to resist the Macedonian kings, and they described them as barbarians in spite of the fact that they had officialy and widely been recognized as Greeks. The rhetorical accusations that they were 'barbarians' made not against the Macedonians but against their kings, refer in any case to court scandals, or to the incontinence and violence of the rulers (cf. Plato on Archelaos and Theopompos and other authors on Philip.).
Conclusion: The hypothesis that the Macedonians were Greeks is supported by all reliable evidence: the ancient tradition that the Dorians were descended from a section of the Macedonians; the view the Macedonian kings held themselves; and the testimonia of Hellanikos, who lived in the Macedonian court. All the testimonia that contradict this view are external and derive either from observers who might have been mistaken, or from enemies of the Macedonians."

<Sakellariou, "Macedonia: 4000 years of Greek History and Civilization" (Athens, Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1983) "The Establishment and Consolidation of the Kingdom of Macedonia, p.54>

Hesiod considered Makedon and Magnes - and the Makedones and Magnesians for whom they were eponyms - to be a collateral branch of the GREEK-SPEAKING RACE. The distinction, in fact, was one of dialect, not of language. This is made abundantly CLEAR by Hellanikos, a contemporary of Thucydides, who made Makedon a son of Aiolos, i.e. not only Greek-speaking but using the Aiolic dialect of Greek. In Classical times the Magnesians spoke a form of the Aiolic dialect, and it is correct to infer from Hellanikos that the Makedones also spoke a form of the Aiolic dialect, one which may well have been at a primitive stage of development and pronunciation, because the Makedones had been ISOLATED FOR CENTURIES from other speakers of that dialect.

<N.G.L.Hammond, "Macedonia: 4000 years of Greek History and Civilization" (Athens, Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1983) "The Establishment and Consolidation of the Kingdom of Macedonia, p.65>

The self-conscious city-states of the Greek peninsula regarded all the Balkan tribes as barbaric `ethne' from the fifth century onwards, BECAUSE the Balkan institutions were NOT based on the CITY-STATE."

<N.G.L.Hammond, "Macedonia: 4000 years of Greek History and Civilization" (Athens, Ekdotike Athenon S.A., 1983) "The Establishment and Consolidation of the Kingdom of Macedonia, p.65>

[akritas]

Were the Macedonians Greeks?

There has been much discussion on the question of the nationality of the Macedonians. Three main views have emerged: First, the Macedonians were Greeks; second, the Macedonians were not Greeks; and third, the Macedonians were neither Greeks nor Macedonians: they were Illyrians or Thracians. These differences of opinion are due to the contradictory nature of evidence handed down from antiquity.

Let us see some of the available evidence:

1)A Persian inscription dating from 513 BCE records the European peoples who were, at that date, subject to the Great King. One of these people is described as Yauna Takabara, meaning "Ionians whose head-dress is like a shield". The Persians, like other eastern peoples of antiquity, are known to have applied the term "Ionians" to all Greeks; on the other hand the head-dress resembling a shield has been rightly recognized as that of depicted on Macedonian coins.

2)In a fragment of Hellanikos (fifth century BCE), Makedon, the mythical founder of the Macedonians, appears as the son of Aiolos. This genealogical relationship reflects the idea the Macedonians were a section of the Aeolians, a sub-division of the Greek race.

3)After the battle of Issos, Alexander the Great sent a letter to Darius that read as follows: "Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us much harm though we had done them no prior injury; I have been appointed commander-in-chief of the Greeks and invaded Asia in the desire to take vengeance on Persia for your aggressions." From this extract it emerges clearly that Alexander regarded Macedonia as a Greek country, identified the sufferings of Macedonia at the hands of the Persians with the destruction they had wrought in southern Greece , and represented himself as the avenger of all these wrongs.

4)The formulation "Macedonia and the rest of Greece" also occurs in the treaty of alliance between Philip V of Macedonia and Hannibal. In the same text the phrase "the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks" occurs twice.

5)Other passages demonstrate that non-Macedonian Greeks also thought of the Macedonians as their kindred, and of Macedonia as a Greek country. In 217 BCE Agelaos of Naupactos, speaking to a gathering at which Philip V and representatives of his allies were present, prayed that internecine wars between the Greeks would cease. In 211 BCE, Lykiscos, representative of the Acarnanians, described the Macedonians as kinsfolk of the Achaeans. Macedonia is accounted part of Greece by various authors.

6)The general sense of a passage in Thucydides gives the impression that the historian considered the Macedonians barbarians. Various ancient geographers and historians of the classical and post-classical periods, such as Ephoros, Pseudo-Scylax, Dionysios son of Calliphon and Dionysios Periegetes, put the northern borders of Greece at the line from Ambracian Gulf to the Peneios. Isocrates places Macedonia outside the boundaries of Greece and describes the Macedonians as ούχομόφυλονγένος(an unrelated race). Medeios of Larisa, who accompanied Alexander on his campaign in Asia, calls the Thessalians "the most northernly of the Greeks".

7)When Alexander I, king of the Macedonians, wanted to compete at Olympia(possibly in 496 BCE), his prospective opponents attempted to exclude him by arguing that only Greeks, and not barbarians, could take part in the Olympic Games. Alexander proved that he was a Greek and was therefore allowed to compete.

An evaluation of the evidence suggests the following:

1)One ancient tradition connects the Macedonians with the Dorians and another traces the family to Argosin the Peloponnese. From this it can be deduced that the Macedonians, like the Dorians, were Greeks.

2)In official documents of Alexander the Great and Philip V, Macedonia is described as a Greek country; in the first of them, Alexander represents himself as the avenger of the evils wrought by the Persians both in Macedonia and in the rest of Greece; and an ambassador of Philip V classifies the Macedonians with the Greeks in contradistinction with "foreigners"(αλλοεθνείς) and "barbarians" (βάρβαροι). The Macedonian kings, although they believed that they had a different ancestry from their subjects, did not consider themselves to be ruling outside Greece , or over a people foreign to the Greeks.

In conclusion, the hypothesis that the Macedonians were Greeks is supported by all the reliable evidence: the ancient tradition that the Dorians were descended from a section of the Macedonians; the view the Macedonian kings held about themselves; and the testimony of Hellanicos, who lived at the Macedonian court. All the testimonia that contradict this view are external and derive either from observers who might have been mistaken, or from enemies of the Macedonians.

[Abstract from the Chapter,The Early Years,The inhabitants, Greek edition ]

[akritas]

The earliest surviving memory of the Macedonian locates them in the Pindos. Herodotos refers to it twice:
on the first occasion he informs us that the Dorian dwelt about Pindos and were then called Makedno the second he describes the Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, the Sikyonians, the Epidaurians ar Troizenians as of Dorian and Makednian stock, and their early origins to the Pindos.

Other authors knew the Dorians originally came from the Pindos specifically from that part of it known in antiquity Lakmos (its modern name in the vernacular is Ζygos). These authors refer neither to the Makednoi nor to the Makedones, but their statements accord perfectly with the tradition preserved by Herodotos.

However, critical analysis of the sources, together with a variety of evidence, leads to a slight correction of the tradition in the form in which it is preserved:
the Dorian peoples seem to have been formed about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. in central Greece from a number of different tribes, one of which was a section of the Makednoi or Makedones that had come from Lakmos at least as early as 1400 B.C. The ancestors of the Makednoi had entered the wider area of Macedonia and Epirus at an earlier date, about 2100 B.C., along with other Proto-Greek tribes.

The surviving tradition appears to be mistaken on a second point, too:
the home of the Makednoi could not have been limited to Lakmos; they will undoubtedly also have occupied territory lying at a lower altitude. Lakmos, like the entire Pindos range, is only suitable for the summer grazing of sheep and goats and as a source of wood. From October to April shepherds are obliged to graze their flocks in the plains. It is a reasonable hypothesis that the Makednoi had winter grazing grounds not only in Epirus, but also in south-west Macedonia since it was from here that they later expanded to the east and north. They very probably succeeded in occupying all the territory abandoned by the Proto-Arkadians when they migrated to the Peloponnese about 1900 B.C. One branch of the Makednoi, known later by the name Magnetes , spread into Pieria, from where they migrated to the region around Ossa and Pelion during the century of the great population movements between 1200 and 1100 B.C. To the north of the Makednoi lived the Boiotoi. The name points to Mt. Boion in the northern Pindos, but this tribe too will have also occupied some territory in the plains. Towards the end of the Bronze Age the Boiotoi migrated to south-west Thessaly, from where they moved shortly afterwards to the land that was named after them.

The vacuum created by the departure of the Boiotoi facilitated the expansion of Greek tribes from Epirus into those areas of western Macedonia known in the first millennium B.C. as Orestis, Lynkestis and Pelagonia.
These tribes were later absorbed by the Makedones.
The remaining areas of Macedonia were oc*cupied towards the end of the Bronze Age by the Paiones, the Bottiaioi, the Eordoi, the Almopes, the Derriopes or Deuriopes and the Pelagones. Towards the end of the period, and a little later, Macedonia was penetrated by Phryges, Mygdones, Thrakes and Pelasgoi, who destroyed, displaced or subjugated the Paiones. During the following centuries all the peoples mentioned above suffered a similar fate as a result of the expansion of the Makedones from the sites they had originally occupied to the south-western ex*tremity of Macedonia, to the east, and to the north.

[Abstract from the Chapter,The Early Years,The inhabitants, pages 46-47,English edition and written from the Professor and member of the Athens Academy M.B. Sakellariou]