Tsontos
03-01-2006, 05:44 AM
We're starting to get alot of topics everywhere with quotes scattered so I thought I'd start the ultimate quotes thread. Keep this thread clear of quotes about the ethnic/ historical origins of the skopjians
*to make things better set out I think we should make sure before we'd make sure exactly what type of quote it is before we copy it out (ie. Greek historian/ Roman/ Jewish/ Persian/ Bible etc etc)
Quotes
-Proving the fact that the Ancient Macedonians competeted in the Olympic games and the Amphictyonies
"They say that these were the clans collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Greek assembly... `The Macedonians managed to join and the entire Phocian race... In my day there were thirty members: six each from Nikopolis, Macedonia, and Thessaly...". Pausanias, Phokis VIII 2&4 (Loeb, W. Jones)
"But Alexander (I) proving himself to be an Argive, he was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for the first place". (Herodotus V, 22, 2 (Loeb, A. D. Godley) *note that Alexander I was a Macedonian athlete at the Olympic games
"Belistiche, a woman from the coast of Macedonia, won with the pair of foals.. at the hundred and twenty-ninth Olympics". Pausanias, Eleia VIII, 11 (Loeb, W. Jones - H. A. Ormerod);
- From the New Testament:
"Paul the Apostle, was summoned to Macedonia by a Macedonian in the form of a vision speaking to him in Greek" (Act Apost. XVI 9,10)
"The Apostles Paul and Silas met Greek men and women in Thessaloniki and Beroea" (Act Apost. XVII 4, 12).
- From various classical figures:
Hesiod
"And she conceived and bore to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolttwo sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round-about Pieria and Olympus", Hesiod, Catalogues of Women and Eoiae 3 (Loeb, H.G. Evelyn-White).
Strabo
"There remain of Europe, first, Macedonia and the parts of Thrace that are contiguous to it and extend as far as Byzantium; secondly, Greece; and thirdly, the islands that are close by. Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece". Strabo, VII, Frg. 9 (Loeb, H.L. Jones)
"The Acarnanians, and the Aetolians, like many other nations, are at present worn out, and exhausted by continual wars. The Aetolians however, in conjunction with the Acarnanians, during a long period withstood the Macedonians and the other Greeks" (Strabo, Geography, Book 10, Chapter 2, 23)
"After having described as much of the western parts of Europe as is comprised within the interior and exterior seas, and surveyed all the barbarous nations which it contains, as far as the Don and a small part of Greece, [namely, Macedonia,]2 we propose to give an account of the remainder of the Helladic geography." (Strabo, Geography, Book VIII 8, 1)
"but after they had intrusted to Lycurgus the formation of a political constitution, they acquired such a superiority over the other Greeks, that they alone obtained the sovereignty both by sea and land, and continued to be the chiefs of the Greeks, till the Thebans, and soon afterwards the Macedonians, deprived them of this ascendency." (Strabo, Geography, Book VIII 8, CHAPTER V)
"And even to the present day the Thracians, Illyrians, and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks (though this was still more the case formerly than now); indeed most of the country that at the present time is indisputably Greece is held by the barbarians — Macedonia and certain parts of Thessaly by the Thracians, and the parts above Acarnania and Aetolia by the Thesproti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes — Epeirotic tribes." (Strabo, Geography,book 7,VII,1)
Herodotus
"The Peloponnesians that were with the fleet were... the Lacedaemonians ... the Corinthians... the Sicyonians... the Epidaurians... the Troezenians... the people of Hermione there; all these, except the people of Hermione, were of Dorian and Macedonian stock and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region". Herodotus VIII, 43 (Loeb. A.D. Godley).
"For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthiotis, then in the time of Dorus son of Helen the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus; driven by the Cadmeans from this Histiaean country it settled about Pindus in the parts called Macedonian; thence again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into Peloponnesus, where it took the name of Dorian". Herodotus I, 56, 3 (Loeb, A.D. Godley).
"Tell your king who sent you how his Greek viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably... " Herodotus V, 20, 4 (Loeb, A.D. Godley)
"Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know" Herodotus V, 22, 1 (Loeb, A.D. Godley)
"But Alexander proving himself to be an Argive, he was judged to be a Greek. So he contended in the furlong race and an a dead heat for the first place". Herodotus V 22,2 - Loeb. A. d. Godley).
The speech of Alexander I, when he was admitted to the Olympic games:
"Men of Athens...
Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Hellas I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself Hellene by descent, and I would not willingly see Hellas exchange freedom for slavery....
If you prosper in this war, forget not to do something for my freedom; consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the Greek cause, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians.
I am Alexander of Macedon." Herodotus IX, 45, 2 (Loeb, A.D. Godley)
Polybius
"This is a sworn treaty made between us, Hannibal.. and Xenophanes the Athenian... in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece". The Histories of Polybius, VII, 9, 4 (Loeb, W. R. Paton)
"How highly should we honour the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?" The Histories of Polybius, IX, 35, 2 (Loeb, W.R. Paton)
Isocrates
"... all men will be grateful to you: the Hellenes for your kindness to them and the rest of the nations, if by your hands they are delivered from barbaric despotism and are brought under the protection of Hellas". Isocrates, To Philip, 154 (Loeb, G. Norlin)
"It is your privilege, as one who has been blessed with untrammeled freedom, to consider all Hellas your fatherland, as did the founder of your race". Isocrates, To Philip, 127 (Loeb, G. Norlin)
"Argos is the land of your fathers". Isocrates, To Philip, XII, 32 (Loeb, G. Norlin),
Titus Livius
"Aetolians, Acarnanians, Macedonians, men of the same language" T. Livius XXXI, 29, 15 (Loeb, E.T. Sage) ,
Thucydides
"Three brothers of the lineage of Temenus came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gauanes and Aeropos and Perdiccas". Herodotus VIII, 137, l (Loeb, A.P. Godley)
"The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos" Thucydides 99,3 (Loeb, C F Smith)
Arrian
"He sent to Athens three hundred Persian panoplies to be set up to Athena in the acropolis; he ordered this inscription to be attached: Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Lacedaemonians, set up these spoils from the barbarians dwelling in Asia", Arrian I, 16, 7 (Loeb, P. A. Brunt)
Alexander's letter to Darius, responding to truce plea:
"Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury;... I have been appointed hegemon of the Greeks... "Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander II, 14, 4 (Loeb, P. A. Brunt)
Plutarch
"Yet through Alexander Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of Greeks... Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Grecian magistracies. Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, no the Caucasus a Greek city for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence" (Plutarch's Moralia, Loeb, F.C. Babbitt)
"If it were not my purpose to combine foreign things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of Greek justice and peace over every nation, I should not content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes" (Plutarch's Moralia, Loeb, F.C Babbitt)
Tsontos
03-02-2006, 06:43 AM
-From Arrian's 'The Campaigns of Alexander'. A speech of Alexander:
I observe, my fellow Hellenes, that when I would lead you on a new venture you no longer follow me with your old spirit. I have asked you to meet me that we may come to a decision together: are we, upon my advice, to go forward, or, upon yours, to turn back?
If you have any complaint to make about the results of your efforts hitherto, or about myself as your commander, there is no more to say. But let me remind you: through your courage and endurance you have gained possession of Ionia, the Hellespont, both Phrygias, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, and Egypt; the Greek part of Libya is now yours, together with much of Arabia, lowland Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Susia; Persia and Media with all the territories either formerly controlled by them or not are in your hands; you have made yourselves masters of the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, beyond the Caucasus, beyond the Tanais, of Bactria, Hyrcania, and the Hyrcanian sea; we have driven the Scythians back into the desert; and Indus and Hydaspes, Acesines and Hydraotes flow now through country which is ours. With all that accomplished, why do you hesitate to extend the power of Greece--yourpower--to the Hyphasis and the tribes on the other side ? Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run--or leave their country undefended for your taking; and when we take it, we make a present of it to those who have joined us of their own free will and fight on our side.
For a man who is a man, work, in my belief, if it is directed to noble ends, has no object beyond itself; none the less, if any of you wish to know what limit may be set to this particular camapaign, let me tell you that the area of country still ahead of us, from here to the Ganges and the Eastern ocean, is comparatively small. You will undoubtedly find that this ocean is connected with the Hyrcanian Sea, for the great Stream of Ocean encircles the earth. Moreover I shall prove to you, my friends, that the Indian and Persian Gulfs and the Hyrcanian Sea are all three connected and continuous. Our ships will sail round from the Persian Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Hercules, whence all Libya to the eastward will soon be ours, and all Asia too, and to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself has made for the whole world.
But if you turn back now, there will remain unconquered many warlike peoples between the Hyphasis and the Eastern Ocean, and many more to the northward and the Hyrcanian Sea, with the Scythians, too, not far away; so that if we withdraw now there is a danger that the territory which we do not yet securely hold may be stirred to revolt by some nation or other we have not yet forced into submission. Should that happen, all that we have done and suffered will have proved fruitless--or we shall be faced with the task of doing it over again from the beginning. Gentlemen of Macedon, and you, my friends and allies, this must not be. Stand firm; for well you know that hardship and danger are the price of glory, and that sweet is the savour of a life of courage and of deathless renown beyond the grave.
Are you not aware that if Heracles, my ancestor, had gone no further than Tiryns or Argos--or even than the Peloponnese or Thebes--he could never have won the glory which changed him from a man into a god, actual or apparent? Even Dionysus, who is a god indeed, in a sense beyond what is applicable to Heracles, faced not a few laborious tasks; yet we have done more: we have passed beyond Nysa and we have taken the rock of Aornos which Heracles himself could not take. Come, then; add the rest of Asia to what you already possess--a small addition to the great sum of your conquests. What great or noble work could we ourselves have achieved had we thought it enough, living at ease in Macedon, merely to guard our homes, accepting no burden beyond checking the encroachment of the Thracians on our borders, or the Illyrians and Triballians, or perhaps such Greeks as might prove a menace to our comfort ?
I could not have blamed you for being the first to lose heart if I, your commander, had not shared in your exhausting marches and your perilous campaigns; it would have been natural enough if you had done all the work merely for others to reap the reward. But it is not so. You and I, gentlemen, have shared the labour and shared the danger, and the rewards are for us all. The conquered territory belongs to you; from your ranks the governors of it are chosen; already the greater part of its treasure passes into your hands, and when all Asia is overrun, then indeed I will go further than the mere satisfaction of our ambitions: the utmost hopes of riches or power which each one of you cherishes will be far surpassed, and whoever wishes to return home will be allowed to go, either with me or without me. I will make those who stay the envy of those who return
Tsontos
03-21-2006, 05:45 AM
Originially posted by Nikas in this thread:
http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=372&referrerid=15
Quotes from ancient authors and Byzantine authors from the middle ages
Aeschines
Think you not that Themistocles and those who died at Marathon and at Plataea, and the very sepulchres of your fathers, will groan aloud, if the man (Demosthenes) who admits that he has negotiated with the barbarians (Persians) against the Greeks (Macedonians) shall receive a crown?
Against Ctesiphon, 3.259
Aelian
From the Varia Historia
When Hephaestion died at Ecbatana (in 324) Alexander placed his weapons upon the funeral pyre, with gold and silver for the dead man, and a robe-which last, among the Persians is a symbol of great honor. He shore off his own hair, as in Homeric grief, and behaved like the Achilles of Homer. Indeed he acted more violently and passionately than the latter, for he caused the towers and strongholds of Ecbatana to be demolished all round. As long as he only dedicated his own hair, he was behaving, I think, like a Greek; but when he laid hands on the very walls, Alexander was already showing his grief in foreign fashion. Even in his clothing he departed from ordinary custom, and gave himself up to his mood, his love, and his tears."
The cutting of the hair to represent grief being a Homeric tradition.
VII, 8.
“Alexander of Macedon, son of Philip, is also reported to have crushed the many myriads of barbarians on the sixth of the month; that was when Alexander defeated Darius.”
2.24
“A law from Stagira which is utterly Greek says “Do not claim wht you did not put on deposit”
Stagira of course being the home of Aristotle, another famous Macedonian.
3.44 (46)
“Amyntas of Macedon was defeated by his barbarian neighbours and lost his kingdom. He was thinking of abandoning entirely his territories, happy to escape with his own safety. While he was in this mood someoned reported to him Ellopides’ remark. He occupied a small area, gathered a few soldiers and recovered his kingdom.”
4.8 (8)
“Hieron of Syracuse, they say, was a philhellene with a great enthusiasm for culture”
For those who claim that to be a philhellene implies an inherent 'non-Greekness'.
9
“Perdiccas the Macedonian who accompanied Alexander on his expedition was apparently so courageous that he once went alone into a cave where a lioness had her lair. He did not catch the lioness, but he emerged carrying her cubs. Perdiccas won admiration for this feat. Not only Greeks, but barbarians as well, are convinced that the lioness is an animal of great bravery and very difficult to contend with.”
The structure of Aelian's narrative is clear. Greeks on one hand, and then non-Greeks.
12.37(39)
Aeneas Tacticus
“In giving out watchwords it is needful to provide, if the army happen to be a mixture from different cities or tribes, that the word shall not be given out in an ambiguous way, in case one concept may have two different names…and they cause harm if one issues a password in dialect instead of in language common to all. One should not, then, issue such words to mixed mercenaries, nor to the allies of different tribes.”
XXIV, Of Watchwords
“The confusions and terrors that suddenly arise in a city or a camp, by night or by day, are by some called panics-the word is a Peloponnesian, particularly an Arcadian one.”
XXVII, Of Panics
More examples of regional dialects, or ways of speaking. E.g. Peloponnistiki...
Aphrahat/Aphraates (Known as the Persian Bishop)
5. Again the ram was lifted up and exalted, and pushed with its horns
towards the west, and towards the north, and towards the south, and humbled many beasts. And they could not stand before him, until the he-goat came from the west and smote the ram and broke his horns and humbled the ram completely. But the ram was the King of Media and Persia, that is, Darius; and the he-goat was Alexander, the son of Philip, the Macedonian. For Daniel saw the ram when he was in the East before the gate of Shushan the fortress that is in the province of Elam, upon the river Ulai. And he was pushing towards the West and
towards the North and towards the South. And none of the beasts could stand before him.(1) And the he-goat of the goats came up from the region of the Greeks, and exalted himself against the ram, And he smote him and broke both his horns, the greater and the lesser. And why did he say that he broke both his horns? Clearly because he humbled both the kingdoms which he ruled; the lesser, that of the Medes, and the greater, that of the Persians. But when Alexander the Greek came, he slew Darius, King of Media and Persia. For thus the angel said to Daniel, when he was explaining the vision to him:--The ram that thou sawest was the King of Media and Persia, and the he-goat the King of
the Greeks. (2) Now, from the time that the two horns of the ram were broken, until this time, there have been six hundred and forty-eight years.(8)
18. And concerning the third beast he said that it was like a leopard,
and it had four birds' wings on its back and that beast had four heads. Now this third beast was Alexander the Macedonian. For he was strong as a leopard. And as for the four wings and the four heads that the beast had, that was because he gave the kingdom to his four friends to govern after him, when he had come and slain Darius and reigned in his stead.
19. And of the fourth beast he said that it was exceedingly terrible and strong and mighty, devouring and crushing and trampling with its feet anything that remained. It is the kingdom of the children of Esau.(4) Because after that Alexander the Macedonian became king, the kingdom of the Greeks was founded, since Alexander also was one of them, even of the Greeks. But the vision of the third beast was fulfilled in him, since the third and the fourth were one. Now Alexander reigned for twelve years. And the kings of the Greeks
arose after Alexander, being seventeen kings, and their years were two hundred and sixty-nine years from Seleucus Nicanor to Ptolemy. And the Caesars were from Augustus to Philip Caesar, seventeen kings. And their 359 years are two hundred and ninety-three years;(1) and eighteen years of Severus.
Demonstrations V-Of Wars
Athenaeus:
Deipnosophists, Book XIII
Concerning the professional "companions" Philetaerus says this in The Huntress: "No wonder there is a shrine to the Companion everywhere, but nowhere in all Greece is there one to the Wife." But I know also of a festival, the Hetairideia, celebrated in Magnesia, not in honour of these "companions" (hetaerae), but for a different reason, which is mentioned by Hegesander in his Commentaries, writing thus: "The Magnesians celebrate the festival of the Hetairideia. The record that Jason the son of Aeson, after gathering the Argonauts together, was the first to sacrifice to Zeus Hetaireios and that he called the festival Hetairideia. And the kings of Macedonia also celebrate with sacrifices the Hetairideia."
The Macedonians celebrated the same festivals as other Greeks.
But when, on again looking, one discovers that it is a monument to Pythionice the courtesan, what must one be led to expect?" Again, Theopompus, when denouncing in his Letter to Alexander the licentiousness of Harpalus, says: "Consider and learn clearly from our agents in Babylon how he ordered the funeral of Pythionice when she died. She, to be sure, was a slave of the flute-girl Bacchis, who in turn was a slave of the Thracian woman Sinope, who had transferred her practice of harlotry from Aegina to Athens; hence Pythionice was not only triply a slave, but also triply a harlot. Now, with the sum of more than two hundred talents he erected two monuments to her; the thing that surprised everyone is this, that whereas for the men who died in Cilicia defending your kingdom and the liberty of Greece neither he nor anyone else among the officials has as yet erected a proper tomb, for the courtesan Pythionice the monument at Athens and the other in Babylon have already stood completed a long time. Here was a woman who, as everybody knew, had been shared by all who desired her at the same price for all, and yet for this woman the man who says he is your friend has set up a shrine and a sacred enclosure and has called the temple and the altar by the name of Aphrodite Pythionice, by one and the same act showing his contempt for the vengeance of the gods and endeavouring to heap insult on the offices you bestow."
I note that from a contemporary view (Theopompus), Alexander was liberating the Greeks, well after Guagemala.
Caesar
"Caesar judged that he must drop everything else and pursue Pompey where he had betaken himself after his flight, so that he should not be able to gather more forces and renew the war; and he advanced daily as far as he could go with the cavalry and ordered a legion to follow by shorter stages. An edict had been published in Pompey's name that all the younger men in the province (Macedonia), both Greeks and Roman citizens, should assemble to take an oath. But whether Pompey had published this to divert suspicion, so as to keep his intention of further flight secret as long as possible, or whether he was attempting to hold Macedonia with fresh levies, if no one stopped him, could not be gauged."
Caesar has just defeated Pompey in Thessaly and Pompey has fled north to Macedon. While in Macedon, Pompey calls a draft of all Romans and Greeks in the Roman province of Macedonia, that is the native Greek Macedonians and any potential Roman soldiers. As events later proved, this was a feint to draw Caesar into Macedonia while Pompey fled to Asia Minor.
The Civil War, 111.102.3
Constantine Poryphorgenitus
De Administrando Imperio
“The territory possessed by these Romani used to extend as far as the river Danube, and once on a time, being minded to cross the river and discover who dwelt beyond the river, they crossed it and came upon unarmed Slavonic nations, who were also called Avars…
…and the Slavs on the far side of the river, who were also called Avars,…”
A counter to yet another ludricous claim of the inhabitants of FYROM, namely that the Macedonians were 'Slavs', especially as all the records clearly indicate that the Slavs came from beyond the Danube hundreds of years after the collapse of the Macedonian kingdom.
“…and, what is more, the nations of those parts, the Croats and Serbs and Zachlumites, Terbuniotes and Kanalites and Diocletians and the Pagani, shook off the reins of the empire of the Romans and became self-governing and independent, subject to none. Princes, as they say, these nations had none, but only ‘zupans’, elders, as is the rule in the other Slavonic regions.”
No note of course of 'Macedonian Slavs'.
30.
“The Slavs of the province of Peloponessus revolted in the days of the emperor Theophilus and his son Michael, and became independent, and plundered and enslaved and pillaged and burnt and stole. And in the reign of Michael, the son of Theophilus, the protospatharius Theoctistus, surnamed Bryennius, was sent as military governor to the province of Peloponnesus with a great power and force, vis., of Thracians and Macedonians and the rest of the western provinces, to war upon and subdue them. He subdued and mastered all the Slavs and other insubordinates of the province of Peloponnesus….”
Does anyone else find it as ironic as I do that in our current debate this illustration of the Macedonians being used to supress the Slavs?
Quintus Curtius Rufus
"They recalled that at the start of his reign Darius had issued orders for the shape of the scabbard of the Persian scimitar to be altered to the shape used by the Greeks, and that the Chaldeans had immediately interpreted this as meaning that rule over the Persians would pass to those people whose arms Darius had copied."
3.3
"For his part Alexander responded much like this: 'His majesty Alexander to Darius: Greetings. The Darius whose name you have assumed wrought much destruction upon the Greek inhabitants of the Hellespontine coast and upon the Greek colonies of Ionia, and the crossed the sea with a mighty army, bringing the war to Macedonia and Greece. On another occasion Xerxes, a member of the same family, came with his savage barbarian troops, and even when beaten in a naval engagement he still left Mardonius in Greece so that he could destroy our cities and burn our fields though absent himself."
4.1
"Mutiny was but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers to give their opinion. They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they themselves knew, to the common soldiers. Instead, they declared that the sun represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations."
4.10
"Alexander called a meeting of his generals the next day. He told them that no city was more hateful to the Greeks than Persepolis, the capital of the old kings of Persia, the city from which troops without number had poured forth, from which first Darius and then Xerxes had waged an unholy war on Europe. To appease the spirits of their forefathers they should wipe it out, he said."
5.6
"As for Alexander, it is generally agreed that, when sleep had brought him back to his senses after his drunken bout, he regretted his actions and said that the Persians would have suffered a more grievous punishment at the hands of the Greeks had they been forced to see him on Xerxes' throne and in his palace."
5.8
"In pursuit of Bessus the Macedonians had arrived at a small town inhabited by the Branchidae who, on the orders of Xerxes, when he was returning from Greece, had emigrated from Miletus and settled in this spot. This was necessary because, to please Xerxes, they had violated the temple called the Didymeon. The culture of their forebears had not yet disappeared thought they were now bilingual and the foreign tongue was gradually eroding their own. So it was with great joy that they welcomed Alexander, to whom they surrendered themselves and their city. Alexander called a meeting of the Milesians in his force, for the Milesians bore a long-standing grudge against the Branchidae as a clan. Since they were the people betrayed by the Branchidae, Alexander let them decide freely on their case, asking if they preferred to remember their injury or their common origins. But when there was a difference of opinion over this, he declared that he would himself consider the best course of action.
When the Branchidae met him the next day, he told them to accompany him. On reaching the city, he himself entered through the gate with a unit of light-armed troops. The phalanx had been ordered to surround the city walls and, when the signal was given, to sack this city which provided refuge for traitors, killing the inhabitants to a man. The Branchidae, who were unarmed, were butchered throughout the city, and neither community of language nor the olive-branches and entreaties of the suppliants could curb the savagery. Finally the Macedonians dug down to the foundations of the city walls in order to demolish them and leave not a single trace of the city."
As the Branchidae were Greeks removed from Ionia, it seems odd that the Macedonians would share the same language with them were they non-Greeks.
"The gist of the passage was that the Greeks had established a bad practice in inscribing their trophies with only their kings' names, for the kings’ were thus appropriating to themselves glory that was won by the blood of others."
On the Cleitus affair, where Cleitus points out it is the army that won the victories, not Alexander personally.
8.1
"He did not want her tainting the character and civilized temperament of the Greeks with this example of barbarian lawlessness."
Alexander's concern for the morality of his troops is perhaps somewhat hypocritical, but relevant nontheless.
Oddly enough, Q.C. Rufus is a favourite of Skoian propagandists. Go figure.
Clement of Alexandria
CHAPTER XXII -- ON THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
So much for the details respecting dates, as stated variously by many, and as set down by us.
It is said that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated from the dialect of the Hebrews into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagos, or, according to others, of Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus; Demetrius Phalereus bringing to this task the greatest earnestness, and employing painstaking accuracy on the materials for the translation. For the Macedonians being still in possession of Asia, and the king being ambitious of adorning the library he had at Alexandria with all writings, desired the people of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies they possessed into the Greek dialect. And they being the subjects of the Macedonians, selected from those of highest character among them seventy elders, versed in the Scriptures, and skilled in the Greek dialect, and sent them to him with the divine books. And each having severally translated each prophetic book, and all the translations being compared together, they agreed both in meaning and expression. For it was the counsel of God carried out for the benefit of Grecian ears. It was not alien to the inspiration of God, who gave the prophecy, also to produce the translation, and make it as it were Greek prophecy.
Cosmas Indicopleustes (The Geographer)
Book III
Even in Taprobanê, on an island in Further India, where the Indian sea is, there is a Church of Christians, with clergy and a body of believers, but I know not whether there be any Christians in the parts beyond it. In the country called Malê, where the pepper grows, there is also a church, and at another place called Calliana there is moreover a bishop, who is appointed from Persia. In the island, again, called the Island of Dioscoridês, which is situated in the same Indian sea, and where the inhabitants speak Greek, having been originally colonists sent thither by the Ptolemies who succeeded Alexander the Macedonian, there are clergy who receive their ordination in Persia, and are sent on to the island, and there is also a multitude of Christians. I sailed along the coast of this island, but did not land upon it. I met, however, with some of its Greek-speaking people who had come over into Ethiopia. And so likewise among the Bactrians and Huns and Persians, and the rest of the Indians, Persarmenians, and Medes and Elamites, and throughout the whole land of Persia there is no limit to the number of churches with bishops and very large communities of Christian people, as well as many martyrs, and monks also living as hermits. So too in Ethiopia and Axôm, and in all the country about it; among the people of Happy Arabia----who are now called Homerites----through all Arabia and Palestine, Phoenicia, and all Syria and Antioch as far as Mesopotamia; among the Nubians and the Garamantes, in Egypt, Libya, Pentapolis, Africa and Mauretania, as far as southern Gadeira,there are everywhere churches of the Christians, and bishops, martyrs, monks and recluses, where the Gospel of Christ is proclaimed. So likewise again in Cilicia, Asia, Cappadocia, Lazica and Pontus, and in the northern countries occupied by the Scythians, Hyrcanians, Heruli, Bulgarians, Greeks and Illyrians, Dalmatians, Goths, Spaniards, Romans, Franks, and other nations, as far as Gadeira on the ocean towards the northern parts, there are believers and preachers of the Gospel confessing the resurrection from the dead; and so we see the prophecies being fulfilled over the whole world.
Not only the Greek language in India due to the Macedonians, but no mention of a seperate 'Macedonian nation' where the Bulgarians are mentioned.
Book XI
And yet He has not left them without a witness to Himself, that He was working for their good and taking thought for it beforehand, for He manifested to them some tokens of His goodness, some four hundred years or more before the coming of Christ, in the days of Alexander the Macedonian, long after the Trojan war, when the Greeks were still flourishing. Let me give an instance of this: When Alexander the Macedonian was passing by Jerusalem in prosecution of his war against Darius, the High Priest of the Jews, arrayed in the robes of his office, came forth to meet him, whereupon Alexander dismounted from his horse and in a very kindly manner embraced him. And when his attendants reproached him for so doing and said: Why hast thou done so? he excused himself and said: When I set out at first from Macedonia, a man dressed in this style was seen by me in a dream who said to me: Go forth and conquer. The result was that the King himself offered sacrifices to God and bestowed many gifts on the Temple, and accorded many privileges to the country of the Jews.In subsequent times Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus, after having made careful inquiry from Tryphon the Phalerean about the Jewish books, and learned the truth concerning them, earnestly solicited them from the High Priest Eleazar, to whom as well as to the Temple he sent many presents. These books he received along with seventy elderly men, who translated them from the Hebrew into the Greek tongue, and he deposited them on the shelves of his own library. This also was a work of divine providence, that the translation had been prepared before the coming of Christ, lest, if it were done afterwards in the days of the Apostles, it would be exposed to general suspicion, as if they had interpreted what had been said of old by the prophets both concerning Christ and the calling of the Gentiles in a way to suit their own predilections.
Demosthenes, Speeches 11-20, the Letter of Philip
"Not content with this, you have shown your contempt for right and your hostility to me by actually sending an embassy to urge the king of Persia to declare war on me. This is the most amazing exploit of all; for, before the king reduced Egypt and Phoenicia, you passed a decree calling on me to make common cause with the rest of the Greeks against him, in case he attempted to interfere with us; [7] and today you have such a superabundance of hatred for me that you negotiate with him for a defensive alliance. Yet I am given to understand that your fathers of old punished the sons of Pisistratus for inviting the Persians to invade Greece. You are not ashamed to do what you have always made a matter of indictment against your tyrants."
"But the crowning agsurdity, I think, is that , though I sent ambassadors from all my allies to attend as witnesses, and was willing to come to a just agreement with you in the interests of the Greek world..
While Demosthenes is of course another favourite of the 'other side', it seems like the great Philip II himself was in no doubt of his 'Greekness'.
Dionysius of Halicarnasus:
Having agreed through heralds upon the time when they would join in battle, they descended from their camps and took up their positions as follows: King Pyrrhus gave the Macedonian phalanx the first place on the right wing and placed next to it the Italiot mercenaries from Tarentum; then the troops from Ambracia and after them the phalanx of Tarentines equipped with white shields, forced by the allied force of Bruttians and Lucanians; in the middle of the battle-line he stationed the Thesprotians and Chaonians; next to them the mercenaries of the Aetolians, Acarnanians and Athamanians, and finally the Samnites, who constituted the left wing. Of the horse, he stationed the Samnite, Thessalian and Bruttian squadrons and the Tarentine mercenary force upon the right wing, and the Ambraciot, Lucanian and Tarentine squadrons and the Greek mercenaries, consisting of Acarnanians, Aetolians, Macedonians and Athamanians, on the left. The light-armed troops and the elephants he divided into two groups and placed them behind both wings, at a reasonable distance, in a position slightly elevated above the plain. He himself, surrounded by the royal agema, as it was called, of picked horsemen, about two thousand in number, was outs the battle-line, so as to aid promptly any of his troops in turn that might be hard pressed.
Eusebius:
EUSEBIUS PAMPHILUS OF CAESAREA, THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED EMPEROR CONSTANTINE
BOOK I. CHAPTER VII: Comparison with Cyrus, King of the Persians and with Alexander of Macedon.
Ancient history describes Cyrus, king of the Persians, as by far the most illustrious of all kings up to his time. And yet if we regard the end of his days, we find it but little corresponded with his past prosperity, since he met with an inglorious and dishonorable death at the hands of a woman.
Again, the sons of Greece celebrate Alexander the Macedonian as the conqueror of many and diverse nations; yet we find that he was removed by an early death, before he had reached maturity, being carried off by the effects of revelry and drunkenness. His whole life embraced but the space of thirty-two years, and his reign extended to no more than a third part of that period. Unsparing as the thunderbolt, he advanced through streams of blood and reduced entire nations and cities, young and old, to utter slavery. But when he had scarcely arrived at the maturity of life, and was lamenting the loss of youthful pleasures, death fell upon him with terrible stroke, and, that he might not longer outrage the human race, cut him off in a foreign and hostile land, childless, without successor, and homeless. His kingdom too was instantly dismembered, each of his officers taking away and appropriating a portion for himself. And yet this man is extolled for such deeds as these.
Odd, for the sons of Greece to be celebrating their 'conqueror'?
The kings of the Macedonians
The Chronicle
The end of the Assyrian empire, after the death of Sardanapallus the last king of the Assyrians, was followed by the Macedonian age.
Before the first Olympiad, Caranus was moved by ambition to collect forces from the Argives and from the rest of the Peloponnese, in order to lead an army into the territory of the Macedonians. At that time the king of the Orestae was at war with his neighbours, the Eordaei, and he called on Caranus to come to his aid, promising to give him half of his territory in return, if the Orestae were successful. The king kept his promise, and Caranus took possession of the territory; he reigned there for 30 years, until he died in old age.
He was succeeded by his son Coenus, who was king for 28 years.
After him, Tyrimias reigned for 43 years.
Perdiccas for 42 years. He wanted to expand his kingdom; so he sent [a mission] to Delphi.
A little further on, [Diodorus] says:
Perdiccas reigned for 48 years, and left his kingdom to Argaeus, who reigned for 31 years.
The next king was Philippus, who reigned for 33 years.
Aeropus for 20 years.
Alcetas for 18 years.
Amyntas for 49 years.
He was followed by Alexander, who reigned for 44 years.
Then Perdiccas was king for 22 years.
Archelaus for 17 years.
Aeropus for 6 years.
Then Pausanias was king for one year.
Ptolemaeus for 3 years.
Perdiccas for 5 years.
Philippus for 24 years.
Alexander, [who] fought against the Persians, for more than 12 years.
In this way the most reliable historians trace the ancestry of the Macedonian kings back to Heracles. From Caranus, who was the first to rule all the Macedonians, until Alexander, who conquered Asia, there were 24 kings who reigned for a total of 453 years.
[p229] The individual [kings] are as follows:
1. Caranus reigned for 30 years
2. Coenus - for 28 years
3. Tyrimias - for 43 years
4. Perdiccas - for 48 years
5. Argaeus - for 38 years
6. Philippus - for 33 years
7. Aeropus - for 20 years
8. Alcetas - for 18 years. In his time, Cyrus was king of the Persians.
9. Amyntas - for 42 years
10. Alexander - for 44 years
11. Perdiccas - for 23 years
12. Archelaus - for 24 years
13. Orestes - for 3 years
14. Archelaus - for 4 years
15. Amyntas - for one year
16. Pausanias - for one year
17. Amyntas - for 6 years
18. Argaeus - for 2 years
19. Amyntas - for 18 years
20. Alexander - for one year
21. Ptolemaeus of Alorus - for 3 years
22. Perdiccas - for 6 years
23. Philippus - for 27 years
24. Alexander the son of Philippus - for 12 years
Isidore of Seville
Etymologies
"Greece has seven provinces, Dalmatia being the first on the western side, then Epirus, Hellas, Thessaly, Macedonia and finally Achaea and the two provinces of the sea, Crete and the Cyclades." (22)
4.7 Graecia a Graeco rege vocata, qui cunctam eam regionem regno incoluit. Sunt autem provinciae Graeciae septem: quarum prima ab occidente Dalmatia, inde Epirus, inde Hellas, inde Thessalia, inde Macedonia, inde Achaia, et duae in mari, Creta et Cyclades.
ISIDORUS, Etymologiae, XIV, 4, 7 sq. (PL 82, 505)
Justin:
M.Justinus' epitome of Pompeius Trogus' Universal History 7.1
Macedonia was formerly called Emathia,... Caranus also came to Emathia with a large band of Greeks, being instructed by an oracle to seek a home in Macedonia.
IV. In the same year a concussion of the earth happened between the islands Thera and Therasia, in the midst of the sea at an equal distance from either shore, where, to the astonishment of those that were sailing past, an island rose suddenly from the deep, the water being at the same time hot. In Asia too, on the same day, the same earthquake shattered Rhodes,and many other cities, with a terrible ruin; some it swallowed up entire. As all men were alarmed at this prodigy, the soothsayers predicted that "the rising power of the Romans would swallow up the ancient empire of the Greeks and Macedonians."
Livy
[LIVY, HISTORY OF ROME BOOK 31.7, "ROME AND MACEDON"]
“As for the Argives, apart from their belief that the Macedonian kings were descended from them, most of them were also attached to Philip by individual ties of hospitality and close personal friendships.”
32.22
Odd, that if the Macedonian Kings spread the 'myth' of their 'supposed' descent from Argos, why did the Argives also go along with it?
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Pausanias
Attica
“but we know of no Greek before Pyrros who fought against Rome.”
Molossians not Macedonians but they too are often victims of misinformation.
1.11
“So Pyrros was the first to cross over against Rome from mainland Greece, and even so he went over only because he was called in by Tarentum”
ditto
1.12
“Seleukos had both Greeks and barbarians in his army”
Macedonians included with the Greeks...
1.16
“The statues by the river are Mnesimache, and the dedication of a boy cutting his hair to Kephisos. This has been a tradition of all Greeks from ancient times…”
If you recall Aelians description of Alexander's grief at Hephaestion's death..
1.37
Achaia
“but in later wars of the whole Greek community the Achaians took their stand against Philip of Macedon,”
7.6
“The Sibyl had made an inspired prophecy about the power of Macedonia, which was acquired under one Philip and destroyed under the other; this is how it goes:
Macedonia whose kings are from Argos,
Your good and your bad come in the reign of Philip.
One shall create lords for cities and for peoples:
The other shall utterly destroy your glory
Beaten down by eastern and western men.
7.8
“But Philip dedicated no trophy, either here or for any other of his Greek and barbarian victories: raising trophies was not in Macedonian tradition. The Macedonians say their King Karanos won a battle against a neighbouring ruler called Kisseus and raised a trophy according to the custom of Argos, but a lion from Mount Olympos overturned it and utterly destroyed it. Karanos understood that it was bad policy to begin a perpetual enmity with the barbarian neighbours;”
9.40
Lakonia
“Anaximenes then approached Alexander, and Alexander who knew what he had come for swore by all the gods of Greece to do the opposite to whatever he asked.”
6.18
Pliny the Elder:
Such, at all events, were the opinions generally entertained in the reign of Alexander the Great, at a time when Greece was at the height of her glory, and the most powerful country in the world.
Why would Greece be at the height of her glory if the non-Greek Macedonians were ruling...? Anyone?
Plutarch
For my part I believe none would. For I see that even common sword-players, if they are not utter brutes and savages, but Greek born, when they are to enter the list, though there be many and very costly dishes set before them, yet take more content in employing their time in commanding their poor wives to some of their friends, yea, and in conferring freedom on their slaves, than in gratifying their stomachs. But should the pleasures of the body be allowed to have some extraordinary matter in them, this would yet be common to men of action and business.
For they can eat good meat, and red wine drink,
(See "Iliad," v. 341.)5
aye, and entertain themselves with their friends, and perhaps with a greater relish too, after their engagements and hard services,-- as did Alexander and Agesilaus, and (by Jove) Phocion and Epaminondas too,--than these gentlemen who anoint themselves by the fireside, and are gingerly rocked about the streets in sedans.
A moral essay by Plutarch that draws comparison between noble Greeks such as Alexander and Epaminondas...
-Essays, That it is not possible to live pleasurably according to the Doctrine of Epicurus
Sibylline Prophecies:
Book III
And then shall Hellenes2, proud and impure,
Then shall a Macedonian nation rule,210 Great, shrewd, who as a fearful cloud of war
Shall come to mortals. But the God of heaven
Shall utterly destroy them from the depth.
And then shall be another kingdom3, white
And many-headed, from the western sea,
215 Which shall rule much land, and shake many
men,
And to all kings bring terror afterwards,
And out of many cities shall destroy
Much gold and silver; but in the vast earth
There will again be gold, and silver too,
220 And ornament. And they will oppress mortals;
And to those men shall great disaster be,
When they begin unrighteous arrogance.
And forthwith in them there shall be a force
Of wickedness, male will consort with male,
225 And children they will place in dens of shame;
And in those days there shall be among men
A great affliction, and it shall disturb
All things, and break all things, and fill all things
With evils by a shameful covetousness,
230 And by ill-gotten wealth in many lands,
But most of all in Macedonia.
And it shall stir up hatred, and all guile
Shalt be with them even to the seventh kingdom4,
Of which a king of Egypt shall be king
235 Who shall be a descendant from the Greeks.
And then the nation of the mighty God
Shall be again strong5 and they shall be guides
Of life to all men. But why did God place
This also in my mind to tell: what first,
240 And what next, and what evil last shall be
On all men? Which of these shall take the lead?
First6 on the Titans will God visit evil.
For they shall pay to mighty Chronos's sons
The penal satisfaction, since they bound
245 Both Cronos and the mother dearly loved.
Again shall there be tyrants for the Greeks
And fierce kings overweening and impure,
Adulterous and altogether bad;
And for men shall be no more rest from war.
250 And the dread Phrygians shall perish all,
And unto Troy shall evil come that day.
And to the Persians and Assyrians
Evil shall straightaway come, and to all Egypt
And Libya and the Ethiopians,
255 And to the Carians and Pamphylians—
765 The seventh of Egypt, shall rule his own land,
Reckoned from the dominion of the Greeks,
Which countless Macedonian men shall rule;And there shall come from Asia a great king2,
A fiery eagle, who with foot and horse
770 Shall cover all the land, cut up all things,
And fill all things with evils; he will cast
The Egyptian kingdom down; and taking off
All its possessions carry them away
Over the spacious surface of the sea.
The Sibylline Prophecies were a series of early Christian writings to legitimize Christianity. Presented as proof of how even the ancient oracles predicted the coming of Christianity they in fact are written after the events happened. Nonetheless, they do contain historical events...
Suda, The
Karanos, Caranus
One of the Heraclids,[1] he gathered an army from Greece and went into Macedonia, which at that time was an obscure place. He ruled there and handed down the rule so that it proceeded in succession all the way down to Philip.[2]
The Suda was a Byzantine 'Encyclopedia' and this is the entry for Karanos the founder of the Macedonian Kingdom..
Tacitus:
"Meanwhile with Parthian approval Tiridates III occupied Macedonian towns, including Macedonian foundations (Nicephorium, Anthemusias, and others with Greek names) and some places of Parthian origin..."
It seems like the Macedonians were founding cities with 'Greek names'. Strange for a non-Greek people...
Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, 8
Velleius Paterculus:
Book I
In this period, sixty-five years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido. About this time also Caranus, a man of royal race, eleventh in descent from Hercules, set out from Argos and seized the kingship of Macedonia. From him Alexander the Great was descended in the seventeenth generation, and could boast that, on his mother's side, he was descended from Achilles, and, on his father's side, from Hercules.
Another Roman historian and another validation of the founding of Macedonia...
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