Ancient/ non-modern historians on Ancient Macedonia and Macedonians

[Makedonia25]

Ancient historians on Ancient Macedonia

Polybios
"In the past you rivaled the Achaians and the kinsmen Macedonians and their ruler, Philip, about the hegemony and glory, but now that the freedom of the Hellenes is at stake at a war against an alien people (Romans), ...but now if you invite them do not you see that you invite them against your ownself and the whole of Hellas. ...And does it worth to ally with the barbarians against the Epeirotans, the Achaians, the Akarnanians, theBoiotians, the Thessalians, almost all the Hellenes with the exception of the Aitolians who are a wicked nation... So Lakedaimonians it is good to remember your ancestors, ... be afraid of the Romans... and do ally yourselves with the Achaians and Macedonians. And if the most influential amongst yourselves oppose that then stay neutral and do not side with the unjust.
(Polybios 9.37.7-39.7; Speech of Lykiskos, the representative of Akarnania)

"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 Hellas? For who is not aware that Hellas 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 Polybios, IX, 35, 2)


Herodotos

"Now that the men of this family are Hellenes, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm, is a thing which I can declare on my own knowledge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evident. That they are so has been already adjudged by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at Olympia"
(Herodotus, The Histories 8.43)

"Tell your king who sent you how his Hellenic viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably... "
(Herodotus V, 20, 4)

"Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Hellenes, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know"
(Herodotus V, 22, 1)


Thoukididis

"The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos"
(Thucididis 99,3)

"In all there were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompaniedby all the Macedonian cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand strong, besides an immense crowd of barbarians."
(Thukididis 4.124)


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 Hellenes, except the Lacedaemonians, set up these spoils from
the barbarians dwelling in Asia",
(Arrian I, 16, 7)

"Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and the rest of Hellas 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)


Aeschines

....at the congress of the Lakedaimonian allies and the rest of the Hellenes, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat,
was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the rest of the Hellenes in voting..."
(Aeschines, On the Embassy 32)


Plutarchos

"But he said, `If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes'; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the boiunds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to diseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorius Hellenes should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos...' "
(Plutarchos, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332 a-b)

"Yet through Alexander, Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Hellenes ... Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Hellenic magistracies ... Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Hellenic 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.'
(Plutarchos Moralia. On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A)

"When he (Alexander the Great) arrived at Ilion he sacrificed to Athena and offered libations to the Heroes."
(Plutarchos, Alexander 15)


Isokratis

"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."
(Isokratis, To Philip 127)


Pausanias

"They say that these were the tribes collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Hellenic Assembly: ... the Macedonians joined and the entire Phocian race ... In my day there were thirty members: six each from Nikopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly ... "
(Pausanias Phokis VIII, 2 & 4)


Diodorus of Sicily

"Such was the end of Philip ... He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a
throne won for himself the greatest empire among the Hellenes, while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy."
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.95.1-2)

"Along with lavish display of every sort, Philip included in the procession statues of the twelve Gods wrought with great artistry and adorned with a
dazzling show of wealth to strike awe to the beholder, and along with these was conducted a thirteenth statue, suitable for a god, that of Philip
himself, so that the king exhibited himself enthroned among the twelve Gods. Every seat in the theater was taken when Philip appeared wearing a white cloak and by his express orders his bodyguard held away from him and followed only at a distance, since he wanted to show publicly that he was protected by the goodwill of all the Hellenes, and had no need of a guard of spearmen."
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.92.5-93.2)

"After this Alexandros left Dareios's mother, his daughters,and his son in Susa, providing them with persons to teach them the hellenic dialect,..."
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.67.1)

"Alexandros observed that his soldiers were exhausted with their constant campaigns. ...The hooves of the horses had been worn thin by steady
marching. The arms and armour were wearing out, and the Hellenic clothing was quite gone. They had to clothe themselves in materials of the
barbarians,..."
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.94.1-2)


Titus Livius

"Aetolians, Acarnanians, Macedonians, men of the same language"
(T. Livius XXXI,29, 15)

Historical Evidence of the Greekness of Macedonia All the historical sources are agreed on the location of Macedonia: it lay between the Aegean Sea and the Mounts Cambounia, Pieria and Olympus to the south, lakes Ochrid and Prespa and Mounts Bambouna, Skomion (Rila Planina)
and Rhodopon to the north, the river Nestos to the east and the Grammos and Pindus ranges to the west.

The inhabitants of this area (Macedonians) were one of the most ancient Greek tribes. Their closest relatives were the Thessalians and particularly
the Magnesians, with whom they shared Aeolian ancestry. The language they spoke was among the oldest forms of Greek, and it had affinities with the Aeolian, Arcado-Cypriot and Mycenean dialects. The religion of the Madeconians was that of the other Greeks, and their myths and traditions were those found throughout the Greek world (Wells, The Outline of History, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History).

King Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great - to whom Skopje is currently attempting to attribute a 'Slavomacedonian' (sic) identity - acted not simply as Greeks but as Panhellenic leaders in the sense that they embodied the old idea of the formation of a united Greek state with the amalgamation of the Greek city-states. As Johann Gustav Droysen - among other scholars - points out in his History of Alexander the Great, both Philip and Alexander "brought to the peoples of Asia and implanted in them not the Macedonian culture, which had no independent standing, but the Greek culture".

In subsequent periods, and especially after the appearance in the Balkans of the Slavs and Bulgars (6th and 7th centuries AD), the geographical area of Macedonia as defined above continued to be the bulwark and bastion of the Greek race, just as it had been in antiquity. Polybius calls Macedonia "the advanced line of defence" and pays tribute to the Macedonians for fighting the barbarians ('non-Greeks') to preserve the security of the (other) Greeks" (Polybious, Historiae, Leipzig 1898.). This view is reiterated for the Byzantine period by the French historian Paul Lemerle in his classic work Philippe et la Macedoine Orientale (Paris, 1945).

No mention is made of 'Macedonia' or 'Macedonians' as a distinct ethnological group in any official text of either the recent or the more distant past. Neither the Treaty of Berlin, for example, nor the Treaty of San Stefano which was revoked by it make any reference to such concepts. The
official Turkish census of 1905 gives figures for the populations of Greeks, Bulgarians and "quasi-Bulgarians" in the vilayets of Thessaloniki and
Monastir, where the Greeks were in the majority, but contains no reference to 'Macedonians'-for the simple reason that none of those questioned stated such descent.

[akritas]

The Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came; the barbarian of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that has no king, were led by Photys and Nicanor, the two members of the royal family to whom the chieftainship for that year had been confided. With the Chaonians came also some Thesprotians, like them without a king, some Molossians and Atintanians led by Sabylinthus, the guardian of King Tharyps who was still a minor, and some Paravæans, under their king Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand Orestians, subjects of King Antichus and placed by him under the command of Oroedus. There were also a thousand Macedonians sent by Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians, but they arrived too late. With this force Cnemus set out, without waiting for the fleet from Corinth. Passing through the territory of Amphilochian Argos, and sacking the open village of Limnæa, they advanced to Stratus the Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest of the country, they felt convinced, would speedily follow.

[Ptolemy]

Arrian - The Campaigns of Alexander.
Alexander talking to the troops before the battle.
Book 2-7
Penguin Classics.
Page 112.

Translation by Aubrey De Seliucourt.
" ...............There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service -- but how different is theirs cause from ours ! They will be fighting for pay--- and not much of it at that; we on the contrary shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops ---Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes --- they are the best and stoutest soldiers of Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of
Asia."

[Ptolemy]

"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, and he advanced daily as far as he could go with the cavalry and ordered a legion to follow 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."

Caesar, Civil War 111.102.3

General Paulus of Rome surrounded by the ten Commissioners took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowds of Macedonians...Paulus announced in Latin the decisions of the Senate, as well as his own, made by the advice of his council. This announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus Octavius the Praetor-for he too was present."

Livy,XLV

"Of the rivers in the Greek world, the Achelous flows from Pindus, the Inachus from the same mountain; the Strymon, the Nestus, and the Hebrus all three from Scrombrus; many rivers, too, flow from Rhodope.."

Meteorology, BI.13

Polivius Book 9-37

"On its borders a ring of Greek cities was founded by Alexander..."



Book 10-27




"...Annibas put himself under oath to Xenophanis (ambassador of Philip) in front of the all gods that Macedonia and the rest of Hellas have..."


Book 7-9

"...Agelaos from Nafpaktos was the first to address to the king (Philip) and the present allies, wishing to stop the wars between Hellenes..."


Book 5-103



Here Polybius talks about the great Philip II:

“These events convinced Philip of the cowardice and indolence of the Persians compared with his own military efficiency and that of the Macedonians; they also opened his eyes to the size and the magnificence of the prizes to be gained from such a war. Accordingly, no sooner had he obtained the avowed support of the rest of the Greeks for his enterprise than he found a suitable pretext in his ardent desire to avenge the injuries which the Persians had previously invlicted on Greece."

Book 3-6

[Ptolemy]

"Xerxes, having so spoken, held his peace. (SS 1.) Whereupon Mardonius took the word, and said:
....I myself have had experience of these men when I marched against them by the orders of thy father; and though I went as far as Macedonia, and came but a little short of reaching Athens itself, yet not a soul ventured to come out against me to battle.
......But, notwithstanding that they have so foolish a manner of warfare, yet these Greeks, when I led my army against them to the very borders of Macedonia, did not so much as think of offering me battle."

The History of Herodotus Book VII

[Ptolemy]

"It is agreed on by all hands, that on the father's side, Alexander descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from Aeacus byNeoptolemus on the mother's side"
-Plutarch, The Life of Alexander


"The Macedonians boast their descent from Argive kings. Philip will be the arbiter of weal or woe to you. The elder of that name shall give rulers to cities and peoples, but the younger shall lose every honor, and shall die the subject of a western race."
-Appian


"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.”
-Pausanias, 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;”
-Pausanias, 9.40

"Argos is the land of your fathers, and is entitled to as much consideration at your hands as are your own ancestors;"
-Isocrates, To Phillip

"You ought to have remembered that you are not the attendant of and adviser of Cambyses or Xerxes, but of Philip's son, a man with the blood of Heracles and Aeacus in his veins, a man whose forefathers came from Argos to Macedonia, where they long ruled not by force, but by law."


"In this latter place he (Alexander) found political troubles in progress, and settled them, remitting the tribute which the town paid to Darius on the ground that Mallus was a colony of Argos and he himself claimed to be descended from the Argive Heracleidae."

Arrian,

"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. "

-Velleius Paterculus, Book I

"...but the Dorians on the contrary have been constantly on the move; their home in Deucalion's reign was Phthiotis and in the reign of Dorus son of Hellen the country known as Histiaeotis in the neighbourhood of Ossa and Olympus; driven from there by the Cadmeians they settled in Pindus and were known as Macedons; thence they migrated to Dryopis, and finally to the Peloponnese, where they got their present name of Dorians."

-Herodotus, Book I, 56


"...Three brothers of the lineage of Temenos came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gavganis and Aeropos and Perdikkas, and worked for the king that was there.
When the king learned that when the queen baked the bread of Perdikkas, it doubled its size, than of the the other breads, he considered that as a miracle and ordered the 3 brothers to leave his kingdom. The brothers required their payment. Then the king told them to take the sun as a payment. Gavganis and Aeropos where taken by surprise and the youngest brother, Perdikkas, accepted the offer. He took out his sword, circled it 3 times and took the sun, which he placed in his underarm and left with his brothers..."
-Herodotus VIII,137

"...and that you may tell your king, who sent you, that a Greek, the lord of Macedonia, entertained you royally both with bed and board."
-Herodotus, Book V, 20

"The composition of the fleet was as follows: 16 ships from Lacedaemon, the same number from Corinth as at Artemisium, 15 from Sicyon, 10 from Epidaurus, 5 form Troezen, 3 from Hermione. The people of all these places except Hermione are of Dorian and Macedonian blood, and had last emigrated from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis."
-Herodotus, Book VIII ,43


"Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the Lymcestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though Macedonians by blood and allies and dependants of their kindred, still have their own separate governments. The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos.”

“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.”
-Justin

During the Byzantine period there was an ‘encyclopaedia’ compiled for scholars. This collection, known as the Suda, has an entry on the legendary founder of Macedonia:
“Karanos”
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.”
-The Suda

[Ptolemy]

"And she (Thyia, sister of Hellen) conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderolt two sons, Magnes and Makedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympos."
(Hesiod, Catalogues of Women, fr.3)

"...the Hellenic nation... settled about Pindos under the name Makednon."
(Herodotos 1.56)

"...at the congress of the Lakedaimonian allies and the OTHER Hellenes, in which Amyntas (the king of Macedonia), the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, HE joined the OTHER Hellenes in voting..."
(Aishines, On the Embassy 32)


"Such was the end of Philip (II, king of Macedonia) ...He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to
support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire AMONG the Hellenes, while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy."
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.95.1-2)

"He (Teleutias, the brother of the Spartan king Agesilaos) dispached envoys to Amyntas, and asked him to hire mercenaries and gain the alliance of the neighboring kings through the payment of money, if he wished to recover his rule." (Xenophon, Hellenika 5.38)


"After Amyntas had been defeated by the Illyrians and forced to pay tribute to his conquerors, the Illyrians, who had taken Philip, the youngest son of Amyntas, as a hostage, placed him in the care of the Thebans."
(Diodoros of Sicily, 16.2.2)

"Along with lavish display of every sort, Philip (II of Macedonia) included in the procession statues of the TWELVE GODS wrought with great
artistry and adorned with a dazzling show of wealth to strike awe to the beholder, and along with these was conducted a thirteenth statue,
suitable for a god, that of Philip himself, so that the king exhibited himself enthroned among the TWELVE GODS. Every seat in the theater was taken when Philip appeared wearing a white cloak and by his express orders his bodyguard held away from him and followed only at a distance, since he wanted to show publicly that he was protected by the goodwill of ALL THE HELLENES, and had no need of a guard of spearmen."
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.92.5-93.2)


"When he (Alexander the Great) arrived at Ilion he sacrificed to ATHENA and offered libations to the Heroes."
(Plutarchos, Alexander 15)

"Alexander (the Great)... after talking to the Thessalians and the other Hellenes,... grabbed his spear with his left hand, shifted his right
hand to pray to the gods, as Kallisthenes reports, wishing, if he is indeed a SON of ZEUS that they SUPPORT the HELLENES. Aristandros, the priest..."
(Plutarchos, Alexander 33)

"There is a MACEDONIAN holiday devoted to DIONY- SOS, to whom Alexander sacrificed every year. But out of negligence, it is said, he sacri- ficed to the DIOSKOUROI first for he had scheduled the sacrifice to the Dioskouroi previously. Well into the celebrations (for Alexander had introduced BARBARIAN elements (i.e., non-Hellenic) in the festivity), there was talk about the Dioskouroi... So several soothsayers attributed the affair to the wrath of Dionysos. And Alexander, persuaded in the end by the Companions (i.e., the Macedonian nobles), did eat and did take some care of himself. And then he carried the sacrifice to Dionysos, for he, too, wished to attribute the disaster to the wrath of the god..."
(Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 4.8.1-9.5)


"After this Alexandros left Dareios's mother, his daughters, and his son in Susa, providing them with persons to teach them the HELLENIC DIALECT,..."
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.67.1)


"Alexandros observed that his soldiers were exhausted with their constant campaigns. ...The hooves of the horses had been worn thin by steady marching. The arms and armour were wearing out, and the HELLENIC CLOTHING was quite gone. They had to clothe themselves in materials of the barbarians,..."
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.94.1-2)

"...so said the military leaders to the camps: `We have made enough war in Persia and conquered Dareios who claimed taxes from the Hellenes, but what are we accomplishing by marching against the Indians, in scary lands and doing things IMPROPER FROM HELLAS? If Alexandros has become full of himself and wishes to be a warrior, and subjugate barbarian peoples why do we follow him? Let him move on alone and engage in wars. Having heard these Alexander separated the Persian host from the MACEDONIANS AND THE OTHER HELLENES and addressed them..."
(`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 3.1.2-4)


"But he said, `If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes'; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push THE BOUNDS OF MACEDONIA to the farthest Ocean, AND to diseminate and shower the BLESSINGS OF HELLENIC JUSTICE and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and DESIRE that VICTORIOUS HELLENES SHOULD DANCE AGAIN in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos...' "
(Plutarchos, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332 a-b)

[akritas]

Nice work perseas and Macedonia25. All these quotes need time and much reading. :read:
Carry on my friends :happy:

[nsminc]

Good work perseas!
I wonder how the skops respond to these.

[akritas]

Is considered this king (Philip) began his monarchy with the bad conditions and he conquered the bigger monarchy of Hellenes (Macedonia) increasing the hegemony no so much with the heroism of arms, as long as with the skilful handlings and his diplomacy.
[Dionysios Sikeliotis, 16-95]

[Ptolemy]

PAUSANIAS

Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

"They say that these were the clans collected by Amphictyon 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 - and from the Boeotoi that were the first that departed from Thessalia and that's when they were called Aioloi - two from each of the Phokeis and Delphi, one from the ancient Dorida, the Lokroi send one from the Ozoloi and one from the ones living beyond Evoia, one from the Evoeis. From the Peloponnesians, one from Argos, one from Sikion, one from Korinthos and Megara, one from Athens..."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Phocis Book VIII, 4


"...later they added sinorida (race between two-horse-chariots) and horse-riding. In sinorida Velistichi from Makedonia, a woman of the sea, and Tlipolemos Likion were proclaimed victors, he at the 131st Olympiad and Velistichi, in sinorida, at the third Olympiad before that (128th)..."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Iliaka, VIII, 11


ARRIAN

Arrian, "The Indica"
XXXIII: "...There a man appeared to them, wearing a Greek cloak, and dressed otherwise in the Greek fashion, and speaking Greek also. Those who first sighted him said that they burst into tears, so strange did it seem after all these miseries to see a Greek, and to hear Greek spoken. They asked whence he came, who he was; and he said that he had become separated from Alexander's camp, and that the camp, and Alexander himself, were not very far distant. Shouting aloud and clapping their hands they brought this man to Nearchus..."

XXXV: "...On this Alexander wept the more, since the safety of the force had seemed too good to be true; and then he enquired where the ships were anchored. Nearchus replied: 'They are all drawn up at the mouth of the river Anamis, and are undergoing a refit.' Alexander then called to witness Zeus of the Greeks and the Libyan, Ammon that in good truth he rejoiced more at this news than because he had conquered all Asia since the grief he had felt at the supposed loss of the fleet cancelled all his other good fortune..."

XXXVI: "...Alexander then sacrificed thank-offerings for the safety of his host, to Zeus the Saviour, Heracles, Apollo the Averter of Evil, Poseidon and all the gods of the sea; and he held a contest of art and of athletics, and also a procession..."

XXXVIII: "...The Greeks moved on thence, from the sacred island, and were already coasting along Persian territory..."

XXIX: "...Thence they sailed eight hundred stades, anchoring at Troea; there were small and poverty-stricken villages on the coast. The inhabitants deserted their huts and the Greeks found there a small quantity of corn, and dates from the palms..."

Polyvius

"But if thanks are due to the Aetolians for this single service, 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 greatest danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honourable ambition of their kings?"
Polybius, Book IX, 35, 2

"...I assert is that not only the Thessalians, but the rest of the Greeks owed their safety to Philip."
Polybius, Book IX, 33, 3

"...because he (Philip) was the benefactor of Greece, that they all chose him commander-in-chief both on sea and land, an honour previously conferred on no one."
Polybius, Book IX, 33, 7

"...he (Alexander) inflicted punishment on the Persians for their outrages on all the Greeks, and how he delivered us all from the greatest evils by enslaving the barbarians and depriving them of the resources they used for the destruction of the Greeks, pitting now the Athenians and now the Thebans against the ancestors of these Spartans, how in a word he made Asia subject to Greece."
Polybius, Book IX, 34, 3

[Ptolemy]

ISOCRATES

"...How could they (the Macedonians) prove themselves more philhellines with what they did so as the rest (the other Greeks) would not be occupied..."

Isocrates, Panigirikos, 96


"...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


"Argos is the land of your fathers, and is entitled to as much consideration at your hands as are your own ancestors..."

Isocrates, To Philip, 32


"Now I am not unaware that many of the Hellenes look upon the King's power as invincible. Yet one may well marvel at them if they really believe that the power which was subdued to the will of a mere barbarian--an ill-bred barbarian at that--and collected in the cause of slavery, could not be scattered by A MAN OF THE BLOOD OF HELLAS, of ripe experience in warfare, in the cause of freedom--and that too although they know that while it is in all cases difficult to construct a thing, to destroy it is, comparatively, an easy task.

Bear in mind that the men whom the world most admires and honors are those who unite in themselves the abilities of the statesman and the general. When, therefore, you see the renown which even in a single city is bestowed on men who possess these gifts, what manner of eulogies must you expect to hear spoken of you, when AMONG ALL THE HELLENES you shall stand forth as a statesman who has worked for the good of Hellas, and AS A GENERAL WHO HAS OVERTHROWN THE BARBARIANS?"

[Isocrates, Speeches and Letters, "To Philip", 5.139, 5.140]


"Well, if I were trying to present this matter to any others before having broached it to my own country, WHICH HAS THRICE FREED HELLAS-twice from the barbarians and ONCE FROM THE LACEDAEMONIAN YOKE--I should confess my error. In truth, however, it will be found that I turned to Athens first of all and endeavored to win her over to this cause with all the earnestness of which my nature is capable,2 but when I perceived that she cared less for what I said than for the ravings of the platform orators,3 I gave her up, although I did not abandon my efforts."

[Isocrates, Speeches and Letters, "To Philip", 5.129]


"The Lacedaemonians were the leaders of the Hellenes, not long ago, on both land and sea, and yet they suffered so great a reversal of fortune when they met defeat at Leuctra that they were deprived of their power over the Hellenes, and lost such of their warriors as chose to die rather than survive defeat at the hands of those over whom they had once been masters."

[Isocrates, Speeches and Letters, "To Philip", 5.47]


"As I continued to say many things of this tenor, those who heard me were inspired with the hope that when my discourse should be published you and the Athenians would bring the war to an end, and, having conquered your pride, would adopt some policy for your mutual good. Whether indeed they were foolish or sensible in taking this view is a question for which they, and not I, may fairly be held to account; but in any case, while I was still occupied with this endeavour, you and Athens anticipated me by making peace before I had completed my discourse; and you were wise in doing so, for to conclude the peace, no matter how, was better than to continue to be oppressed by the evils engendered by the war. [8] But although I was in joyful accord with the resolutions which were adopted regarding the peace, and was convinced that they would be beneficial, not only to us, BUT ALSO TO YOU AND ALL THE OTHER HELLENES, I could not divorce my thought from the possibilities connected with this step, but found myself in a state of mind where I began at once to consider how the results which had been achieved might be made permanent for us, and how our city could be prevented from setting her heart upon further wars, after a short interval of peace."

[Isocrates, Speeches and Letters, "To Philip", 5.8]

[Ptolemy]

PLUTARCH

Plutarch, "Moralia"

"Alexander lived many hundred years ago. He was king of Macedon, one of the states of Greece. His life was spent in war. He first conquered the other Grecian states, and then Persia, and India, and other countries one by one, till the whole known world was conquered by him. It is said that he wept, because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. He died, at the age of thirty-three, from drinking too much wine. In consequence of his great success in war, he was called Alexander the Great."

(Plutarch’s, Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A [Loeb, F.C. Babbitt])

"...Yet through Alexander (the Great) Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks… Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Greek magistracies... Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor 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, On the Fortune of Alexander I, 328D, 329A (Loeb, F.C. Babbitt)]

"But he said, ‘If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes’; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things HELLENIC, 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 HELLENIC JUSTICE and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and DESIRE THAT VICTORIOUS HELLENES SHOULD DANCE AGAIN
in India [...]"

[Plutarch's Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332A (Loeb, F.C Babbitt)]

[Ptolemy]

and the Athenians were not ready to concede the leading position among the Greeks to Macedon.

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.3.2]

Similarly, the Thebans voted to drive out the garrison in the Cadmeia and not to concede to Alexander the leadership of the Greeks.

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.3.4]

First he [Alexander] dealt with the Thessalians, reminding them of his ancient relationship to them through Heracles

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.4.1]

where he convened the assembly of the Amphictyons and had them pass a resolution granting him the leadership of the Greeks

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.4.2]

He [Demosthenes] was generally believed to have received large sums of money from that source [King of Persian] in payment for his efforts to check the Macedonians and indeed Aeschines is said to have referred to this in a speech when he taunted Demosthenes with his venality:At the moment, it is true, his extravagance has been glutted by the king's gold, but even this will not satisfy him; no wealth has ever proved sufficient for a greedy character

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.4.8]

he spoke to them in moderate terms and had them pass a resolution appointing him general plenipotentiary of the Greeks and undertaking themselves to join in an expedition against Persia seeking satisfaction for the offences which the Persians had committed against Greece

[Diodorus of Sicily, 17.4.9]

:smokin: :smokin: :smokin: :smokin:

[Ptolemy]

Here are many quotes from "The Campaigns of Alexander" by Arrian sent to me by a friend.

1)page 42, paragraph 1, lines 3-9 The story goes that Alexander, upon his succession to the throne, went into the Peloponnese, where he assembled all the Greeks in that part of the country and asked them for the command of the campaign against Persia, which they had previously granted to Phillip.
(he says in "that part of the country" refering to a Macedonian and all other Greeks. Otherwise he would have just stated "where he assembled all the Greeks of the Peloponnese". But he didn't he said "that part of the country")

2)page 103, paragraph 1, lines 2-4 They then sent a demand to the islanders for the abrogation of their agreements with Alexander and the Greeks.
(Note he didn't say ALexander and the Macedonians"

3)page 127, paragraph 1, lines 1-4 Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and Greece and caused havoc in 'OUR' country...As supreme commander of all Greece I invaded Asia because I wished to punish Persia for this act.
(Notice he says our country, refering to all the different city-states)

4)same page, lines 15-17, ...your agents corrupted my friends and tried to wreck the peace which I established in Greece...

5)page 131, par.3, lines 6-9 With our army on the track of Darius, far inland, in the direction of Babylon, the Persians might well regain control of the coast, and thus be enabled with more power behind them to transfer the war to Greece...
(this refering to his country)

Speaking about the founding of Alexandria

6)page 149, par. 1, lines 10-14 He himself designed the general layout of the new town, indicating the position of the market square, the number of temples to be built, and what gods they should serve - the gods of Greece Egyptian Isis...(Notice he said Greek gods not Macedonian)

New topic

7)page 174, par. 2, lines 1-2 Here in Susa, Alexander offered the traditional sacrifices and celebrated games and a torch race; (These are all tradionally Greek)

Mercenaries

8)page 187, par. 2, lines 17-21 ...Alexander categorically refused Greek soldiers, he maintained, who fought for the Persians against their own country were little better than criminals and had acted contrary to the resolutions of Greece.

9)page 228, par. 1, lines 9-12 His own thoughts were at present with India, and he pointed out that once India was his he would be master of all Asia, after which his intention was to return to Greece and to make from thence an expedition to the Black Sea region...
(He says Greece not Macedonia, like it Alexanders homeland.)

Hyphasis

10)page 367, par. 2, lines 1-3 Craterus' instructions were to take them home and on arrival there, to assume control of Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly and assure the freedom of Greece.(he didn't say the freedom of Macedonia.)

11)pg. 292, par. 3, lines 3-7 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...
(If he was speaking to non-Greeks he would not have said "the Greek part of Libya" because Libya was part of Egypt. This shows that when he was speaking to his troops his was talking to them as Greeks.)

12)pg.294, par.2, lines 1-2 Are you not aware that if Heracles, my ancestor, had gone no further than Tiryns or Argos...

13)pg.294, par.2, lines 13-17 ...living at ease in Macedon, merely to guard our homes, accepting no burden beyond checking the encroachment of the Thracians on our borders, or ILLYRIANS, and Tribullians, or perhaps SUCH Greeks as might prove a menace to our comfort?
(He says "such Greeks" like they are Greeks themselves refering to other Greek city-states. The Greek city-states always fought each other.)

Battle of Granicus

14)pg.76, par.1, lines 11-14 ...sent to Athens 300 full suits of armour, with the following inscription: 'Alexander, son of Phillip, and the Greeks(except the Lacedaemonians) dedicate these spoils, taken from the Persians who dwell in Asia.
(The inscription refers to Alexander as being the son of Phillip and the Greeks, thus refering to his parentage and heritage)


15)pg.219, par.2, lines 11-14 ...Dionysus belonged to Thebes, and Heracles to Argos - the latter's only connection with Macedon was through Alexander, who had his blood in his veins.(Heracles was Greek and Olympias was part of the cult of Dionysus, who was of Thebes(Greeks))

God or Man?

16)pg.221, par.2, lines 7-9 ...but of Phillip's son, a man with the blood of Heracles and Aeacus in his veins.
(Aeacus is the grandfather of Achilles who was the ancestor of Olympias, who was the daughter of Neoptolemos, the king of Epirus. Note the name and family line are all Greek.)

17)pg.221, par.2, lines 6-8 I beg you, Alexander, to remember Greece, it was for her sake alone, that you might add Asia to her empire, that you undertook this campaign.
(You will notice he said "to remember Greece...for her sake alone, that you might add Asia to HER EMPIRE(Greece)..." He never said to add to the Macedonian empire.)

[pankration]

As we on this site and others engage ourselves in endless debate with the FYROM revisionists we cite historical records from hundreds of sources to prove our point. Our intellectual adversaries do the same. We both think we're right and present (manipulate?) evidence to prove it. What we Greeks sometimes fail to do is make one important point that easily overrides the claims the FYROM supporters make to Alexander's ancestry: ALEXANDER IN EVERY SPEECH, EVERY CORRESPONDENCE AND EVERY CHALLENGE CLAIMED GREEK HERITAGE DATING BACK THOUSANDS OF YEARS. ALEXANDER, IN HIS MIND WAS GREEK. HE SPOKE IT, HE LIVED IT AND FOR THE LOVE OF IT SPREAD IT THROUGHOUT THE KNOWN WORLD. A non-Greek Macedonian (is there such a thing in the ancient world) would have imposed HIS culture on Hellas, not the other way around. No conqueror of note, regardless of origin or era, has ever taken over another country so that he could adopt its culture. Accept it: Alexander the Great was Greek. He would run a sword up your ass and out your ears if he heard you saying otherwise.

[PhiliptheUniterchaeronea]

So very true. Literally true.With a speach like that we should call you Dioxupus.

By the way Pankration, how's the sequel to PATRIDA going? How about your website? I will give it another plug, www.fightingbest.com

Hope they make the novels into movies. I really enjoyed PATRIDA.

[pankration]

Thanks to sites like this the information-gathering required to write an historical novel becomes much easier. To maintain our historical integrity I want to make the sequel to Patrida as accurate as possible within a novel format. So as you and your colleagues in this forum post articles and other sources, I am bookmarking them, making notes and creating a story. The sequel will follow Dioxippus into Asia with Alexander so I am particularly interested in the various campaigns. But I would especially like information on the ordinary people who inhabited Asia Minor. I want this novel to be written from the point of view of the "grunt" in Alexander's army. So if you guys can help, post here or go to the websites' feedback forms.
The magazine (which always has a Greek component) <www.fightingbest.com> or
<www.pankration-novel-patrida.com>

[Ptolemy]

One more i found from Polyvius 38.8

[quote]The 38th book contains the completion of the disaster of the Hellenes. For though both the whole of Hellas and her several parts had often met with mischance, yet to none of her former defeats can we more fittingly apply, the name of disaster with all it signifies than to the events of my own time. In the time I am speaking of a comon misfortune befell the Peloponnesians, the Boiotians, the Phokians, the Euboians, the Lokrians, some of the cities on the Ionians Gulf, and finally the Macedonians."

[akritas]

He set the Persian palace on fire, even though parmenio urged him to save it, arguing that it was not right to destroy his own property, and that the Asians would not thus devote themselves to him, if he seemed determined not to rule Asia, but only to pass through as a conqueror.

but Alexander replied that he intended to punish the persians for their invasion of Greece, the destruction of Athens, the burning of the temples, and all manner of terrible things done to the Greeks: because of these things, he was exacting revenge.

but Alexander does not seem to me to have acted prudently, nor can it be regarded as any kind of punishment upon Persians of long ago.

[Arrian Anab. 3. 18. 11-12].

[Ptolemy]

4 In this period, sixty-five years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established15 by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido. 5 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.

Velleius Paterculus: "The Roman History" Book I, Page 15

[Ptolemy]

‘After Philip had become possessor of a large fortune he did not spend it fast. No! he threw it outdoors and cast it away, being the worst manager in the world. This was true of his companions as well as himself. For to put it unqualifiedly, not one of them knew how to live uprightly or to manage an estate discreetly. He himself was to blame for this; being insatiable and extravagant, he did everything in a reckless manner, whether he was acquiring or giving. For as a soldier he had not time to count up revenues and expenditures. Add to this also that his companions were men who had rushed to his side from very many quarters; some were from the land to which he himself belonged, others were from Thessaly, still others were from all the rest of Greece, selected not for their supreme merit; on the contrary, nearly every man in the Greek or barbarian world of a lecherous, loathsome, or ruffianly character flocked to Macedonia and won the title of “companions of Philip.” And even supposing that one of them was not of this sort when he came, he soon became like all the rest, under the influence of the Macedonian life and habits. It was partly the wars and campaigns, partly also the extravagances of living that incited them to be ruffians, and live, not in a law-abiding spirit, but prodigally and like highwaymen.’

Theopompus 49 book of the Histories.

[akritas]

Let what I have said on this head suffice, and let those who are disposed to be cautious pronounce my words to have no bearing on the present situation. I will now revert to what my adversaries themselves speak of as the main question. And this is that if matters are now in the same state as when you made an alliance with them, you should decide to maintain your original attitude, for that is a matter of principle, but if the situation has radically changed, you are justified now in discussing the requests made to you afresh. I ask you, therefore, Cleonicus and Chlaeneas, what allies had you when you first invited the Spartans to act with you? Had you not the whole of Greece? But who make common cause with you at present or what kind of alliance do you invite them to enter? Far from being similar, the circumstances are now the reverse of what they formerly were. Then your rivals in the struggle for supremacy and renown were the Achaeans and Macedonians, peoples of your own race, and Philip was their commander. But now Greece is threatened with a war against men of a foreign race who intend to enslave her, men whom you fancy you are calling in against Philip, but are calling in really against yourselves and the whole of Greece.

[Polybius, Histories, IX, 37]

[Ptolemy]

"Even though Xerxes had a huge host with him, he was a barbarian and was defeated by the prudence of the Hellenes; whereas Alexander the Hellene has already engaged in 13 battles and has not been defeated once."
<`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 2.3.4.-5; Oration of Demosthenes>


"And, now, is justly the barbarian <Xerxes> praised by the Athenians for capturing Hellenes? As for Alexander who is a Hellene and captured Hellenes, not only did he not imprison his opponents, but enlisted them and made them his allies instead of enemies... "
<`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 2.4.5; Oration of Demosthenes>


"No king of the Hellenes had ever conquered Egypt with the exception only of Alexander, and that he did without war..."
<`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 2.4.7-8; Oration of Demosthenes>

[Ptolemy]

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.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 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.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 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.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 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.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 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.

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 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.


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.


(Quintus Curtius Rufus 8.1)

He did not want her tainting the character and civilized temperament of the Greeks with this example of barbarian lawlessnes

[Ptolemy]

"Along the valley of the Kifissos nothing was spared; Drymos, Charada, Erochos, Tethrnion, Ampikaia, Neon, Pedies, Trites, Elateia, Yampolis, Parapotamioi - all the places were burnt to ground, including Abai, where there was a temple of Apollo richly furnished with treasure and offerings of all kinds. There was an oracle there, as indeed there is today; the shrine belonging to it was plundered and burnt. A few Fokians were chased and caught near the mountains, and some women were raped successively by so many Persian soldiers that they died. At Panopes, which was reached by way of Parapotamioi, the army divided and one division, the stronger and more numerous proceeded with Xerxes towards Athens, entering Boiotia near Orchomenos. All the Boiotians had gone over to the enemy, and their towns were protected by Macedonians, sent by Alexander, to make it clear to Xerxes that the people of Boiotia were friendly to him."

<Herodotos 8.35-36>

So we learn here that King Alexander I, tried to save other Greeks (Boiotians) as the Persians stormed Central Greece after Thermopylai. And this happened not only by providing intelligence to the remaining free Greeks but also by taking protective actions towards those who were quite defenceless. :lol:

[Ptolemy]

But in consequence of their dispute nothing had been determined as to when they should set out; and when night came on the Macedonians and the mass of the Barbarians immediately took fright, as large armies are wont to be smitten with unaccountable panic... Perdikkas, who at first was not aware of their movement, was compelled, when he did learn of it, to go away without seeing Brasidas;...

Thuc, 4.125.1-2

[Ptolemy]

In fact Alexander was an Epeirot and an Aeacid on his mother's side

[Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.9.8]


Cleadas even appealed to the king's personal devotion to Hercules, who was born in their city and from whom the clan of Argeadae traced its descent, and to the fact that his father Philip had spent his boyhood in Thebes.
[Justin 11.4.5]

[Ptolemy]

"Alexander... then reached the country of the Ariaspas [an ancient Iranian people]... and found out that these people did not handle their public affairs as the Barbarians of the region, but delivered justice in a fashion close to that of the best Greeks, so he left them free and gave them as much of the neighboring lands they asked"

Anabasis of Alexander, 3.27.4-5


"There is a Macedonian holiday devoted to Dionysos...; but Alexander had introduced Barbarian elements in the festivity..."

Anabasis of Alexander 4.8.1-2


"And the Macedonians were truly disappointed because they believed that he [Alexander] chose to follow the Barbarian ways over the Macedonian customs and the Macedonians."

Anabasis of Alexander 7.6.5

[Ptolemy]

The month 'Bysios' as many think, is the month of growth (physios); for it begins the spring and during it many plants spring up and come into bloom. But this is not the truth of the matter, for Delphians do not use b in place of ph (as Macedonians do who say 'Bilip' and 'balacros' and 'Beronice'), but in place of p; thus they naturally say 'broceed' for 'proceed' and 'bainful' for 'painful'. Accordingly 'Bysios, is 'Pysios', the month of oracular inquiry, in which men ask quesions and obtain responses from the god.

Plutarch, Moralia IV

[Ptolemy]

As for the people of Cius, it was not I who made war on them, but when Prusias did so I helped him to exterminate them, and all through your fault. 8For on many occasions when I and the other Greeks sent embassies to you begging you to remove from your statutes the law empowering you to get booty from booty, you replied that you would rather remove Aetolia from Aetolia than that law

Polyvius "Histories" 18, 4

[Ptolemy]

[3]One of the latter was Thais. She too had had too much to drink, when she claimed that, if Alexander gave the order to burn the Persian palace, he would earn the deepest gratitude among all the Greeks. This was what the people whose cities the Persians had destroyed were expecting, she said. [4] As the drunken whore gave her opinion on a matter of extreme importance, one or two who were themselves the worse for drink agreed with her. The king, too, was enthusiastic rather than acquiescent. ‘Why do we not avenge Greece, then, and put the city to the torch?’ he asked. [5] They were all flushed with wine, and they got up drunk, to burn a city which they had spared while under arms. Alexander took the lead, setting fire to the palace, to be followed by his drinking companions, his attendants and the courtesans. Large sections of the palace had been made of cedar, so they quickly took flame and spread the conflagration over a large area. [6] The army, encamped not far from the city, caught sight of the fire. Thinking it was accidental, came running in a body to help. [7] But when they reached the palace portico, they saw themselves their king still piling on torch-wood, so they dropped the water they had brought and began throwing dry wood into the blaze themselves.
[8] Such was the end of the palace that had ruled all the East.

[Curtius 5.7.3]


The most celebrated of these was Thais, an Athenian, at that time the mistress of Ptolemy who later became the ruler of Egypt. As the drinking went on, Thais delivered a speech which was intended partly as a graceful compliment to Alexander and partly to amuse him. What she said was typical of the spirit of Athens, but hardly in keeping with her own situation. She declared that all the hardships she had endured in wandering about Asia had been amply repaid on that day, when she found herself reveling luxuriously in the splendid palace of the Persians, but that it would be an even sweeter pleasure to end the party by going out and setting fire to the palace of Xerxes, who had laid Athens in ashes. She wanted to put a torch to the building herself in full view of Alexander, so that posterity should know that the women who followed Alexander had taken a more terrible revenge for the wrongs of Greece than all the famous commanders of earlier times by land or sea. Her speech was greeted with wild applause and the king’s companions excitedly urged him on until at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, leaped to his feet, and with a garland on his head and a torch in his hand led the way. The other revelers followed, shouting and dancing, and surrounded the palace, and those of the Macedonians who had heard what was afoot delightedly ran up bringing torches with them. They did this because they hoped that the act of burning and destroying the palace signified that Alexander’s thoughts were turning towards home, and that he was not planning to settle among the barbarians. According to a number of historians it was in this way that the palace was burned down, that is on impulse, but there are others who maintain that it was an act of deliberate policy. However this may be, it is agreed that Alexander quickly repented and gave orders for the fire to be put out.

Plutarch: Alexander 38

[Ptolemy]

Alexander held games in honour of his victories. He performed costly sacrifices to the gods and entertained his friends bountifully. While they were feasting and the drinking was far advanced, as they began to be drunken a madness took possession of the minds of the intoxicated guests. At this point one of the women present, Thais by name and Attic by origin, said that for Alexander it would be the finest of all is feats in Asia if he joined them in a triumphal procession, set fire to the palaces, and permitted women’s hands in a minute to extinguish the famed accomplishments of the Persians. This was said to men who were still young and giddy with wine, and so, as would be expected, someone shouted out to form the comus and to light torches, and urged all to take vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples.

Diodorus XVII.72.1

[Ptolemy]

..the Achaean magistrates refused the latter request on the ground that they were not empowered to receive additional members without consulting Philip and the rest of the allies. For the alliance was still in force which Antigonus had concluded during the Cleomenic war between the Achaeans, Epirots, Phocians, Macedonians, Boeotians, Acarnanians,º and Thessalians. They, however, agreed to march out to their assistance on condition that the envoys deposited in Sparta their own sons as hostages, to ensure that the Messenians should not come to terms with the Aetolians without the consent of the Achaeans.

[Polybius IV, 9, 4]

Its well known Antigonos III established the Hellenic League (symmachy) against Cleomenes and Sparta. Of course Macedonians as Greeks were included. :clapping:

[Ptolemy]

Alexander came by the statue of his father and spoke loud: `Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians... and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for AS Hellenes WE should not be slaves to barbarians.'

<`Pseudo-Kallisthenes' 1.15.1-4>

[Ptolemy]

"Antiochos Epiphanes... became king in the 137th year of the kingdom of the HELLENES."

<Maccabees 1 1.11>

[Ptolemy]

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 honourable ambition of their kings?

The Histories of Polybius, IX, 35, 2 (Loeb, W.R. Paton).

And next the kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life

Herodotus, History VIII, 144, 2 (Loeb, A.D. Godley).

[Spirit]

Strabon, Geography

"[6] Next comes the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. Although the
mouth of this gulf is but slightly more than four stadia wide, the
circumference is as much as three hundred stadia; and it has
good harbors everywhere. That part of the country which is on
the right as one sails in is inhabited by the Greek Acarnanians."

And that goes together with this:

MACEDONIA - An Ancient GREEK Land


In the year 200 B.C. the Macedonian King Philip V sent
Macedonian ambassadors to the council of the Aetolian
League, the 'Panaetolian Congress', to try to prevent the
Romans from inducing the Aetolians to change their allegiance
from Philip V to the Romans in their 2nd Macedonian War.
At the council was also the Roman representative
sent by the consul, and also a deputation from the
Athenians who were the Romans' allies at this time.
A hearing was first given to the Macedonians.
The Macedonian delegates said:

'..........the same reasons which led them (the Aetolians)
to make peace with Philip should lead them to keep that
peace, once it had been established'.
'Or do you prefer' said one of the the delegates, '.......
................ . It is sheer madness to expect anything will
remain in the same state if aliens, more widely separated
from you by language, customs and laws than by distance
over sea and land, obtain control over these parts.
Philip's rule ............. . Allow the foreign legions to settle
down in these parts and take the yoke on your shoulders;
then it will be too late and all in vain to call on Philip as
your ally, when you have the Roman for your lord. The
Aetolians, the Acarnanians, the Macedonians, are divided
or united by unimportant causes that arise from time
to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks are and
will be for ever at war; for they are enemies not for
reasons which change from day to day, but by nature -
and nature is eternal. But now my speech will end .........'


Livy (Titus Livius), XXXI.28 - XXXI.29
from LIVY. ROME AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Translated by HENRY BETTENSON
PENGUIN CLASSICS
For fair use only


And, back to STRABON!

"Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece, yet now, since I am
following the nature and shape of the places geographically, I
have decided to classify it apart from the rest of Greece and
to join it with that part of Thrace which borders on it and extends
as far as the mouth of the Euxine and the Propontis. Then, a
little further on, Strabo mentions Cypsela and the Nebrus River,
and also describes a sort of parallelogram in which the whole
of Macedonia lies.
Fr. 10

"But of all these tribes the Argeadae,108 as they are called,
established themselves as masters"

"The Peneius forms the boundary between Lower Macedonia,
or that part of Macedonia which is close to the sea, and Thessaly
and Magnesia; the Haliacmon forms the boundary of
Upper Macedonia; and the Haliacmon also, together with the
Erigon and the Axius and another set of rivers, form the boundary
of the Epeirotes and the Paeonians.
Fr. 12a

"For if, according to the Geographer, Macedonia stretches from the
Thessalian Pelion and Peneius towards the interior as far as Paeonia
and the Epeirote tribes, and if the Greeks had at Troy an allied force
from Paeonia, it is difficult to conceive that an allied force came to
the Trojans from the aforesaid more distant part of Paeonia."
Fr. 13

Spirit

[Spirit]

Curtius 6.9.35
"Praeter Macedones plerique adsunt, quos facilius quae dicam percepturos
arbitror, si eadem lingua fuero usus qua tu egisti; non ob aliud, credo,
quam ut oratio tua intelligi posset a pluribus".

And the translation

"Besides the Macedonians there are many present who, I think, will
more easily understand what I shall say if I use the same language which
you have employed, for no other reason, I suppose, than in order that you
speech might be understood by the greater number."

The crucial words are "more easily".

That speech clearly shows that Macedonian was actually understandable
by other Greeks but "not so easily". Now, just how would anyone try to
explain that all the Greek warriors could understand with some difficuly
the Macedonian language if it was not a dialect of Greek.

Also, as an aside, that the sentence also means that ALL the
Macedonians understood the common Greek of their time at that
early time period as considered against later Hellenistic times so
_their_ language had to be a dialect of Greek.

Spirit

[Spirit]

De Fortuna Alexandri by Plutarch Loeb Classical Library, 1936:

"But after Philip's end, when Alexander was eager to cross over and, already absorbed in his hopes and preparations, was hastening to gain a hold upon Asia, Fortune, seizing upon him, blocked his way, turned him about, dragged him back, and surrounded him with countless distractions and delays. First she threw into the utmost commotion the barbarian elements among his neighbours, and contrived wars with the Illyrians and Triballians. By these wars he was drawn from his Asiatic projects as far away as the portion of Scythia that lies along the Danube; when, by sundry manoeuvres, he had subjugated all this territory with much danger and great struggles, he was again eager and in haste for the crossing. Again, however, Fortune stirred up Thebes against him, and thrust in his pathway a war with Greeks, and the dread necessity of punishing, by means of slaughter and fire and sword, men that were his kith and kin, a necessity which had a most unpleasant ending."


And:

De Fortuna Alexandri by Plutarch Loeb Classical Library, 1936:

"But Virtue was by his side and in him she engendered daring, and in his companions strength and zeal. For men like Limnaeus and Ptolemy and Leonnatus and all those who had surmounted the wall or had broken through it took their stand before him and were a bulwark of Virtue, exposing their bodies in the face of the foe and even their lives for the goodwill and love they bore their king. Surely it is not due to Fortune that the companions of good kings risk their lives and willingly die for them; but this they do through a passion for Virtue, even as bees, as if under the spell of love-charms, approach and closely surround their sovereign. What spectator, then, who might without danger to himself have been present at that scene, would not exclaim that he was witnessing the mighty contest of Fortune and Virtue; that through Fortune the foreign host was prevailing beyond its deserts, but through Virtue the Greeks were holding out beyond their ability? And if the enemy gains the upper hand, this will be the work of Fortune or of some jealous deity or of divine retribution; but if the Greeks prevail, it will be Virtue and daring, friendship and fidelity, that will win the guerdon of victory? These were, in fact, the only support that Alexander had with him at this time, since Fortune had put a barrier between him and the rest of his forces and equipment, fleets, horse, and camp. Finally, the Macedonians routed the barbarians, and, when they had fallen, pulled down their city on their heads."

And:

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

For fair use only

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

Not to forget:

For fair use only

http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/L/Roman/Texts/Curtius/10*.html


"Caput X
Perdicca perducto in urbem exercitu consilium principum virorum habuit, in quo imperium ita dividi placuit, ut rex quidem summam eius obtineret, satrapes Ptolemaeus Aegypti esset et Africae gentium, quae in dicione erant. Laomedonti Syria cum Phoenice data est, Philotae Cilicia destinata, Lyciam cum Pamphylia et maiore Phrygia obtinere iussus Antigonus, in Cariam Cassander, Menander in Lydiam missi. Phrygiam minorem Hellesponto
adiunctam Leonnati provinciam esse iusserunt. Cappadocia Eumeni cum Paphlagonia cessit: praeceptum est, ut regionem eam usque ad Trapezunta defenderet et bellum cum Ariarathe gereret: solus hic detrectabat imperium. Pithon Mediam, Lysimachus Thraciam adpositasque Thraciae Ponticas gentes obtinere iussi. Qui Indiae quique Bactris et Sogdianis ceterique aut Oceani aut rubri maris accolis praeerant, quibus quisque finibus habuisset imperium, obtinerent decretum est: Perdicca ut cum rege esset copiisque praeesset, quae regem sequebantur. Credidere quidam testamento Alexandri distributas esse provincias, sed famam eius rei, quamquam ab auctoribus tradita est, vanam fuisse conperimus. Et quidem suas quisque opes divisis imperii partibus prudenter ipsi fundaverant, si umquam adversus inmodicas cupiditates terminus staret: quippe paulo ante regis ministri specie imperii alieni procurandi singuli ingentia invaserant regna sublatis certaminum causis, cum et omnes eiusdem gentis essent et a ceteris sui quisque imperii regione discreti. Sed difficile erat eo contentos esse, quod obtulerat occasio: quippe sordent prima quaeque, cum maiora sperantur. Itaque omnibus exoptatius videbatur augere regna, quam fuisset accipere."

Translation:

"Cappadocia and Paphlagonia fell to Eumenes........

.........and any pretext for conflict was removed since they all belonged to the same race and were geographically separated from each other by the boundaries of their several jurisdictions."


As we all know, Eumenes was a Greek.... but NOT a Macedonian Greek.

So, with his final words Q. Curtius Rufus states that without question the Macedonians were Greeks.


:)


from: Spirit of Truth

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

[Spirit]

Arrian's Life of Alexander the Great. Penguin Classics. Translated by Aubrey De Selincourt.

Page 172

"Porus, bringing up his elephants, followed these movements, guided by the noise, and Alexander gradually led him to make these marches, parallel to his own, a regular thing. This went on for some time, until Porus, finding that the Greeks never went beyond shouts and yells, gave it up. Clearly, it was a false alarm; so he ceased to follow the movements of the Greek cavalry and stayed where he was in his original position with lookouts posted at various points along the river."

Page 182


"Alexander promptly sent for Abisares, adding a threat that, should he fail to appear he would soon see the Greek army and its commander-in-chief and in an unwelcome spot."


:)

Spirit

[sokrates]

Excuse me for posting here but i m not familiar with the site.
I just want help from you in something.
I want to translate the lyrics of thoukididis ΒΟΟΚ Α-142.
Ι ll give you the lyrics in Ancient Greek and i would like from you to correct it.

"Το δε ναυτικόν τέχνης εστίν,
ώσπερ και άλλο τι,και ουκ ενδέχεται,
όταν τύχη,εκ παρέργου μελετάσθαι,
αλλά μάλλον μηδέν εκείνω,
πάρεργον άλλο γίγνεσθαι."

Ι hope you can read ancient greek language and copy the translation in english from a book.
Sorry again if i ' m totally out of topic but i have searched all the internet for this translation and i cannot find it.
Thank you in advance.

ps:Sorry for my english (i' m from Greece)

[Ptolemy]

It has been reported to me that it was the rhetorician Isocrates who was responsible for the servitude that the Macedonians imposed on the Persians. For the fame of the speech Panegyricus, which Isocrates delivered to the Greeks, spread to Macedonia, and it was this that first stirred Philip's animosity towards Asia. When Philip died, the speech provided the incentive for his son Alexander, heir to his father's estate to keep up Philip's momentum.

Aelian, Varia Historia 13.11

[akritas]

Excuse me for posting here but i m not familiar with the site.
I just want help from you in something.
I want to translate the lyrics of thoukididis ΒΟΟΚ Α-142.
Ι ll give you the lyrics in Ancient Greek and i would like from you to correct it.

"Το δε ναυτικόν τέχνης εστίν,
ώσπερ και άλλο τι,και ουκ ενδέχεται,
όταν τύχη,εκ παρέργου μελετάσθαι,
αλλά μάλλον μηδέν εκείνω,
πάρεργον άλλο γίγνεσθαι."


**It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary, it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else**
(Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War,A-142)

sokrates just next time post in the free macedonia forum please :)

[Ptolemy]

Alexander the Macedonian, son of Philip, marched out from the land of Kittim, defeated Darius king of Persia and Media and became king in his place; he was already king of Greece. He waged many wars, conquered strongholds, and slaughtered kings in the land. He marched to the ends of the earth, and seized plunder from a mass of peoples, The earth fell silent before him, he was exalted, and his heart was filled with pride. He gathered a mighty army and ruled over territories, peoples, and despots, and they paid tribute to him. After that he fell ill on his bed and realised that his death was near. He summoned the most distinguished of his followers, men who had been brought up with him from his youth, and divided his kingdom between them while he was still alive. He reigned for twelve years and then died. His followers assumed power, each in his own province, and they all put on the diadem' after his death; they were succeeded by their own children over a period of many years. The earth was filled with miseries.

I Maccabees 1.1-9

[Ptolemy]

But if you consider the effects of Alexander’s instruction, you will see that he educated the Hyrcanians to contract marriages, taught the Arachosians to till the soil, and persuaded rhe Sogdians to support their parents, not to kill them, and the Persians to respect their mothers, not to marry them. Most admirable philosophy which induced the Indians to worship Greek gods and rhe Scythians ro bury their dead and nor to eat them! We admire the power of Carncades, who caused Clitomachus formerly called Hasdrubal and a Carthaginian by birth, to adopt Greek ways . We admire the character of Zeno, who persuaded Diogenes the Babylonian to turn to philosophy. Yet when Alexander was taming Asia. Homer became widely read, and the children of the Persians, of the Susianians and the Cedrosians sang the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. And Socrates was condemned by the sycophants in Athens for introducing new deities, while thanks to Alexander Bactria and the Caucasus worshipped the gods of the Greeks. Plato drew up in writing one ideal constitution but amid not persuade anyone to adopt it because of its severity, while Alexander founded over 70 cities among barbarian tribes*" sprinkled Greek institutions all over Asia, and so overcame its wild and savage manner of living- Few of us read Plato's Laws but the laws of Alexander have been and are still used by millions of men. Those who were subdued by Alexander are more fortunate than those who escaped him, for the latter had no one to rescue them from their wretched life, while rhe victorious Alexander compelled the former to enjoy a better existence. |. […] Alexanders victims would not have been civilised if they had not been defeated. Egypt would not have had its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Selcucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus (the Hindu Kush) a Greek city nearby; (329) their foundation extinguished barbarism, and custom changed the worse into better. If, therefore, philosophers take the greatest pride in taming and correcting the fierce and untutored elements of men's character, and if Alexander has been shown to have changed the brutish customs of countless nations then it would be justifiable to regard him as a very great philosopher.
Furthermore the much-admired Republic of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, is built around one guiding principle: we should not live in separate cities and demes each using its own rules of justice, but we should consider all men to be fellow demesmen and citizens, with one common life and order for all, like a Hock feeding together in a common pasture. This Zeno wrote, conjuring up as it were a dream or an image of a well-ordered and philosophic constitution, but it was Alexander who turned this idea into reality, for he did not follow the advice of Aristotle and treat the Greeks as a leader would but the barbarians as a master* nor did he show care for the Greeks as friends and kinsmen, while treating the others as animals or plants; this would have filled his realm with many wars and exiles and festering unrest. Rather believing that he had come as a god-sent governor and mediator of the whole world he overcame by arms those he could not bring over by persuasion and brought men together from all over the world mixing together, as it were in a loving-cup their lives customs, marriages and ways of living. He instructed all men to consider the inhabited world to be their native land, and his camp to be their acropolis and their defence, while they should regard as kinsmen all good men, and the wicked as strangers. The difference between Greeks and barbarians was not a matter of cloak or shield, or of a scimitar or Median dress. What distinguished Greekness was excellence, while wickedness was the mark of the barbarian; clothing, food, marriage and way of life rhey should all regard as common, being blended together by ties of blood and the bearing of children.

Plutarch, DeAlexandri Magni Fortuna aut Virtute. I 328C-329H

[pankration]

Can you imagine what a dark, unenlightened world this would be if it weren't for Alexander spreading the ideals of Hellenism across the civilizations of the time?

[Istor]

http://www.starkrealities.com/fortune.html

:)

[Ptolemy]

To this part came as settlers Mycenaeans from Argolis because of a catastrophe. Though the Argives could not take the wall of Mycenae by storm, [6] built as it was like the wall of Tiryns by the Cyclopes, as they are called, yet the Mycenaeans were forced to leave their city through lack of provisions. Some of them departed for Cleonae, but more than half of the population took refuge with Alexander in Macedonia, to whom Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, entrusted the message to be given to the Athenians.

(Pausanias 7.25.6)

[Ptolemy]

But some go so far as to call the whole of the country Macedonia, as far as Corcyra, at the same time stating as their reason that in tonsure, LANGUAGE, short cloak, and other things of the kind, the usages of the inhabitants are similar

Strabo 7.7.8

[admin]

Great stuff here :)

[Ptolemy]

12 Egypt is now a Province; and it not only pays considerable tribute, but also is governed by prudent men81 — the praefects who are sent there from time to time. Now he who is sent has the rank of the king; and subordinate to him is the administrator of justice,82 who has supreme authority over most of the law-suits; and another is the official called Idiologus,83 who inquires into all properties that are without owners and that ought to fall to Caesar; and these are attended by freedmen of Caesar, as also by stewards, who are entrusted with affairs of more or less importance. There are also three legions of soldiers, one of which is stationed in the city and the others in the country; and apart from these there are nine Roman cohorts, three in the city, three on the borders of Aethiopia in Syenκ, as a guard for that region, and three in the rest of the country. And there are also three bodies of cavalry, which likewise are assigned to the various critical points. Of the native officials in the city, one is the Interpreter,84 who is clad in purple, has hereditary prerogatives, and has charge of the interests of the city; and another the Recorder;85 and another the Chief Judge;86 and the fourth the Night Commander.87 Now these officers existed also in the time of the kings, but, since the kings were carrying on a bad government, the prosperity of the cities was also vanishing on account of the prevailing lawlessness. At any rate, Polybius, who had visited the city, is disgusted with the state of p51things then existing; and he says that three classes inhabited the city: first, the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not88 inclined to strife; and, secondly, the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable (for by an ancient custom they would maintain foreign men-at‑arms, who had been trained to rule rather than to be ruled, on account of the worthlessness of the kings); and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others,89 for even though they were a mixed people, still they were Greeks by ORIGIN and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks. But after this mass of people had also been blotted out, chiefly by Euergetes Physcon, in whose time Polybius went to Alexandria (for, being opposed by factions, Physcon more often sent the masses against the soldiers and thus caused their destruction) — such being the state of affairs in the city, Polybius says, in very truth there remained for one, in the words of the poet, merely "to go to Aegypt, a long and painful journey."90

Strabo Book XVII, 12

[Ptolemy]

The Khians were the first of the Hellenes to employ slaves after the Thessalians and the Lakedaimonians, but they did not acquire them in the same way. For it will become clear that the Lakedaimonians and the Thessalians recruited their slave labour force from the Hellenes who were already occupying the land which they now possess , the Lakedaimonians from the Akhaians and the Thessalians from the Perrhaiboi and Magnesians, and they call those who have been enslaved helots and penestai respectively.

Theopompus of Chios, 17th book of his histories (115 FGrHm)

Every day passing the fairy tale skopjans are living into is fading. Theopompus makes it clear Magnesians the closest relatives of Macedonians were Hellenes, just like Macedonians.

[Ptolemy]

50. Darius ruled for six years. Alexander, conquering Illyricum and Thrace, from there took Jerusalem and, entering the Temple, burned sacrifices to God. The kingdom of the Persians still remained standing. From this point began the kings of the Greeks.

51. Alexander the Macedonian ruled for fifteen years. In his last five years, in the order of years by which they are numbered, he obtained the monarchy of Asia, having destroyed the kingdom of the Persians. His first seven years are thought to have been spent among the kings of the Persians. From this point begin the kings of Alexandria.

52. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, ruled for forty years. Having seized Judea, he moved many of the Hebrews into Egypt. In this time Zeno the Stoic, Menander the comic, and Theophrastus the philosopher excelled. At the same time the first book of the Maccabees was begun.

53. Ptolemy Philadelphus ruled for thirty-eight years. He released the Jews that were in Egypt and, restoring the holy vase to Eleazar the priest, he sought out seventy translators and translated the divine scriptures into Greek. At the same time Aratus was acknowledged as an astrologer and the silver coins of the Romans were minted for the first time.

54. Ptolemy Evergetes ruled for twenty-six years. Under him Jesus, the son of Sirach, composed the Book of Wisdom. (4,978)

55. Ptolemy Philopator ruled for twenty-seven years. The Jews were defeated by him in battle, 60,000 soldiers falling. At the same time the consul Marcellus conquered Sicily.

56. Ptolemy Epiphanes ruled for twenty-four years. In his time the events occurred which are contained in the story of the second book of the Maccabees. In this age the Romans ordered the vanquished Greeks to be freed, saying: "It is impious to enslave people from the place where philosophy, the master of morals and the inventor of liberal disciplines, first arose." At the same time Ennius was celebrated as the first distinguished Latin poet of Rome.

57. Ptolemy Philomater ruled for thirty-five years. Antiochus overcame him in battle and oppressed the Jews with various calamities. At the same time Scipio conquered Africa. Terence the comic excelled.

58. Ptolemy Evergetes ruled for twenty-nine years. At this time Spain was conquered by the Romans under the consul Brutus.

59. Ptolemy Soter ruled for seventeen years. Varro and Cicero were born. Thrace was subjected to the Romans.

60. Ptolemy Alexander ruled for ten years. Syria passed under the dominion of the Romans under the general Gabinus. Also the poet Lucretius was born, who later killed himself as a result of a lover's madness.

61. Ptolemy, son of Cleopatra, ruled for eight years. At the same time Plotius Gallus was the first to teach Latin rhetoric in Rome. At that time also Sallust the historian was born.

62. Ptolemy Dionysius ruled for thirty years. Pompey, having captured Jerusalem, made the Jews tributaries to the Romans. At the same time the philosopher Cato excelled. Virgil was born in Mantua, Horace in Venusia. At that time also Apollodorus, preceptor of the emperor, was regarded as illustrious and Cicero was celebrated with praise for his oratory.

63. Cleopatra ruled for two years. She was the daughter of Ptolemy (XI), king of the Egyptians, and sister and wife of her brother Ptolemy (XIII). Desiring to defraud him of the kingdom, in a time of civil war in Alexandria, she went to Caesar, who was besieging the city, and, using pretense and debasing herself, she begged, in the presence of Julius, for the death of Ptolemy and to have the kingdom for herself. The kingdom of Alexandria, in the third year of the reign of Cleopatra, passed under the dominion of the Romans under Julius Caesar.

Isidore of Seville, 'Chronicon'. English Translation

[Flipper]

Pausanias, A Description of Greece [1.37.5]

Of the tombs, the largest and most beautiful are that of a Rhodian who settled at Athens, and the one made by the Macedonian Harpalus, who ran away from Alexander and crossed with a fleet from Asia to Europe. On his arrival at Athens he was arrested by the citizens, but ran away after bribing among others the friends of Alexander. But before this he married Pythonice, whose family I do not know, but she was a courtesan at Athens and at Corinth. His love for her was so great that when she died he made her a tomb which is the most noteworthy of all the old Greek tombs.

[Flipper]

PAUSANIAS, DESCRIPTION OF GREECE, [1.9.8]


Besides, Lysimachus was surely aware that they were the ancestors not of Pyrrhus only but also of Alexander. In fact Alexander was an Epeirot and an Aeacid on his mother's side, and the subsequent alliance between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus proves that even as enemies they were not irreconcilable. Possibly Hieronymus had grievances against Lysimachus, especially his destroying the city of the Cardians and founding Lysimachea in its stead on the isthmus of the Thracian Chersonesus.


[10.19.7]


Ptolemy himself perished in the fighting, and the Macedonian losses were heavy. But once more the Celts lacked courage to advance against Greece, and so the second expedition returned home.

[Flipper]

Aristotle, Politics


Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But
the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent.


http://www.greektexts.com/library/Aristotle/Politics/eng/print/1571.html

[Flipper]

Lucian, writes about the dead dialogues of Alexander and Hannibal. Alexander says he is a better man and asks Minos to decide about that. Minos doesn't know none of the two men, but is willing to be a judge.


MINOS
Well, you shall each have your say in turn: the Libyan first.


In the speech of Hanibbal we read the following:


HANNIBAL

Fortunately for me, Minos, I have mastered Greek since I have been here (Hades);
.
.
.

Yet I was a barbarian all unskilled in Greek culture; I could not recite Homer, nor had I enjoyed the advantages of Aristotle's instruction; I had to make a shift with such qualities as were mine by nature
.
.
.
for Macedonians such things may have charms



Hannibal is trying to put a stop to any advantage that Alexander might use, especially in terms of Greek culture. He presents the dissadvantage that he (Hannibal) is a barbarian from Libya, contrary to Alexander, but since he went there (Hades) he had mastered his Greek. Greek culture, language and education is what Macedonians have charm to.


Alexander would then have to use his merrits as a millitary commander.



ALEXANDER
By the destruction of Thebes, I inspired the Greeks with such awe, that they appointed me their commander-in-chief.


Commander in chief of what? The Greek states and Kindoms ofcourse. Would he need to ask them? Ofcourse not, the Greeks had found their new leader.

[Truth Bearer]

The original quote by Titu Livius in original Latin clearly bombing the Skops
Bk 31 section 29
Aetolos Acarnanas Macedonas, eiusdem linguae homines, leues ad tempus ortae causae diiungunt coniunguntque: cum alienigenis, cum barbaris aeternum omnibus Graecis bellum est eritque; natura enim, quae perpetua est, non mutabilibus in diem causis hostes sunt. sed unde coepit oratio mea, ibi desinet.

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/livy/liv.31.shtml

It's clear that he says same language.....

Trifling causes occasionally unite and disunite the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians, men speaking the same language. With foreigners, with barbarians, all Greeks have, and ever will have, eternal war: because they are enemies by nature, which is always the same, and not from causes which change with the times.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12582/12582-h/12582-h.htm#e29