Ptolemy
08-19-2006, 02:42 PM
In response to the misinformation and falsification of history from the propagandistic site of FYROM http://faq.macedonia.org we are going to provide references both by Ancient and Modern sources refuting the lies of FYROM pseudohistorians.
ANCIENT GREEKS REFERING TO THE MACEDONIANS AS GREEK:
1. 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). ]
Speech of Lykiskos, the representative of Akarnania to the Lakedaimonians (Spartans):
2.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]
ISOCRATES TO PHILIP OF MACEDON
3. "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]
4."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]
5."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>
6."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>
7. 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)
8.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]
9."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]
10. 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>
11.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."
[Polyvius 38.8]
MACEDONIANS VERIFYING THAT THEY ARE GREEK:
12. "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)
13. "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)
14. 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)
15. "...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)
Speech of the Macedonian ambassador to the Aitolians:
16. "The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same speech, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day."
(T. Livius XXXI,29, 15)
ALEXANDER I OF MACEDON SPEAKING TO ATHENEANS:
17. "Men of Athens... Had I not greatly AT HEART the COMMON welfare of GREECE I should not have come to tell you; but I AM MYSELF GREEK by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery. ...If you prosper in this war, forget not to do something for my freedom; consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the GREEK CAUSE, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am ALEXANDER of MACEDON.'"
[ Herodotus, The Histories, 9.45, translated by G.Rawlinson]
FOREIGNERS REFERING TO MACEDONIANS AS GREEK:
18.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]
19. "Antiochos Epiphanes... became king in the 137th year of the kingdom of the HELLENES."
<Maccabees 1 1.11>
20. "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."
(T. Livius,XLV)
ANCIENT GREEKS REFERING TO THE MACEDONIANS AS GREEK:
1. 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). ]
Speech of Lykiskos, the representative of Akarnania to the Lakedaimonians (Spartans):
2.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]
ISOCRATES TO PHILIP OF MACEDON
3. "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]
4."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]
5."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>
6."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>
7. 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)
8.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]
9."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]
10. 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>
11.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."
[Polyvius 38.8]
MACEDONIANS VERIFYING THAT THEY ARE GREEK:
12. "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)
13. "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)
14. 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)
15. "...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)
Speech of the Macedonian ambassador to the Aitolians:
16. "The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same speech, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day."
(T. Livius XXXI,29, 15)
ALEXANDER I OF MACEDON SPEAKING TO ATHENEANS:
17. "Men of Athens... Had I not greatly AT HEART the COMMON welfare of GREECE I should not have come to tell you; but I AM MYSELF GREEK by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery. ...If you prosper in this war, forget not to do something for my freedom; consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the GREEK CAUSE, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am ALEXANDER of MACEDON.'"
[ Herodotus, The Histories, 9.45, translated by G.Rawlinson]
FOREIGNERS REFERING TO MACEDONIANS AS GREEK:
18.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]
19. "Antiochos Epiphanes... became king in the 137th year of the kingdom of the HELLENES."
<Maccabees 1 1.11>
20. "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."
(T. Livius,XLV)