Ancient/ non-modern historians on Ancient Macedonia and Macedonians

[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.

[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