 Macedonians and Hellas
By RedDevil
Settled for many centuries in the vast plains and mountainsides of the region to the north of Thessaly, the Macedonians for a long time were only a population of shepherds divided in totemic clans that practiced a form of sheep raising based on tranhumance. Their ethnic origins are withought a doubt an Indo-European people,but they differed from the Illyrian and Thracian tribes that lived in the nearby areas. In all probability related to the populations of Hellas even if, because of their near-total isolation, the Macedonians had not been part of the cultural and civil growth in the nearby southern regions. Their language was a dialect of the Greek language, but because of the region`s autonomy it had developed in an independant way, such that in historical times it was almost incomprehensible to true Greeks, also because of it`s very particular pronunciation, wich turned "ch" into "g" and "f" in "b",and prounounced the name of the king as "Bilip" instead of "Philip" using "B" instead of the "F".
More than linguistic differences,what made them suspect in the eyes of the rest of the Greeks was their backwardness, making them similar to barbarian populations. Closed in the deeply forested wilderness valleys,still home to wolves and bears and still contested to warlike tribes, the Macedonians were late to develop a group of consciousness. In historical times, the social, economic, and religious conditions of the region had been decidedly primitive. The inhabitants lived in small, undefended villages in the middle of the woods, and even the capitals, Aigai and Pella, completly lacked the political activities that were believed to be fundamental in all the communities of Hellas. Primordial forms of organization still held on in Macedonia. Withought written laws, a man`s value was measured by his skills as a hunter or a warrior against his neighbours and by his ability to drink large quantities of alcoholic drinks. At banquets,those who had not yet killed a boar or a man had to sit apart, on uncomfortable stools. The very organization of the state, based on the presence of a king, a figure that by then had disapeared almost everywere in Greece, was so archaic that it recalled the ancient monarchies of Homer, with their rulers that became leaders in time of war but during peacetime hardly differed from the feudal barons that surrounded them at court. These condidtions began to change beginning in the fifth century BC, when permanent relations with the southern cities were established. From then on, the members of the ruling dynasty, the Argeads, made efforts to join the Greek civilization and openly proclaimed their Greekness. The ancestor of Philip II, Alexander I, called Philhellene, "lover of the Greeks," thus "Patriot" (a title that many notable Spartans and Athenians were also given to them for the love they had for Hellas or Hellenes) managed to prove the Argive origin of his family, and to thus qualify for admission to the Olympic games, wich were off-limits to all barbarians. His nephew Archelaus sought to transform Pella into a cultural center, generously hosting artists and writers, among them the famous dramatist Euripides. The modernization of the country was completed by Philip II, who continued and expanded the policies of Archelaus by inviting Aristotle, the most brilliant student of the famous Plato to the Macedonian court to teach the young Alexander and a group of royal pages. In addition to sudying Homer and the great classical tragedians,their lessons with Aristotle also included the writtings of Herodotus,the study also of geography and the sciences,in particular zoology and botany. Aristotle also gave Alexander and his friends training in the field of medicine, at least enough to treat wounds and prescribe cures. Naturally, a great deal of attention was given to the subject of ethics. The importance of virtues in wich Alexander translated these teachings in to the desire to always excel and prove himself the best. Finally, the practice of "moderation" to why the Greeks are superior to the Barbarians...Alexander was later to advance beyond his teachers narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves by uniting the cultures of his vast empire and spreading Greek culture (Hellenic civilization),the Greek language, the founding and creation of new Greek cities in the east, a proper Greek education and the teaching of Greek warfare to all the non-Greeks of the empire and finaly, the most important thing of all the belief of unity by marriages between Greeks and Barbarians throughout his empire that stretched from Greece all the way to India.
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11-20-2005, 03:01 PM
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