Anna Komnena and the Macedonians(11th cent AD)

[digenis]

Before couple of days i noticed in a skopian nationalistic forum (maknews ..!) "evidence" presented by a boy.
He claimed that Anna Komnena was writing about ethnic Macedonians back in the 11th cent.

Of course for any reasonable person this is just laughable .
So let's let Anna to tell us about it...

Macedonia and its derivatives (Macedonia/Macedonian/Macedonians)
is mentioned 10 times in whole Alexiad.

4 of them refer to ancient Macedonia and Alexander so irrelevant for the 11th cent.

For the other 6 times we have:
(in english translation)

(1,2)

"The other, the left wing, was led by Catacalon Tarchaniotes, and was composed of fully-armed Macedonians and Thracians, numbering in all about 3,000. Bryennius himself held the centre of the phalanx, consisting of Macedonians and Thracians, and the picked men of the whole nobility. All the Thessalians were on horseback [or they were all mounted on Thessalian horses], and what with their iron cuirasses and helmets"

It's the armyline of emperor Alexius' army.
What about the Thessalians and the Thracians?
Are they distinct nations?
The Thracians were long before gone as a nation (last remains 6th cent "Bessoi")
The Thessalians were always considered as Greeks-(unless skopian historians disagree)

So what are these units?
Without any doubt the adjectives are used as a Geographical term.

Also these units (Macedonians and Thracians) are deployed side by side on the same (left) wing of the battleline.
On the other wing the foreign mercenaries are deployed -as it was usual for the Byzantine armies of the period:
One wing foreign mercenaries -other wing native Roman(=Byzantine Greek) units.


(3)
-Who was the leader officer of these Macedonians?

"Constantine Opus led the Guards, Antiochus the Macedonians, Alexander Cabasilas the Thessalians, and Taticius, at that time 'Primicerius,' [=Chief of the household] the Turks of Achrida"


Antiochus (Αντίοχος)

Sounds like a slavic name? A name in "makedonski" ,maybe?

(Also note the "Turks of Achrida"=Ohrid -probably the Hungarian(Magyar) Vardariots- seems that pure Macs of Ohrid should start searching for "turk"
ancestors)

(4)

"II In this manner, then, the Scythians were driven out from the districts round Macedonia and Philippopolis, but they returned ..."

Macedonia here could either mean the Geographical region or the Theme of Macedonia.

(5)
-And at last let's meet a brave Macedonian...

"Another man, a Macedonian, Peter by name, but nicknamed Tornicius, fell among the enemy and slew a number. The phalanx followed.."

(Πέτρος Τορνίκιος,Μακεδών in the original greek text)

Tornicius (Tornikios) family in Byzantine Empire was descendant of the Iberian/Georgian aristocratic family of Tornik.

(see also)
wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornikios
wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tornikios_Kontoleon
wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_of_Iberia

Some of them migrated to the Byzantine empire and got "byzantinized"(greekified).
In other words this man seems to be a "Pontian prosfygi" ..but Macedonian!

[BigBlackBeast]

Digenis,

Very neatly de-constructed ... you might need to let them know! Good luck though ... these people now like to see themselves in the Salonikans of the early middle ages who were besieged by the invading Slavs (not in the invading Slavs) ... so I don't think you'll have too much success ...

One could also remind our neighbors that the 'Scythians' referred to in one of the texts above, who were forced to decamp from "Macedonia and the region around Philipoupolis", were the Slavs. It was common for Byzantine historians with an archaizing bent (most of them) to resurrect the names of long-gone peoples when referring to contemporary groups. As the Slavs who migrated into the eastern and southern Balkans came largely from across the eastern parts of the Danube (ie from the vicinity of today's Romania - the general direction of the old Scythians) the Greeks imagined that the Scythian hordes of old had descended into their lands bringing misery and destruction with them. Even today one of the terms used by Albanians to describe the Slavs is "Shki" (or something like that) akin to "Scyth" ...

Cheers