Ancient Historians considered Macedonians as separate & distinct entity!

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  • indigen
    Senior Member
    • May 2009
    • 1558

    Ancient Historians considered Macedonians as separate & distinct entity!

    Waldemar Heckel: "It is clear from the extant historians that the lost sources made a CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN MACEDONIANS AND GREEKS - ethnically, culturally and linguistically - and THIS MUST BE AN ACCURATE REFLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES....."

    ----------------

    The Evidence:

    N.G.L. Hammond

    The Greek view of the Macedonians and their monarchy

    "We have already inferred from the incident at the Olympic Games c.500 that the Macedonians themselves, as opposed to their kings, were considered not to be Greeks. Herodotus said this clearly in four words, introducing Amyntas, who was king c.500, as ' a Greek ruling over Macedonians' (5.20. 4), and Thucydides described the Macedonians and other northern tribes as 'barbarians' in the sense of 'non-Greeks'...... (Thuc. 2. 80. 5-7; 2. 81. 6; 4. 124.1)....Greek speech-writer called the Thessalians 'Greeks' and Archelaus, the contemporary Macedonian king, 'a barbarian'. Demosthenes spoke of Philip II as 'the barbarian from Pella'. Writing in 346 and eager to win Philip's approval, Isocrates paid tribute to Philip as a blue-blooded Greek and made it clear at the same time that Macedonians were not Greeks. (Isoc. 5.108 and 154) Aristotle, born at Stageira on the Macedonian borderand the son of a..... doctor at the Macedonian court, classed the Macedonians and their institution of Monarchy as not Greek, as we shall see shortly.It is thus not surprising that the Macedonians considered themselves to be, and were treated by Alexander the Great as being, separate from the Greeks. They were proud to be so."

    -------------

    General Editor
    M.B. SAKELLARIOU
    Member of the Academy of Athens
    EKDOTIKE ATHENON S.A.
    1988


    "...Isokrates places Macedonia outside the boundaries of Greece and describes the Macedonians as ‘an unrelated race’..."

    "…The general sense of a passage in Thucydides gives the impression that the historian considered the Macedonians barbarians." The Macedonians are also distinguished from the Greeks and classified with the barbarians in the Pen Politeias, an anonymous work written about the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century B.C. Various ancient geographers and historians of the classical and post-classical periods, such as Ephoros, Pseudo-Skylax, Dionysios son of Kalliphon and Dionysios Periegetes, put the northern borders of Greece at the line from the Ambrakian Gulf to the Peneios. Isokrates places Macedonia outside the boundaries of Greece and describes the Macedonians as ‘an unrelated race’. Medeios of Larisa, who accompanied Alexander on his campaign in Asia, calls the Thessalians ‘the most northerly of the Greeks’.

    In contrast with the genealogy of the mythical founder of the Macedonians to be found in Hellanikos there are three other genealogies of Makedon in which he is not included in the stemma of Hellen. About 700 B.C., Hesiod refers to Makedon as the son of Zeus and Thyia. Pseudo-Skymnos calls him "born from the earth". Pseudo-Apollodoros and Aelian reflect a tradition according to which Makedon was the son of Lykaon. …"

    [M.B. SAKELLARIOU]
    Last edited by indigen; 01-13-2012, 05:44 PM. Reason: Culled my postings in this thread & 1, 32, 46, 50, 52, 53, 55, 57 (plus some quoted by others) is what remains.
  • Soldier of Macedon
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 13670

    #2
    Thanks Indigen, good information on Aristotle.
    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

    Comment

    • Spartan
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 1037

      #3
      Just to add, and by no means am I questioning what Aristotle was, but just a point of interest is that I believe I have read that Stageira was an Ionian colony.
      Im not 100% sure of this, so if anyone could confirm/deny it, it would be great.

      Comment

      • NikodimMKD
        Banned
        • Apr 2009
        • 187

        #4
        Originally posted by Spartan View Post
        Just to add, and by no means am I questioning what Aristotle was, but just a point of interest is that I believe I have read that Stageira was an Ionian colony.
        Im not 100% sure of this, so if anyone could confirm/deny it, it would be great.
        Yes, Stageira was an Ionian colony according to all history books.

        Comment

        • Spartan
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 1037

          #5
          I was hoping for a source, lol

          Comment

          • Soldier of Macedon
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 13670

            #6
            Yes, Stageira was an Ionian colony according to all history books.
            And you've read every single history book to confirm this? Brazil must have a large library.

            Spartan, it is a colony of ancient Greeks in Macedonia (meaning Macedonia cannot be Greek by origin if it has Greek colonists, just like Asia Minor and her colonies). Phillip II of Macedonia destroyed the city, and then rebuilt it to pay for Alexander's education from Aristotle, or so the story goes.
            In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

            Comment

            • Spartan
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 1037

              #7
              Phillip 2, is THE Phillip of fame?
              Very interesting, never knew it was destroyed and then rebuilt.
              Thanks for the info

              Comment

              • Soldier of Macedon
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 13670

                #8
                Spartan, here's something more, it appears that Stageira wasn't the only city to suffer this fate among the Greek colonies in Chalcidice.


                The end of Greek settlements on Macedonian soil

                Philip returned to Macedonia and begun preparations for a complete expulsion of the remaining Greek colonies on Macedonian land. In 348 BC, the Macedonian army attacked the Chalcidice peninsula and defeated the city-state of Olynthus. Like Methone, Olynthus and the other 31 Greek cities in Chalcidice were utterly demolished and razed to the ground, their Greek citizens sold as slaves, and their land distributed to the Macedonians. Among these Greek cities was Stageira, the birthplace of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The whole of Chalcidice peninsula was annexed to Macedonia, marking an end of Greek settlements on Macedonian soil.
                In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                Comment

                • I of Macedon
                  Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 222

                  #9
                  To add to the above about Olynthus:

                  In 349, on a pretext that can hardly be credible (Olynthus had refused to return to Philip his two half brothers, who had taken refuge there during the earlier campaign [Just. 8.3.10]), Philip invaded Chalcidic territory...Faced with the league of Chalcidic towns crumbling before Philips advance, the Olythians sought assistance from Athens. Led by the power of Demosthenes’s oratory in his Olynthiacs...Olynthus was briefly spared the onslaught as Philips attention was diverted to Thessalian affairs..

                  Philip in spring 348 returned to Olynthus, and the city came under intense siege, to judge by the large number of Macedonian arrows inscribed with Philips name discovered in Modern excavations...What followed the collapse of Olynthian resistance was perhaps unexpected. Not only was the city sacked, but its population was sold into slavery and the site leveled. Olynthus the grand city of the northern Greeks, ceased to exist...Olynthus was a large and important city, and its utter destruction was a telling event.

                  With Olynthus now extinct, there was no rallying point for renewed Chalcidic opposition to Macedon, and Philip could afford to leave most of the area unaltered, both for the sake of his own exploitation of resources of the region (north Chalcidic rich in wood and mineral resources, while the southern was excellent grazing ground), its inhabitants and cities - as future allies, and an act of public relations directed toward the Greeks to the south.

                  The extent to which Philip reorganised and exploited Chalcidic territory is problematic...There was know doubt use by both Philip and Alexander to provide estates for Macedonians and Greeks, there was probably also places to raise horses and support to ranking Macedonians through gifts of estates, but these practices would barely alter the character of the general Greek population in Chalcidic.

                  In the Shadow of Olympus, Borza, page 218-219
                  No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

                  Comment

                  • Pelister
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2008
                    • 2742

                    #10
                    Some ancient quotes on the differences between the ancient Macedonians and Greeks.

                    Comment

                    • Pelister
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 2742

                      #11
                      Some good finds indigen.

                      Comment

                      • Pelister
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 2742

                        #12
                        Indigen

                        I'll put some quotes up in the comin days from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of ancient langauges. Some interesting things there about the ancient Macedonian language in terms of its difference to ancient Greek.

                        I remember Joe Grezlovski's web site. It was brilliant, and ground breaking.

                        I think there is need for another one.

                        Comment

                        • Pelister
                          Senior Member
                          • Sep 2008
                          • 2742

                          #13
                          The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Worlds Ancient Languages, Edited by Roger D. Woodard, p.13

                          Explicit references to "Macedonian speech" exist. Plutarch, the Greek savant of the first and second century AD. when writing of Cleopatra (Life of Antony 27.3-4), the last of the Ptolemies (the Macedonian Kings of Egypt), lauds her linguistic abilities, reporting that she could speak the langauges of the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabs, Syrians, Medes and Parthians. In contrast, her male predecessors had not even learned Egyptian and some had even "ceased to speak Macedonian". Presumably they had continued to speak in Greek (i.e., had not taken a vow of silence). Athenaeus, a Greek writers of the later second century AD, in his account of a "Learned Banquet" (Deipnosophistae 3.121f-122a), places on the lips of one of the guests, the cynic Cynulcus, a Latin word decocta (a kind of drink); in turn, Athenaeus has another guest, Ulpian (an "Atticist" promoting the use of untainted Attic Greek), rebuke Cynulcus for uttering a barbarism (!). Cynulcus fires back, retorting that even in the best old Greek one finds Persian loanwords and that he knows many Attic Greeks "using Macedonian speech". Elsewhere, Plutarch uses an adverb makedonisti having the same sense ... The precise sense of "speaking Macedonian" in these and other passages can be and has been debated; yet when these references to Macedonian speech are considered in their context, it is not difficult for one to conclude that what is being reported is the use of a distinct, non-Greek ("barbarian") Macedonian lantguage.

                          Comment

                          • George S.
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2009
                            • 10116

                            #14
                            Aristotle If as many people say that he was Greek then how come the Greeks banished him from Athens.He was really a macedonian & the Greeks hated him tbecuase of his nationality.
                            The Macedonians fought differently to the Greeks &.Alexanders army was not a Greek army & it was aMacedonian Army.There were more Greeks fighting with the persians against Alexanders Army.Alexander did not trust the Greeks he put them at the back of the entourage.So how can the Greeks claim the Glory when they hardly fought with Alexander moreso against him.Greece had slaves throuhout Hellas Macedonia did not have slaves like Greece.Remember what Demosthenes says amongst other derogatory things he said you can't even buy a decent slave in Macedonia.If Macedonians & Greeks are the same people why did Greek & Macedonian people fight at the battle of chaeronea.
                            What did Demosthenes hope would happen to Alexander the Great at the battle of chaeronea he hoped that he was killed & he hated Alexander so much.When Demosthenes heard that he didn't die he went into fit of rage.Not only did the Macedonians follow their own customs ,own gods,own language that was different to the Greeks.When the Greeks arrived from Afrika 4000 yearsago they found the Macedonians were allready there before the Greeks.So how could the Macedonians originate after the greeks.
                            Last edited by George S.; 11-30-2009, 12:45 AM. Reason: edit
                            "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                            GOTSE DELCEV

                            Comment

                            • Wanderer
                              Junior Member
                              • Nov 2009
                              • 48

                              #15
                              Interesting,but can you show me any other Athenean rhetor,except Demosthenes?It is known that,Demosthenes had some kind of conflicts with Philip,because Philip had already ''beaten'' him at Macedonian Court.
                              At that time,Athens was in decrease.Rhetors were the ones that were really ruling the city-state.As you know,Atheneans were very sensitive on the freedom of speech.So especially,a famous rhetor could say whatever he wanted,up to a certain point in Ekklisia.
                              Thank you,
                              Last edited by Wanderer; 11-30-2009, 11:59 AM.

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