Ghost on the throne by James Romm

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  • TrueMacedonian
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3810

    Ghost on the throne by James Romm

    A book I am currently halfway through. I thought I'd share a few pages here. It is a really good book. I will post Peter Green's review of it soon.




    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!
  • makedonche
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2008
    • 3242

    #2
    TM
    Looks interesting! Good find, can't wait for Green's review.......even better still TM's review!
    On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"

    Comment

    • Mistracona
      Banned
      • Oct 2012
      • 87

      #3
      In the red-underlined passage, James Romm calls the Greeks a "kindred" race to the Macedonians.

      This is the definition of "kindred"

      kin·dred (kndrd)
      n.
      1. A group of related persons, as a clan or tribe.
      2. (used with a pl. verb) A person's relatives; kinfolk.
      adj.
      1. Of the same ancestry or family: kindred clans.
      2. Having a similar or related origin, nature, or character: kindred emotions.


      The author is saying the Greeks were "kinfolk" "of the same ancestry or family" and had a "similar or related origin" with the Macedonians.

      Athenians, as foreigners, were certainly not permitted into "the charmed circle" of Spartans, nor were the Spartans, as foreigners, permitted into the "charmed circle" of the Athenians. I don't get the point of your post.

      Comment

      • TrueMacedonian
        Senior Member
        • Jan 2009
        • 3810

        #4
        I love when modern grks join up to talk ancient history, something they have nothing to do with either hellene or Macedonian lol. I'll post more when I have more time. It seems foreign race in that text eludes you.
        Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

        Comment

        • lavce pelagonski
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2009
          • 1993

          #5
          TM I have been looking for another Alexander book I am going to order this tomorrow.
          Стравот на Атина од овој Македонец одел до таму што го нарекле „Страшниот Чакаларов“ „гркоубиец“ и „крвожеден комитаџија“.

          „Ако знам дека тука тече една капка грчка крв, јас сега би ја отсекол целата рака и би ја фрлил в море.“ Васил Чакаларов

          Comment

          • Mistracona
            Banned
            • Oct 2012
            • 87

            #6
            In Ancient Greece, the political unit was the city state and the tribe or clan. A "foreigner" was someone from another city state. The Spartans and the Athenians considered themselves of a different "race". The Spartans, like the Macedonians, were Dorians, the Athenians Aeolians. The Dprian Greeks, when they descended into the peninsula, invaded, conquered and destroyed it.

            It is anachronistic to use words from one historical period and apply them to another. The words "foreign" and "race" have a totally different meaning in the post-national period of today than they did in the ancient world.

            The author calls the Macedonians and the Greeks a "kindred" people and he is absolutely right.

            Comment

            • Mistracona
              Banned
              • Oct 2012
              • 87

              #7
              The distinguishing characteristic in the relationship of the ancient Greeks was their mutuall destruction. Spartans joyfully killed Athenians and vice versa. The Athenians destroyed the island of Milos and killed and inslaved their fellow Greeks on the island. During the Persian invasions, many Greek city states, including those close to Athens, went on the side of the Persians against their fellow Greeks.

              The Macedonians destroyed Athens but so did the Spartans before them. The Greeks fought each other endlessly for hegemony of the Greek speaking world as did the Macedonians in their turn.

              Indeed, the Spartans and Athenians differed from each other politically, socially, "racially" and ethically as much if not much more than the ancient Macedonians did from the Athenians. All were part of the Ancient Greek-speaking world. No established historian, not Borza or Romm or Greene or any other claims that the ancient Macedonians were not part of the Ancient Greek speaking world of which they were an essential, even critical part.

              Romm maintains that relationship in his book and it is a jolly good read, indeed.

              Comment

              • makedonche
                Senior Member
                • Oct 2008
                • 3242

                #8
                Mistracona

                The author calls the Macedonians and the Greeks a "kindred" people and he is absolutely right.
                How convenient for you, try reading the whole sentence before you go babbling bullshit, here it is for you " (Greeks were a kindred but Foreign race in Macedonian eyes and not permitted into the charmed circle of seven)"
                ...and Greeks are still kindred and definitely foreign, you people can't understand a word of Macedonian, how can you possibly be the same ethnicity? Now go back to your Greek forums and tell all your likeminded fools!
                On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"

                Comment

                • makedonche
                  Senior Member
                  • Oct 2008
                  • 3242

                  #9
                  Mistracona

                  Ancient Greek-speaking world
                  Delusions of granduer I see here, it was the "Ancient World" not the Ancient Greek world as you stupidly try and claim, the fact that Greek was the Lingua franca doesn't make the entire world Greek, you imbecile!
                  On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"

                  Comment

                  • TrueMacedonian
                    Senior Member
                    • Jan 2009
                    • 3810

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Mistracona View Post
                    The distinguishing characteristic in the relationship of the ancient Greeks was their mutuall destruction. Spartans joyfully killed Athenians and vice versa. The Athenians destroyed the island of Milos and killed and inslaved their fellow Greeks on the island. During the Persian invasions, many Greek city states, including those close to Athens, went on the side of the Persians against their fellow Greeks.

                    The Macedonians destroyed Athens but so did the Spartans before them. The Greeks fought each other endlessly for hegemony of the Greek speaking world as did the Macedonians in their turn.

                    Indeed, the Spartans and Athenians differed from each other politically, socially, "racially" and ethically as much if not much more than the ancient Macedonians did from the Athenians. All were part of the Ancient Greek-speaking world. No established historian, not Borza or Romm or Greene or any other claims that the ancient Macedonians were not part of the Ancient Greek speaking world of which they were an essential, even critical part.
                    Romm maintains that relationship in his book and it is a jolly good read, indeed.
                    I think you need to re-read this book.

                    Borza maintains even to this day that the ancient Macedonians were a distinct and seperate people from the Hellenes of the city states. Here is a recent article of his from a book edited by James Romm;








                    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                    Comment

                    • TrueMacedonian
                      Senior Member
                      • Jan 2009
                      • 3810

                      #11
                      As for Romm's position here it is from a previous work;








                      Here's more from Ghost on the throne;



                      page 182


                      Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                      Comment

                      • TrueMacedonian
                        Senior Member
                        • Jan 2009
                        • 3810

                        #12
                        Mistracona what do you think todays greek have in common with the ancient race of Hellenes?
                        Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                        Comment

                        • Mistracona
                          Banned
                          • Oct 2012
                          • 87

                          #13
                          For the sake of argument, we can say that the ancient Macedonians were originally Chinese Jews who had no connection to the ancient Greeks. They were a different people. The point is not who the ancient Macedonians were, but what they did. The Macedonians established the Greek language and its culture in the eastern Mediterranean. This confirmation and entrenchment of the Greek language and culture in the eastern Med secured the preservation and prolongation of both. Without Alexander, the Greek language and culture would have disappeared after the failed city states and crumbled under Imperial Rome. The Greek language and culture survived and dominated the Roman Empire of the east. Its dominance of that empire permitted the continuation of the Greek language through the Ottoman centuries and, for better or worse, led to the creation of the Greek-speaking state in the 19th century. This would not have been possible without the Greek-speaking, Greek cultured macedonian Empire. Alexander was the keystone of the long arch of the Greek-speaking people. It is the reason that a few years ago, the Greeks, with so many other choices, chose Alexander as "the greatest Greek" in a national poll. They chose their gratitude to this Chinese Jew who helped them so much, by making him an honorary Greek.

                          Non-Macedonian Greeks followed Alexander in his initial march east but began to see the march as pointless and withdrew. Eventually, even Alexander's own general's turned against him, most probably poisoned him and divided up his empire. Their maintenance of the Greek language and culture in Alexandria made that city the epicentre of the Greek-speaking world after Athens had collapsed and before that epicentre moved to Constantinopole.

                          Modern Greece and the history of the Greek-speaking people are two entirely different things. The modern Greek state was established on the same basis that all nation-states were. It is a cultural assimilation of a variety of ethnic backgrounds. It is based, as all modern states are, on a common misconception. It is, like all modern states, an artificial construct. In the words of Professor Anderson, these states are "imagined communities". Ancient Greece was never a state. It was a linguistic, cultural and to some extent geographic definition. No knowledgable person would speak of an ethnic or "blood" connection between the modern and ancient Greek speakers. To answer your question, what connects the modern and ancient "Greeks" is the Greek language itself, unbroken and continuous since the first Mycaenians descended into the peninsula in the 17th century B.C, the Greek language Greek has, like all living language, changed, evolved, morphed but remained the same root language through some 4 thousand years. A language contains everything, history, culture, emotion, triumphs and defeats. The blood, sweat, and tears of those whose mother tongue it is.

                          One more thing connects the modern Greeks to the ancient world. The ancient Greeks were full of vices: perversion, jealousy, treachery, cowardice, duplicity and corruption to name a few. The modern Greeks share all the same qualities.

                          In "Macedonia Redux", Borza says that the modern Macedonians of the Balkan state, which he supports, have no connection to the ancient world.

                          It is their mother tongue, and all the vibrant wealth it contains, that is the continuity of the Greek-speaking people, composed of various ethnicities through the ages.

                          What is it that connects the Slavic-speaking people of the southern Balkans to that world? Besides the "Rosetta Stone" I mean.

                          P.S. Do notice that I refer to the Greek-speaking people as those whose "mother tongue" the language is and not those who had it as a lingua franca at various points in history.

                          Comment

                          • Mistracona
                            Banned
                            • Oct 2012
                            • 87

                            #14
                            Indeed, it was the Greek-speaking Macedonians that made Greek the lingua franca in North Africa and the Middle east through their empire. The Macedonians established the Greek language and culture in many of the urban centres of the eastern Med giving rise to the so-called "Hellenistic" period. By that time, the isolated Greek colonies of southern Europe, of what is today southern France and Italy, had vanished. There were no Greek colonies in Egypt before Alexandria, under the Macedonians, became an epicentre of the Greek-speaking world. A lingua franca is established through empire and authority which the Macedonians exercised in the cities of the eastern Med.

                            Another thing, incidentally, that connects the modern Greeks to the Greek-speaking (mother tongue) world of antiquity is that there have always been mother-tongue Greek speakers in that southernmost peninsula known as "Greece" in the ancient world though they became a waxing and waning minority through the migrations and conquests of other peoples including Albanians, Vlachs, Slavs, Turks and others.

                            In your energetic underlining above, there is no shred of evidence, not one, that a "Macedonian" language different from Greek existed. There are only naked statements, as naked as a new-born babe without the slightest covering of fact or proof or evidence. The evidence of a Greek speaking ancient Macedonian people is overwhelming: in ubiquitous names and place names, in inscriptions, in texts, in the open and free communication between Macedonians and other Greek-speaking people. It is somewhat embarrassing to have to address such an elementary and obvious point.

                            Looking forward to continuing a fascinating and spirited exchange.

                            Comment

                            • makedonche
                              Senior Member
                              • Oct 2008
                              • 3242

                              #15
                              Mistracona
                              So what language did Alexander speak in the Greek congress/parliament that the Greeks could not understand?
                              I'm quite sure you have references to his speech.
                              On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"

                              Comment

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