The Historic Truth About Macedonia

2470 District of Rotary International (Greece)
The historic truth about Macedonia

A memorandum of the Hellenic 2470 RID
Athens, April 2012
If History is stripped of her truth, what is left is only an idle tale

Polybius, Histories 1.14.6
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Table of Contents
Editorial Letter to President Obama Update with 332 signatures sent to President Barack Obama Addenda Documentation for the Letter to President Obama School Maps Bank Notes Articles Ancient language Identity Modern linguistics Ethnicity Persians Archaeology magazine Classical journal United Nations Frequently Asked Questions
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Editorial
So, Greece is also Macedonia Stravon, father of geography With a most impressive move, 220 scholars from all over the world, including members of the most famous universities, have sent an extensive letter to the USA government asking that they exercise all their influence towards the Skopje government for them to stop distorting history. Help the FYROM government understand that they cannot create a national identity at the expense of historic truth, said the scholars in their letter. It should be noted that among them were professors of Princeton, Harvard and Oxford Universities. Besides Greek Institutions, the outstanding scholars represent Universities from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Canada, the United Kingdom, as well as the USA. It is noteworthy that the letter was not signed only by Greek scholars or scholars of Greek origin, but it has indeed taken global dimensions. In their letter, the scholars answer all the questions concerning this issue and, naturally, conclude that it is impossible for a country, with the USA assistance, to distort historic data in order to create its own identity. Therefore, they invite President Obama to correct the mistakes of President Bushs government on this matter. For the world academic community, it is clear that Alexander the Great was Greek, not a Slav, as the Slavs and their language came to the area 1,000 years later. They point this out and invite the USA government to find appropriate ways for the Skopje government to realize that a national identity cannot be created at the expense of historic truth. The world society cannot survive if history is ignored, so much the less if history is fabricated. And the number of signatories is increasing every day
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However, the name Macedonia is part of the Greeks historic and cultural heritage. The history of Macedonia, including its name, has never been, is not and will NEVER be negotiable issues for any other government in the world. Staged in open theaters, a hundred years before Alexander the Great, the Greek speaking Macedonians watch and understand ancient Greek tragedies. Tens of thousands of Macedonian spectators would not be able to watch Greek dramas unless their language was Greek. It was in the 5th century B.C. when the great dramatist Euripides wrote the tragedy Bacchai in Pella, in the Macedonian king Archelaos court. The tragedy was first staged in Macedonia, and that was not the only one! Macedonia gave birth to Democritus and Aristotle. The language in which their masterpieces were written was the Greek language, a language that is being spoken, continuously, as it has been developed, until today, by the Greek people. And the Olympic Games winner Philip II, accepting the Athenian orator Isocrates ideas, who was an opponent of Demosthenes, as they were described in Isocrates letter of 344 B.C., imposed national unity and established the GREEKS COMMUNITY, not the community of Greeks and Macedonians. Nikolaos Makrygiannis 2470 DG
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Letter to President Obama
May 18, 2009 The Honorable Barack Obama President, United States of America White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, We, the undersigned scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity, respectfully request that you intervene to clean up some of the historical debris left in southeast Europe by the previous U.S. administration. On November 4, 2004, two days after the re-election of President George W. Bush, his administration unilaterally recognized the Republic of Macedonia. This action not only abrogated geographic and historic fact, but it has also unleashed a dangerous epidemic of historical revisionism, of which the most obvious symptom is the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great. We believe that this silliness has gone too far, and that the U.S.A. has no business in supporting the subversion of history. Let us review the facts. The land in question, with its modern capital at Skopje, was called Paionia in antiquity. Mts. Barnous and Orbelos (which form today the northern limits of Greece) provide a natural barrier that separated, and still separates, Macedonia from its northern neighbor. The only real connection is along the Axios/Vardar River and even this valley does not form a line of communication because it is divided by gorges. While it is true that the Paionians were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 358 B.C. they were not Macedonians and did not live in Macedonia. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians, who were subdued by Alexander, may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia. Rather, Macedonia and Macedonian Greeks have been located for at least 2,500 years just where the modern Greek province of Macedonia is. Exactly this same relationship is true for Attica and Athenian Greeks, Argos and Argive Greeks, Corinth and Corinthian Greeks, etc. We do not understand how the modern inhabitants of ancient Paionia, who speak Slavic
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a language introduced into the Balkans about a millennium after the death of Alexander can claim him as their national hero. Alexander the Great was thoroughly and indisputably Greek. His great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, competed in the Olympic Games where participation was limited to Greeks. Even before Alexander I, the Macedonians traced their ancestry to Argos, and many of their kings used the head of Herakles the quintessential Greek hero on their coins. Euripides who died and was buried in Macedonia wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, and in Greek. While in Macedonia, Euripides also wrote the Bacchai, again in Greek. Presumably the Macedonian audience could understand what he wrote and what they heard. Alexanders father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi, the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. Even more significantly, Philip was appointed to conduct the Pythian Games at Delphi in 346 B.C. In other words, Alexanders the Great father and his ancestors were thoroughly Greek. Greek was the language used by Demosthenes and his delegation from Athens when they paid visits to Philip, also in 346 B.C. Another northern Greek, Aristotle, went off to study for nearly 20 years in the Academy of Plato. Aristotle subsequently returned to Macedonia and became the tutor of Alexander III. They used Greek in their classroom which can still be seen near Naoussa in Macedonia. Alexander carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotles edition of Homers Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek. The questions follow: Why was Greek the lingua franca all over Alexanders empire if he was a Macedonian? Why was the New Testament, for example, written in Greek? The answers are clear: Alexander the Great was Greek, not Slavic, and Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later. This brings us back to the geographic area known in antiquity as Paionia. Why would the people who live there now call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Why would they abduct a completely Greek figure and make him their national hero? The ancient Paionians may or may not have been Greek, but they certainly became Greekish, and they were never Slavs. They were also not Macedonians. Ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian Empire. So were Ionia and Syria and Palestine and Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Bactria and many more. They may thus have become Macedonian temporarily, but none was ever Macedonia. The theft of Philip and Alexander by a land that was never Macedonia cannot be justified. The traditions of ancient Paionia could be adopted by the current residents of that geographical area with considerable justification. But the extension of the geographic term Macedonia to cover southern Yugoslavia cannot. Even in the late 19th century, this misuse implied unhealthy territorial aspirations.
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The same motivation is to be seen in school maps that show the pseudo-greater Macedonia, stretching from Skopje to Mt. Olympus and labeled in Slavic. The same map and its claims are in calendars, bumper stickers, bank notes, etc., that have been circulating in the new state ever since it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Why would a poor land-locked new state attempt such historical nonsense? Why would it brazenly mock and provoke its neighbor? However one might like to characterize such behavior, it is clearly not a force for historical accuracy, nor for stability in the Balkans. It is sad that the United States of America has abetted and encouraged such behavior. We call upon you, Mr. President, to help in whatever ways you deem appropriate the government in Skopje to understand that it cannot build a national identity at the expense of historic truth. Our common international society cannot survive when history is ignored, much less when history is fabricated. Sincerely,
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Update with 332 signatures sent to President Barack Obama

June 22, 2009 The Honorable Barack Obama President, United States of America White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500-0001 Dear President Obama, On May 18 we sent a letter asking for your help in preserving the historical integrity of Alexander the Great. Since that time many more scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity have joined the effort, motivated by a concern with the threat posed to the scientific basis of our profession by ephemeral political manipulation. The purpose of this letter is to update you with regard to the signatories of the original letter which now total 332 from 20 different countries (see below). The original letter appears at http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html, together with the supporting documentation for that letter. We would also note that the FAQ entry on our web site has been expanded to include points not in our original letter. Further, much of the site is now translated into FYROM Slavic, Greek, and German. French and Italian are to be added soon. A point of clarification about our intentions is perhaps in order since they have been misinterpreted in some quarters. We do not ask that the United States withdraw its recognition of the Republic of Macedonia. We do ask that the weight of US diplomacy be used to stop the theft of history and historic figures, starting with Alexander the Great. With best wishes and the continued hope of your active support,
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NAME

TITLE
INSTITUTION
Anagnostis P. Agelarakis, Professor of Anthropology, Adelphi University (USA) Ioannis M. Akamatis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaloniki (Greece) June W. Allison, Professor Emerita, Department of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University (USA) Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Professor of Philosophy, University of California-San Diego (USA) Mariana Anagnostopoulos, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno (USA) Ronnie Ancona, Professor of Classics, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY (USA) John P. Anton, Distinguished Professor of Greek Philosophy and Culture University of South Florida (USA) Dr. Norman George Ashton, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia (Australia) Lucia Athanassaki, Associate Professor of Classical Philology, University of Crete (Greece) Effie F. Athanassopoulos, Associate Professor Anthropology and Classics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA) Harry C. Avery, Professor of Classics, University of Pittsburgh (USA) Dr. Dirk Backendorf. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (Germany) Elizabeth C. Banks, Associate Professor of Classics (ret.), University of Kansas (USA) Leonidas Bargeliotes, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Athens, President of the Olympic Center for Philosophy and Culture (Greece) Alice Bencivenni, Ricercatore di Storia Greca, Universit di Bologna (Italy) David L. Berkey, Assistant Professor of History, California State University, Fresno (USA) Luigi Beschi, professore emerito di Archeologia Classica, Universit di Firenze (Italy) Josine H. Blok, professor of Ancient History and Classical Civilization, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) Alan Boegehold, Emeritus Professor of Classics, Brown University (USA) Efrosyni Boutsikas, Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Kent (UK) Ewen Bowie, Emeritus Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK) Keith Bradley, Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics, Concurrent Professor of History, University of Notre Dame (USA) Kostas Buraselis, Professor of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece) Stanley M. Burstein, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles (USA) Francis Cairns, Professor of Classical Languages, The Florida State University (USA) John McK. Camp II, Agora Excavations and Professor of Archaeology, ASCSA, Athens (Greece) David A. Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Classics. University of Victoria, B.C. (Canada) Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge (UK) Paavo Castren, Professor of Classical Philology Emeritus, University of Helsinki (Finland) William Cavanagh, Professor of Aegean Prehistory, University of Nottingham (UK) Angelos Chaniotis, Professor, Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (UK) Paul Christesen, Professor of Ancient Greek History, Dartmouth College (USA) James J. Clauss, Professor of Classics, University of Washington (USA) Ada Cohen, Associate Professor of Art History, Dartmouth College (USA) Randall M. Colaizzi, Lecturer in Classical Studies, University of Massachusetts-Boston (USA)
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Kathleen M. Coleman, Professor of Latin, Harvard University (USA) Rev. Dr. Demetrios J Constantelos, Charles Cooper Townsend Professor of Ancient and Byzantine history, Emeritus; Distinguished Research Scholar in Residence at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (USA) Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Ph.D., Professor and Endowed Chair in Greek Archaeology, University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA) Carole L. Crumley, PhD., Professor of European Archaeology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA) Kevin F. Daly, Assistant Professor of Classics, Bucknell University (USA) Joseph W. Day, Professor of Classics, Wabash College (USA) Franois de Callata, Professor of Monetary and financial history of the Greek world, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris/Sorbonne) and Professor of Financial history of the GrecoRoman world, Universit libre de Bruxelles (France and Brussels) Wolfgang Decker, Professor emeritus of sport history, Deutsche Sporthochschule, Kln (Germany) Luc Deitz, Auerplanmger Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin, University of Trier (Germany), and Curator of manuscripts and rare books, National Library of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) Charalambos Dendrinos, Lecturer in Byzantine Literature and Greek Palaeography, Acting Director, The Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London (UK) Michael Dewar, Professor of Classics, University of Toronto (Canada) John D. Dillery, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA John Dillon, Emeritus Professor of Greek, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) Sheila Dillon, Associate Professor, Depts. of Art, Art History & Visual Studies and Classical Studies, Duke University (USA) Michael D. Dixon, Associate Professor of History, University of Southern Indiana (USA) Douglas Domingo-Foraste, Professor of Classics, California State University, Long Beach (USA) Myrto Dragona-Monachou, Professor emerita of Philosophy, University of Athens (Greece) Stella Drougou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Pierre Ducrey, professeur honoraire, Universit de Lausanne (Switzerland) John Duffy, Professor, Department of the Classics, Harvard University (USA) Roger Dunkle, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (USA) Michael M. Eisman, Associate Professor Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, Department of History, Temple University (USA) Mostafa El-Abbadi, Professor Emeritus, University of Alexandria (Egypt) R. Malcolm Errington, Professor fr Alte Geschichte (Emeritus) Philipps-Universitt, Marburg (Germany) Christos C. Evangeliou, Professor of Ancient Hellenic Philosophy, Towson University, Maryland, Honorary President of International Association for Greek Philosophy (USA) Panagiotis Faklaris, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Denis Feeney, Giger Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA) Michael Ferejohn, Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Duke University (USA)
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Kleopatra Ferla, Ph.D. in Ancient History, Head of Research and Management of Cultural Information, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens (Greece) Elizabeth A. Fisher, Professor of Classics and Art History, Randolph-Macon College (USA) Nick Fisher, Professor of Ancient History, Cardiff University (UK) R. Leon Fitts, Asbury J Clarke Professor of Classical Studies, Emeritus, FSA, Scot., Dickinson Colllege (USA) John M. Fossey FRSC, FSA, Emeritus Professor of Art History (and Archaeology), McGill Univertsity, Montreal, and Curator of Archaeology, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada) Dr. Athanasios Fotiou, Adjunct Professor, College of the Humanities, Greek and Roman Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa (Canada) Robin Lane Fox, University Reader in Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK) Dr. Lee Fratantuono, William Francis Whitlock Professor of Latin, Ohio Wesleyan University (USA) Stavros Frangoulidis, Associate Professor of Latin. Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece) William K. Freiert, Professor of Classics and Hanson-Peterson Chair of Liberal Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College (USA) Rainer Friedrich, Professor of Classics Emeritus, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. (Canada) Heide Froning, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Marburg (Germany) Peter Funke, Professor of Ancient History, University of Mnster (Germany) Traianos Gagos, Professor of Greek and Papyrology, University of Michigan (USA) Karl Galinsky, Cailloux Centennial Professor of Classics, University of Texas, Austin (USA) Robert Garland, Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics, Colgate University, Hamilton NY (USA) Hans-Joachim Gehrke, Prof. Dr., President of the German Archaeological Institute Berlin (Germany) Dr. Ioannis Georganas, Researcher, Department of History and Archaeology, Foundation of the Hellenic World (Greece) Douglas E. Gerber, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Western Ontario (Canada) Dr. Andre Gerolymatos, Chair and Professor of Hellenic Studies, Simon Fraser University (Canada) Stephen L. Glass, John A. McCarthy Professor of Classics & Classical Archaeology, Pitzer College: The Claremont Colleges (USA) Hans R. Goette, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Giessen (Germany); German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany) Sander M. Goldberg, Professor of Classics, UCLA (USA) Mark Golden, Professor, Department of Classics, University of Winnipeg (Canada) Ellen Greene, Joseph Paxton Presidential Professor of Classics, University of Oklahoma (USA) Robert Gregg, Teresa Moore Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, Director, The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University (USA) Frederick T. Griffiths, Professor of Classics, Amherst College (USA) Dr. Peter Grossmann, Member emeritus, German Archaeological Institute, Cairo (Egypt) Erich S. Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Martha Habash, Associate Professor of Classics, Creighton University (USA)
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Christian Habicht, Professor of Ancient History, Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (USA) Donald C. Haggis, Nicholas A. Cassas Term Professor of Greek Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD (USA) Kim Hartswick, Academic Director, CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies, New York City (USA) Prof. Paul B. Harvey, Jr. Head, Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, The Pennsylvania State University (USA) Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Arizona (USA) Rosalia Hatzilambrou, Ph.D., Researcher, Academy of Athens (Greece) Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos, Director, Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, National Research Foundation, Athens (Greece) Stephan Heilen, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (USA) Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Prof. Dr., Freie Universitt Berlin und Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Germany) Pontus Hellstrom, Professor of Classical archaeology and ancient history, Uppsala University (Sweden) Steven W. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Classics and History, Tufts University (USA) Karl-J. Holkeskamp, Professor of Ancient History, University of Cologne (Germany) Frank L. Holt, Professor of Ancient History, University of Houston (USA) Dan Hooley, Professor of Classics, University of Missouri (USA) Meredith C. Hoppin, Gagliardi Professor of Classical Languages, Williams College, Williamstown, MA (USA) Caroline M. Houser, Professor of Art History Emerita, Smith College (USA) and Affiliated Professor, University of Washington (USA) Professor Carl Huffman, Department of Classics, DePauw University (USA) John Humphrey, Professor of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Calgary (Canada) Frosen Jaakko, Professor of Greek philology, University of Helsinki (Finland) Dr Thomas Johansen, Reader in Ancient Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK) Vincent Jolivet, Archaeologist CNRS, Paris [French School Rome] (Italy) Georgia Kafka, Visiting Professor of Modern Greek Language, Literature and History, University of New Brunswick (Canada) Mika Kajava, Professor of Greek Language and Literature; Head of the Department of Classical Studies, University of Helsinki (Finland) Anthony Kaldellis, Professor of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University (USA) Eleni Kalokairinou, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Secretary of the Olympic Center of Philosophy and Culture (Cyprus) Lilian Karali, Professor of Prehistoric and Environmental Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece) Andromache Karanika, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA) Robert A. Kaster, Professor of Classics and Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin, Princeton University (USA) Dr. Athena Kavoulaki, Lecturer, Department of Philology, University of Crete, Rethymnon (Greece)
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Vassiliki Kekela, Adjunct Professor of Greek Studies, Classics Department, Hunter College, City University of New York (USA) John F. Kenfield, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Rutgers University (USA) Dietmar Kienast, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, University of Dsseldorf (Germany) Karl Kilinski II, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Southern Methodist University (USA) Dr. Florian Knauss, associate director, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek Mnchen (Germany) Denis Knoepfler, Professor of Greek Epigraphy and History, Collge de France (Paris, France) Ortwin Knorr, Associate Professor of Classics, Willamette University (USA) Robert B. Koehl, Professor of Archaeology, Department of Classical and Oriental Studies Hunter College, City University of New York (USA) Thomas Koentges, Visiting lecturer, Ancient History, University of Leipzig (Germany) Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece) Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Classical Studies, Brandeis University (USA) Eric J. Kondratieff, Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient History, Department of Greek & Roman Classics, Temple University (USA) Dr Eleni Kornarou, Visiting Lecturer of Ancient Greek Literature, Dept. of Classic and Philosophy, University of Cyprus (Cyprus) Haritini Kotsidu, Apl. Prof. Dr. fr Klassische Archologie, Goethe-Universitt, Frankfurt/M. (Germany) Lambrini Koutoussaki, Dr., Lecturer of Classical Archaeology, University of Zrich (Switzerland) David Kovacs, Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics, University of Virginia (USA) Prof. Dr. Ulla Kreilinger, Institut fr Klassische Archologie, Universitt Erlangen (Germany) Dr. Christos Kremmydas, Lecturer in Ancient Greek History, Royal Holloway, University of London (UK) Peter Krentz, W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History, Davidson College (USA) Friedrich Krinzinger, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of Vienna (Austria) Michael Kumpf, Professor of Classics, Valparaiso University (USA) Donald G. Kyle, Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington (USA) Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Kyrieleis, former president of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (Germany) Margaret L. Laird, Assistant Professor, Roman art and archaeology, University of Washington (USA) Gerald V. Lalonde, Benedict Professor of Classics, Grinnell College (USA) Steven Lattimore, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles (USA) Francis M. Lazarus, President, University of Dallas (USA) Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Emerita Wellesley College (USA) Irene S. Lemos FSA, Professor in Classical Archaeology,, S.Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, Oxford University (UK) Ioannes G. Leontiades, Assistant Professor of Byzantine History, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
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Iphigeneia Leventi, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece) Daniel B. Levine, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Arkansas (USA) Christina Leypold, Dr. phil., Archaeological Institute, University of Zrich (Switzerland) Vayos Liapis, Associate Professor of Greek, Centre dEtudes Classiques & Departement de Philosophie, Universit de Montreal (Canada) Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Professor of Greek Emeritus, University of Oxford (UK) Yannis Lolos, Assistant Professor, History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece) Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics, University of Kansas (USA) Anthony Long, Professor of Classics and Irving G. Stone Professor of Literature, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Julia Lougovaya, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Columbia University (USA) Dr. John Ma, Lecturer in Ancient History, Oxford University and Tutorial Fellow in Ancient History, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK) A.D. Macro, Hobart Professor of Classical Languages emeritus, Trinity College (USA) John Magee, Professor, Department of Classics, Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto (Canada) Dr. Christofilis Maggidis, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Dickinson College (USA) Chryssa Maltezou, Professor emeritus, University of Athens, Director of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies in Venice (Italy) Jeannette Marchand, Assistant Professor of Classics, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio (USA) Evangeline Markou, Adjunct Lecturer in Greek History, Open University of Cyprus (Cyprus) Anna Marmodoro, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford (UK) Richard P. Martin, Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics, Stanford University (USA) Maria Mavroudi, Professor of Byzantine History, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Jody Maxmin, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art & Art History, Stanford University (USA) Alexander Mazarakis-Ainian, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Thessaly (Greece) James R. McCredie, Sherman Fairchild Professor emeritus; Director, Excavations in Samothrace Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (USA) Brian McGing M.A., Ph.D., F.T.C.D., M.R.I.A., Regius Professor of Greek, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) James C. McKeown, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) Richard McKirahan, Edwin Clarence Norton of Classics and Professor of Philosophy, Pitzer College: The Claremont Colleges (USA) Robert A. Mechikoff, Professor and Life Member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, San Diego State University (USA) Andreas Mehl, Professor of Ancient History, Universitt Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) John Richard Melville-Jones, Winthrop Professor, Classics and Ancient History, University of Western Australia (Australia) Marion Meyer, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna (Austria) Dr. Aristotle Michopoulos, Professor & Chair, Greek Studies Dept., Hellenic College (Brookline, MA, USA)
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Harald Mielsch, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Bonn (Germany) Stephen G. Miller, Professor of Classical Archaeology Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Lynette G. Mitchell, Senior Lecturer in Classics & Ancient History, Exeter University (UK) Phillip Mitsis, A.S. Onassis Professor of Classics and Philosophy, New York University (USA) Peter Franz Mittag, Professor fr Alte Geschichte, Universitt zu Kln (Germany) David Gordon Mitten, James Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, Harvard University (USA) Mette Moltesen, MA, Curator of Ancient Art, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (Denmark) Margaret S. Mook, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Iowa State University (USA) Anatole Mori, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, University of Missouri- Columbia (USA) William S. Morison, Associate Professor of Ancient History, Grand Valley State University (USA) Jennifer Sheridan Moss, Associate Professor, Wayne State University (USA) Aliki Moustaka, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Mark Munn, Professor of Ancient Greek History and Greek Archaeology, the Pennsylvania State University (USA) Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Assistant Professor of Greek Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York (USA) Alexander Nehamas, Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, Princeton University (USA) Richard Neudecker, PD of Classical Archaeology, Deutsches Archologisches Institut Rom (Italy) James M.L. Newhard, Associate Professor of Classics, College of Charleston (USA) Carole E. Newlands, Professor of Classics, University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA) Andrew G. Nichols, Visiting Lecturer of Classics, University of Florida (USA) Jessica L. Nitschke, Assistant Professor of Classics, Georgetown University (USA) John Maxwell OBrien, Professor of History, Queens College, City University of New York (USA) James J. OHara, Paddison Professor of Latin, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA) Martin Ostwald, Professor of Classics (ret.), Swarthmore College and Professor of Classical Studies (ret.), University of Pennsylvania (USA) Olga Palagia, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece) Beata M. Kitsikis Panagopoulos, Professor of Art History, Retired, San Jose State University, Caifornia (USA) Christos Panayides, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Nicosia, (Cyprus) Vassiliki Panoussi, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, The College of William and Mary (USA) Maria C. Pantelia, Professor of Classics, University of California, Irvine (USA) Pantos A.Pantos, Adjunct Faculty, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Greece) Eleni Papaefthymiou, Curator of the Numismatic Collection of the Foundation of the Hellenic
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World (Greece) Maria Papaioannou, Assistant Professor in Classical Archaeology, University of New Brunswick (Canada) Anthony J. Papalas, Professor of Ancient History, East Carolina University (USA) Nassos Papalexandrou, Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin (USA) Polyvia Parara, Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek Language and Civilization, Department of Classics, Georgetown University (USA) Richard W. Parker, Associate Professor of Classics, Brock University (Canada) Robert Parker, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, New College, Oxford (UK) Robert J. Penella, Professor and Chairman, Classics, Fordham University (USA) Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Associate Professor of Classics, Stanford University (USA) Jacques Perreault, Professor of Greek archaeology, Universite de Montreal, Quebec (Canada) Patrick Pfeil, magister artium Universitt Leipzig, Alte Geschichte (Germany) Edward A. Phillips, Professor of Classics at Grinnell College (USA) Yanis Pikoulas, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek History, University of Thessaly (Greece) Lefteris Platon, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece) John Pollini, Professor of Classical Art & Archaeology, University of Southern California (USA) David Potter, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin. The University of Michigan (USA) Daniel Potts, Edwin Cuthbert Hall Professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology, University of Sydney (Australia) Robert L. Pounder, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Vassar College (USA) Nikolaos Poulopoulos, Assistant Professor in History and Chair in Modern Greek Studies, McGill University (Canada) Selene Psoma, Senior Lecturer of Ancient History, University of Athens (Greece) William H. Race, George L. Paddison Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) John T. Ramsey, Professor of Classics, University of Illinois at Chicago (USA) Christian R. Raschle, Assistant Professor of Roman History, Centre dEtudes Classiques & Departement dHistoire, Universit de Montreal (Canada) Karl Reber, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Lausanne (Switzerland) Gary Reger, Professor of History Trinity College, Connecticut (USA) Rush Rehm, Professor of Classics and Drama, Stanford University (USA) Heather L. Reid, Professor of Philosophy, Morningside College (USA) Christoph Reusser, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Zrich (Switzerland) Werner Riess, Associate Professor of Classics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) Dr Tracey E Rihll, Senior lecturer, Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, Swansea University ( Wales, UK) Robert H. Rivkin, Ancient Studies Department, University of Maryland Baltimore County (USA) Walter M. Roberts III, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Vermont (USA) Barbara Saylor Rodgers, Professor of Classics, The University of Vermont (USA) Robert H. Rodgers. Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, University of Vermont (USA)
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Guy MacLean Rogers, Kemper Professor of Classics and History, Wellesley College (USA) Roberto Romano, professore di ruolo (II level) di Civilt bizantina e Storia bizantina, Universit Federico II di Napoli (Italy) Nathan Rosenstein, Professor of Ancient History, The Ohio State University (USA) John C. Rouman, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of New Hampshire, (USA) Dr. James Roy, Reader in Greek History (retired), University of Nottingham (UK) Steven H. Rutledge, Associate Professor of Classics, Department of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park (USA) Daniel J. Sahas, Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo (Canada) Christina A. Salowey, Associate Professor of Classics, Hollins University (USA) Pierre Sanchez, Professor of Ancient History, University of Geneva (Switzerland) Theodore Scaltsas, Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy, University of Edinburgh (UK) Thomas F. Scanlon, Professor of Classics, University of California, Riverside (USA) Thomas Schfer, Professor, Institut fr Klassische Archologie, Universitt Tbingen (Germany) Bernhard Schmaltz, Prof. Dr. Archologisches Institut der CAU, Kiel (Germany) Prof. Dr. Andras Schmidt-Colinet, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna (Austria) Robert C. Schmiel, Prof. Emeritus of Greek & Roman Studies, University of Calgary (Canada) Rolf M. Schneider, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen (Germany) Joseph B. Scholten, PhD, Associate Director, Office of International Programs/Affiliate Assoc. Prof. of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park (USA) Peter Scholz, Professor of Ancient History and Culture, University of Stuttgart (Germany) Christof Schuler, director, Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy of the German Archaeological Institute, Munich (Germany) Paul D. Scotton, Assoociate Professor Classical Archaeology and Classics, California State University Long Beach (USA) Danuta Shanzer, Professor of Classics and Medieval Studies, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (USA) James P. Sickinger, Associate Professor of Classics, Florida State University (USA) Athanasios Sideris, Ph.D., Head of the History and Archaeology Department, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens (Greece) G. M. Sifakis, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki & New York University (Greece & USA) Christos Simelidis, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Lincoln College, University of Oxford (UK) Henk W. Singor, Associate Professor of Ancient History Leiden University (Netherlands) Prof. Dr. Ulrich Sinn, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Wurzburg (Germany) Marilyn B. Skinner Professor of Classics, University of Arizona (USA) Niall W. Slater, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Latin and Greek, Emory University (USA) Peter M. Smith, Associate Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) Dr. Philip J. Smith, Research Associate in Classical Studies, McGill University (Canada) Susan Kirkpatrick Smith Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kennesaw State University (USA)
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Antony Snodgrass, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge (UK) Gina M. Soter, Lecturer IV, Classical Studies, The University of Michigan (USA) Slawomir Sprawski, Assistant Professor of Ancient History, Jagiellonian University, Krakow (Poland) Stylianos V. Spyridakis, Professor of Ancient History. University of California, Davis (USA) Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Rachel Sternberg, Associate Professor of Classics, Case Western Reserve University (USA) Dr. Tom Stevenson, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, University of Queensland (Australia) Andrew Stewart, Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Oliver Stoll, Univ.-Prof. Dr., Alte Geschichte/ Ancient History, Universitt Passau (Germany) Richard Stoneman, Honorary Fellow, University of Exeter (UK) Ronald Stroud, Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley (USA) Sarah Culpepper Stroup, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Washington (USA) Dr Panico J. Stylianou, Lecturer in Ancient History, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford (UK) Thomas A. Suits, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages, University of Connecticut (USA) Nancy Sultan, Professor and Director, Greek & Roman Studies, Illinois Wesleyan University (USA) Peter Michael Swan, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Saskatchewan (Canada) David W. Tandy, Professor of Classics, University of Tennessee (USA) James Tatum, Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics, Dartmouth College (USA) Martha C. Taylor, Associate Professor of Classics, Loyola College in Maryland (USA) Petros Themelis, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, Athens (Greece) Eberhard Thomas, Priv.-Doz. Dr., Archologisches Institut der Universitt zu Kln (Germany) Michalis Tiverios, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Michael K. Toumazou, Professor of Classics, Davidson College (USA) Stephen V. Tracy, Professor of Greek and Latin Emeritus, Ohio State University (USA) Prof. Dr. Erich Trapp, Austrian Academy of Sciences/Vienna resp. University of Bonn (Germany) Christopher Trinacty, Keiter Fellow in Classics, Amherst College (USA) Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Associate Professor of Classics, University of New Hampshire (USA) Vasiliki Tsamakda, Professor of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine History of Art, University of Mainz (Germany) Christopher Tuplin, Professor of Ancient History, University of Liverpool (UK) Yannis Tzifopoulos, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek and Epigraphy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Gretchen Umholtz, Lecturer, Classics and Art History, University of Massachusetts, Boston (USA) Panos Valavanis, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Athens (Greece) Eric R. Varner, Associate Professor, Departments of Classics and Art History, Emory
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University, Atlanta (USA) Athanassios Vergados, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Franklin & Marshall College (USA) Frederik J. Vervaet, PhD, Lecturer in Ancient History. School of Historical Studies The University of Melbourne (Australia) Christina Vester, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Waterloo (Canada) Dr. Zsolt Visy, Leiter Universitt Pcs Lehrstuhl fr Alte Geschichte und Archologie, Archologisches Seminar (Hungary) Emmanuel Voutiras, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Speros Vryonis, Jr., Alexander S. Onassis Professor (Emeritus) of Hellenic Civilization and Culture, New York University (USA) Michael B. Walbank, Professor Emeritus of Greek, Latin & Ancient History, The University of Calgary (Canada) Dr. Irma Wehgartner, Curator of the Martin von Wagner Museum der Universitt Wurzburg (Germany) Bonna D. Wescoat, Associate Professor, Art History and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Emory University (USA) E. Hector Williams, Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of British Columbia (Canada) Peter James Wilson FAHA, William Ritchie Professor of Classics, The University of Sydney (Australia) Roger J. A. Wilson, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire, and Director, Centre for the Study of Ancient Sicily, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada) Engelbert Winter, Professor for Ancient History, University of Mnster (Germany) Timothy F. Winters, Ph.D. Alumni Assn. Distinguished Professor of Classics Austin Peay State University (USA) Ioannis Xydopoulos, Assistant Professor in Ancient History, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) David C. Young, Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Florida (USA) Maria Ypsilanti, Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Literature, University of Cyprus (Cyprus) Katerina Zacharia, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Classics & Archaeology, Loyola Marymount University (USA) Michael Zahrnt, Professor fr Alte Geschichte, Universitt zu Kln (Germany) Paul Zanker, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Munich (Germany) Froma I. Zeitlin, Ewing Professor of Greek Language & Literature, Professor of Comparative Literature, Princeton University (USA)
332 signatures as of June 22nd, 2009. The original letter sent on May 18th, 2009, had 200 signatures.
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cc:

J. Biden, Vice President, USA H. Clinton, Secretary of State USA P. Gordon, Asst. Secretary-designate, European and Eurasian Affairs H.L Berman, Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs I. Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs J. Kerry, Chair, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations R.G. Lugar, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations R. Menendez, United States Senator from New Jersey B. Mikulski, United States Senator from Maryland J. Shaheen, United States Senator from New Hampsire O. Snowe, United States Senator from Maine S. Berkely, United States Representative, Nevada district 1 G. Bilirakis, United States Representative, Florida district 9 H.E. Brown, United States Representative, South Carolina district 1 R. Carnahan, United States Representative, Missouri, district 3 L. Diaz-Balart, United States Representative, Florida district 21 R.D. Holt, United States Representative, New Jersey district 12 J.L, Jackson, Jr., United States Representative, Illinois district 2 P.J. Kennedy, United States Representative, Rhode Island district 1 B. Lee, United States Representative, California district 9 M.E. McMahon, United States Representative, New York district 13 C.B. Maloney, United States Representative, New York district 14 F. Pallone, Jr., United States Representative, New Jersey district 6 D.M. Payne, United States Representative, New Jersey district 10 T. Poe, United States Representative, Texas district 2 J.P. Sarbanes, United States Representative, Maryland district 3 A. Sires, United States Representative, New Jersey district 13 Z.T. Space, United States Representative, Ohio district 18 D. Titus, United States Representative, Nevada district 3 N. Tsongas, United States Representative, Massachusetts district 5 C. Van Hollen, United States Representative, Maryland district 8 O. Rehn, European Commissioner for Enlargement K. Hedberg, Head of EU Enlargement Unit B2, FYROM M. Dawson, Deputy Head of EU Enlargement Unit B2, FYROM.
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Addenda
3 Scholars added on June 25th 2009: Jerker Blomqvist, Professor emeritus of Greek Language and literature, Lund University (Sweden) Christos Karakolis, Assistant Professor of New Testament, University of Athens (Greece) Chrys C. Caragounis, Professor emeritus of New Testament Exegesis and the development of the Greek language since ancient times, Lund University (Sweden) 5 Scholars added on June 29th 2009: Harold D. Evjen, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) Hara Tzavella-Evjen, Professor Emerita of Classical Archaeology, University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) Michael Paschalis, Professor of Classics, Department of Philology, University of Crete, Rethymnon (Greece) Vrasidas Karalis, Professor, New Testament Studies, The University of Sydney (Australia) Emilio Crespo, Professor of Greek Philology, Universidad Autnoma de Madrid (Spain) 2 Scholars added on July 8th 2009: Dr. Zoi Kotitsa, Archaeologist, Scientific research fellow, University of Marburg (Germany) Dr. Ekaterini Tsalampouni, Assistant Lecturer in New Testament, Graeco-Roman antiquity and Koine Greek, Ludwig-Maximillian University of Munich (Germany) 2 Scholars added on July 18th 2009: Karol Myliwiec, Professor Dr., Director of the Research Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw (Poland) Stephen Neale, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics, John H. Kornblith Family Chair in the Philosophy of Science and Values, City University of New York (USA) 1 Scholar added on July 20th 2009: Marsh McCall, Professor Emeritus, Department of Classics, Stanford University (USA) 1 Scholar added on August 10th 2009: Georgia Tsouvala, Assistant Professor of History, Illinois State University (USA) 1 Scholar added on September 3rd 2009: Mika Rissanen, PhL, Ancient History, University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) 2 Scholars added on October 10th 2009: Jos Antonio Fernndez Delgado. Professor of Greek Philology, Universidad de Salamanca
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(Spain) Zinon Papakonstantinou, Assistant Professor of Hellenic Studies, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle (USA)
1 Scholar added on October 17th 2009: Eugene Afonasin, Professor of Greek Philosophy and of Roman Law, Novosibirsk State University (Russia) 1 Scholar added on October 28th 2009: Hartmut Wolff, Professor fr Alte Geschichte (emeritus), Universitt Passau (Germany) 1 Scholar added on October 30th 2009: Eleni Manakidou, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology, Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki (Greece) 1 Scholar added on November 3rd 2009: Pavlos Sfyroeras, Associate Professor of Classics, Middlebury College (USA) 1 Scholar added on November 11th 2009: Konstantinos Kapparis, Associate Professor of Classics, Department of Classics, University of Florida (USA) 1 Scholar added on November 14th 2009: Prof. Dr. Ingomar Weiler, Professor Emeritus, Ancient Greek and Roman History, KarlFranzens-Universitt of Graz (Austria) 1 Scholar added on November 15th 2009: Werner Petermandl, Universittslektor, Karl-Franzens-Universitt of Graz (Austria) 1 Scholar added on December 4th 2009: Istvn Kertsz, Professor of ancient Greco-Roman history, Department of Ancient and Medieval History, Pedagogic College in Eger (Hungary) 1 Scholar added on March 11th 2010: Nassi Malagardis, charge de Mission au Dpartement des Antiquits Grecques, Etrusques et Romaines du Muse du Louvre, Paris (France) 2 Scholars added on March 25th 2010: Gonda Van Steen, Professor, Department of Classics, University of Florida (USA) Robert Wagman, Associate Professor of Classics, Department of Classics, University of Florida (USA) 2 Scholars added on March 27th 2010: Angelos Barmpotis, Ph.D., Director of the Digital Epigraphy and Archaeology Project, University of Florida (USA) Eleni Bozia, Ph.D. Visiting Lecturer, Department of Classics, University of Florida (USA)
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1 Scholar added on April 16th 2010: Timothy Johnson, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, University of Florida (USA) 1 Scholar added on April 17th 2010: Christos C. Tsagalis, Associate Professor of Classics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) 1 Scholar added on August 31st 2010: Potitsa Grigorakou, Lecturer in Hellenism in the Orient, Public University of Athens (Greece) 2 Scholars added on September 3rd 2010: Maurice Sartre, Professor of Ancient History, emeritus. Universit Franois-Rabelais, Tours (France) Apostolos Bousdroukis, Researcher, Institute for Greek and Roman Antiquity, National Hellenic Research Foundation (Greece) 1 Scholar added on September 10th 2010: Alastar Jackson, Hon. Research Fellow in Ancient History, Manchester University (U.K.) 1 Scholar added on October 5th 2010: Frances Van Keuren, Professor Emerita of Ancient Art History, University of Georgia (USA) 1 Scholar added on December 4th 2010: Thomas Heine Nielsen, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek, University of Copenhagen (Denmark) 1 Scholar added on April 18th 2011: Antonis Bartsiokas, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, University of Thrace (Greece) 1 Scholar added on October 16th 2011: Thanasis Maskaleris, Emeritus Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, San Francisco State University (USA)
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Documentation for the Letter to President Obama
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misappropriation . . . . of Alexander the Great: More recently even Alexanders father, Philip, has also been abducted: When Macedonia renamed Skopje airport for Alexander the Great in 2007, this seemed a one-off to annoy Greece. More recently, however, the government has broadened a policy the opposition calls antiquisation. The main road to Greece has been renamed for Alexander and the national sports stadium named after his father, and plans are afoot to erect a huge statue of Alexander in central Skopje. The Economist April 2, 2009 Even the popular but supposedly serious periodical Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, has recently (January-February 2009) published an article with the name Owning Alexander: Modern Macedonia lays its claim to the ancient conquerors legacy. called Paionia in antiquity: The geographic situation is made clear by Livys account of the creation of the Roman province of Macedonia in 146 B.C. (Livy 45.29.7 and 45.29.12). The land north of Mt. Barnous and Mt. Orbelos was inhabited by Paionians. The natural barrier formed by these mountains must be acknowledged. Barnous (modern Voras or Kaimaktsalan) reaches a height of 2524 meters, while Orbelos (the whole range extending to east and west of the Strymon; the western ridge is the modern Beles or Kerkini with a height of 1474 meters) has a maximum height toward the east of 2211 meters. Strabo (7. frag 4), writing a few years before the birth of Christ, is even more succinct in saying that Paionia was north of Macedonia and the only connection from one to the other was (and is today) through the narrow gorge of the Axios (or Vardar) River.
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does not form a line of communication: M. Sivignon, in M. Sakellariou (ed) Macedonia (Athens 1982) 15. subdued by Philip II: Diodorus Siculus 16.4.2 See also Demosthenes (Olynthian 1.23) who tells us that they were enslaved by the Macedonian Philip and clearly, therefore, not Macedonians. Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point. for at least 2,500 years: See, for example, Herodotus 5.17, 7.128, et alibi. about a millennium after the death of Alexander: For the first appearance of the Slavs in the Balkans in the mid-6th century after Christ, see Walter Pohl, Justinian and the Barbarian Kingdoms, in Michael Maas (ed.), Age of Justinian (Cambridge 2005) 469-471; for their devastating path through Greece in the 580s, see Anna Avramea, Le Ploponnse du IVe au VIIIe sicle, changements et persistances (Paris 1997) 67-80 thoroughly and indisputably Greek: In the words of the father of history I happen to know that [the forefathers of Alexander] are Greek (Herodotus 5.22). The date of when Alexander I competed at Olympia is not sure, but it certainly occurred between 504 and 496 B.C. He established his Hellenic roots by tracing his ancestors back to Argos and, ultimately to Herakles. Hence the coins with the head of Herakles wearing the skin of the Nemean Lion from Archelaos and Amyntas, among others.
Euripides who died and was buried in Macedonia: Thucydides apud Pal. Anth. 7.45; Pausanias 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus 13.103. Some modern scholars doubt this tradition, but not that Euripides spent time in Macedonia. Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi: Plutarch, Alexander 3.9 and 4.9; Moralia 105A. Philip advertised his victories, and therefore his Greekness, by minting coins commemorating those victories. Below is a silver coin with the head of
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Olympian Zeus on the front and Philips victorious horse on the reverse, labeled with his name of Philip in Greek. A gold coin with the head of Apollo of Delphi on the front, and Philips winning two-horse chariot on the reverse, again labeled with his name of Philip in Greek.
conduct the Pythian Games: Diodorus Siculus 16.60.2 delegation from Athens: See, inter alios, Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione, and Aischines, De Legatione. It is the tirades of Demosthenes against Philip (e.g. 9.30-35 in which he calls Philip not only not a Greek, nor related to a Greek, nor even a barbarian from someplace that can be called good) that have given rise to the notion that the Macedonians were not Greek, but Demosthenes tended to call all his enemies barbarian, even fellow Athenians (e.g. 21.150). Another northern Greek, Aristotle: Because Aristotles native city, Stageira, was established in the 7th century B.C. before the Macedonians had developed their kingdom, Aristotle cannot be called a native Macedonian, although his father, Nikomachos, was the friend and doctor of Amyntas III (393-369) according to Diogenes Laertius 5.1. Philip later, as a part of his conquest of the whole of the Chalkidike in 348 B.C. (Demosthenes, 19.266) , seems to have laid waste to Stageira, but rebuilt it in 342 B.C. at Aristotles request (Diogenes Laertius 5.4). Clearly the relationship between him and Macedonia was close. tutor of Alexander: Diogenes Laertius 5.4; Plutarch, Alexander 7.2-8.1. Aristotle also taught a number of Alexanders peers and comrades, some of whom later became kings like Ptolemy of Egypt.
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classroom which can still be seen: A spacious room cut back into natural bed rock with cuttings for roof supports and a bench for the students is easily repeopled in the visitors imagination with Aristotle standing in the middle and Alexander and his pals on the bench. It was Aristotle who advised Alexander to treat the Greeks as if he were their leader, other peoples as if he were their master (Plutarch, On the Fortune of Alexander 329B). In the event, Alexander did not take this advice for his only wives were non-Greek orientals. Aristotles edition of Homer: Plutarch, Alexander 8.2 founding cities and establishing centers of learning: Although cities like Pergamon and Alexandria in Egypt became major cultural centers under the successors of Alexander (the Attalids and the Ptolemies, respectively), it was Alexander who laid their foundations. See Diodorus Siculus 20.20.1 and Justin 13.2, and Arrian 3.1.5, respectively. as far away as Afghanistan: Excavations at Ai Khanoum on the northern border of modern Afghanistan have produced great quantities of Greek inscriptions and even the remnants of a philosophical treatise originally on papyrus. One of the most interesting is the base of a dedication by one Klearchos, perhaps the known student of Aristotle, that records his bringing to this new Greek city, Alexandria on the Oxus, the traditional maxims from the shrine of Apollo at Delphi concerning the five ages of man: In childhood, seemliness In youth, self-control In middle age, justice In old age, wise council In death, painlessness
Klearchos inscription, ca. 300 B.C., now in Kabul Museum
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For further information about the Greekness of Ai Khanoum, see Robin Lane Fox, The Search for Alexander (London 1980) 425-433, and figures on pages 390-393, and elsewhere; and Paul Bernard, Les fouilles dAi Khanum (Paris 1973). Slavs and their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years later: see above. The ancient Paionians: The ancient Paionians may have been of Hellenic stock, but relatively little is known about them, partly because no Paionian Philip ever dominated Greece, and no Paionian Alexander ever conquered the known world ( Irwin L. Merker, The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia, Balkan Studies 6 (1965) 35). Nonetheless, they appear already in the Trojan War (albeit on the Trojan side; Homer, Iliad 2.848-850, 16.287-291, 17.348-351). Their confrontation with the Persians is recorded by Herodotus (5.1, 12-17). They fought against Philip who subdued them and with Alexander against the Persians, especially in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. (Quintus Curtius, History of Alexander 4.9.24-25. They enjoyed, even under the Macedonians, a certain degree of autonomy as is shown by their negotiations with Athens (IG II2 127) and the many coins minted under a series of Paionian kings, whose names are Greek and inscribed in Greek on the coins. See, for example, the following silver issue of Patraos, probably depicting the slaying of a Persian satrap by the Paionian Ariston as told by Quintus Curtius (see above): Even more significantly for the assimilation of Paionia into the Greek world are the dedications of statues of Paionian kings made at Delphi and Olympia, and especially the bronze head of a Paionian bison, also at Delphi. See BCH 1950:22, Inschriften von Olympia 303; and Pausanias 10.13.1, respectively. Greekish: No Paionians are recorded as victors in the Olympic or other Panhellenic games. This may, of course, be a reflection of a lack of athletic ability rather than a lack of Greekness.
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territorial aspirations: We would note that in 1929, in an effort to submerge unruly local identities into a unified Yugoslav nation, King Alexander of Yugoslavia named the region the Vardarska province, after the major river that runs through it. See, for example, the Yugoslav stamp of 1939 with the ancient Paionia labeled with the name Vardarska.
This effort to reduce ethnic tensions was rescinded by Tito, who used the Macedonian identity as leverage against Yugoslavias Greek and Bulgarian neighbors. The (mis)use of the name Macedonia at that time was recognized by the United States State Department in a dispatch of December 26, 1944, by then U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius: The Department [of State] has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. This government considers talk of Macedonian nation, Macedonian Fatherland, or Macedonian national consciousness to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece. [Source: U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations vol viii, Washington, D.C., Circular Airgram (868.014/26Dec1944)]
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School Maps:
This map shows the real Macedonia (in Slavic) which includes ancient Paionia, the Greek province of Macedonia (the historical Macedonia), and a part of southwestern Bulgaria (which was also inhabited by Paionian tribes in ancient times).
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Other maps, such as this one above in an 8th grade history book in 2005, maintain that, as of 1913 and thereafter, Macedonia included parts occupied by Albania (yellow), Bulgaria (purple), and Greece (red).
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Bank Notes:
The White Tower of Thessalonike in Greek Macedonia, fronting onto the Aegean Sea, is the central decoration of this note printed in Skopje in 1991.
mock and provoke its neighbor: An apt analogy is at hand if we imagine a certain large island off the southeast coast of the United States re-naming itself Florida, emblazoning its currency with images of Disney World and distributing maps showing the Greater Florida. characterize such behavior: It is nuts, sighs one diplomat (The Economist April 2, 2009).
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Articles
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Ancient language Identity Modern linguistics Ethnicity Persians Archaeology magazine Classical journal
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1. Ancient language
The speech of the ancient Macedonians, in the light of recent epigraphic discoveries
By Miltiades Hatzopoulos, VI International Symposion on Ancient Macedonia, 1999.
odern discussion of the speech of the ancient Macedonians began in 1808, when F. G. Sturz published a small book entitled De dialecto macedonica liber (Leipzig 1808), intended to be a scientific enquiry into the position of Macedonian within Greek. However, after the publication of O. Mllers work ber die Wohnsitz, die Abstammung und die ltere Geschichte des makedonischen Volks (Berlin 1825), the discussion evolved into an acrimonious controversy -- initially scientific but soon political -- about the Greek or non-Greek nature of this tongue. Diverse theories were put forward: position of Mller himself, G. Kazaroff, M. Rostovtzeff, M. Budimir, H. Baric; or of partly Thracian origin, as it was maintained by D. Tzanoff. II. Macedonian is a separate Indo-European language. This was the opinion of V. Pisani, I. Russu, G. Mihailov, P. Chantraine, I. Pudic, C. D. Buck, E. Schwyzer, V. Georgiev, W. W. Tarn and of O. Masson in his youth. III. But according to most scholars Macedonian was a Greek dialect. This view has been expanded by F. G. Sturz, A. Fick, G. Hatzidakis, O. Hoffmann, F. Solmsen, V. Lesny, Andriotis, F. Geyer, N. G. L. Hammond, N. Kalleris, A. Toynbee, Ch. Edson and O. Masson in his mature years. IV. Finally, a small number of scholars thought that the evidence available was not sufficient to form an opinion. Such was the view of A. Meillet and A. Momigliano. Whatever the scientific merits of the above scholars, it was the nature of the evidence itself and, above all, its scarcity, which allowed the propounding of opinions so diverse and incompatible between themselves. In fact, not one phrase of Macedonian, not one complete syntagm had come down to us in the literary tradition; because Macedonian, like many other Greek dialects, was never promoted to the dignity of a literary vehicle; because the Temenid kings, when they endowed their administration with a chancery worthy of the name, adopted the Attic koine, which in the middle of the
I. Macedonian is a mixed language either of partly Illyrian origin -- such was the
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fourth century was prevailing as the common administrative idiom around the shores of the Aegean basin. Thus, the only available source for knowledge of Macedonian speech were the glosses, that is to say isolated words collected by lexicographers mainly from literary works because of their rarity or strangeness, and also personal names which, as we know, are formed from appellatives (< + ). The glosses, rare and strange words by definition, had the major defect of being liable to corruption, to alterations, in the course of transmission through the ages by copyists who could not recognise them. As far as personal names are concerned, for want of scientific epigraphic corpora of the Macedonian regions, until very recently it was impossible to compile trustworthy lists. On top of that, these two sources of information, far from leading to convergent conclusions, suggested conflicting orientations. While the glosses included, besides words with a more or less clear Greek etymology ( [cf. ] [cf. ] , [cf. , gen. ]), a significant number of terms hard to interpret as Greek ( . ; ; [Hesychius]), the vast majority of personal names, not only were perfectly Greek (, , , , , , ) but also presented original traits excluding the possibility of their being borrowed from the Attic dialect, which was the official idiom of the kingdom (, , , ), indeed from any other Greek dialect (, , ). Until very recently it was hard to tell which set of evidence was more trustworthy. During the last thirty years the situation has radically changed thanks to the publication of the epigraphic corpora of Thessalonike (1972) and Northern Macedonia (1999) by the Berlin Academy and of Upper Macedonia (1985) and Beroia (1998) by the Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity (KERA). Meanwhile the latter centre has also published three important onomastic collections: of Beroia, of Edessa and of Macedonians attested outside their homeland. This intense epigraphic activity fed by continuous archaeological discoveries has brought to light an abundance of documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian. This new body of evidence renders to a large extent irrelevant the old controversies and requires an ab initio re-opening of the discussion on a different basis. Old theories however, die hard and relics of obsolete erudition still encumber handbooks and scientific journals. I particularly have in mind R. A. Crosslands chapter in the second edition of volume III 1 of the Cambridge Ancient History and E. N. Borzas latest booklet Before Alexander. Constructions of Early Macedonia published respectively in 1982 and 1999. One reason perhaps the main one for such resistance to the assimilation of new evidence and persistence of obsolete theories until these very last years is the way in which
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since the nineteenth century the scholarly discussion about Macedonian speech and its Greek or non-Greek character has focused on the sporadic presence in Macedonian glosses and proper names -- which otherwise looked perfectly Greek -- of the sign of the voiced stop (, , ) instead of the corresponding unvoiced, originally aspirated stop expected in Greek, as for instance in and instead of and . Here I must open a parenthesis. The traditional English pronunciation of classical Greek presents an obstacle to the understanding of the problem. To make things simple, one may say that classical Greek originally possessed several series of occlusive consonants or stops, that is to say consonants obtained by the momentary occlusion of the respiratory ducts. These, according to the articulatory region, can be distinguished into labials, dentals and velars (the occlusion is respectively performed by the lips, the teeth or the velum of the palate) and, according to the articulatory mode, into unvoiced (/p/, /t/, /k/), voiced (/b/, /d/, /g/) and unvoiced aspirates in fact expirates, that is to say, accompanied by a breathing (/ph/, /th/, /kh/). These aspirates, in some dialects from the archaic period and in most by the Hellenistic age, had become spirants, that is to say they were no longer obtained by the complete occlusion of the respiratory ducts, but by their simple contraction and were accordingly pronounced as /f/, //, //. At the same time the voiced stops also might, according to the phonetic context, lose their occlusion and become spirants pronounced /v/, //, //. In fact, the chronology of the passage from the classical to the Hellenistic pronunciation varied according to dialect and to region. The occlusive consonants of Greek are the heirs of an Indo-European system which differed from the Greek one in that it possessed an additional series of occlusive consonants pronounced with both the lips and the velum. This series survived until the Mycenaean period, but was subsequently eliminated from all Greek dialects in various ways. Moreover, in the Indo-European system of consonants the place of the Greek series of unvoiced aspirate stops was occupied by a series of voiced aspirate stops, that is to say voiced stops accompanied by a breathing. These last ones (/bh/, /dh/, /gh/, gwh/) survived to a large extent only in Sanskrit and in modern Indian dialects. Elsewhere, they either lost their breathing (such is the case of the Slavonic, Germanic, and Celtic languages), or their sonority (such is the case of the Greek and Italic languages, in which they evolved into (/ph/, /th/, /kh/, /khw/). Thus the root bher- is represented by the verb bharami in Sanskrit, bero in Old Slavonic, baira in Gothic, berim in ancient Irish, in Greek and fero in Latin. The supporters of the non-Greek nature of Macedonian reasoned as follows: if, instead of the well known Greek personal names (the bald one) or (she who brings victory) with a phi, we read the names or with a beta on the inscriptions of Macedonia, this is because the Macedonian tongue has not participated in the same consonant mutations as prehistoric Greek -- already before the first Mycenaean documents in Linear B -- which had transformed the aspirate voiced stops of IndoEuropean (/bh/, /dh/, /gh/) into aspirate unvoiced stops (/ph/, /th/, /kh/). That is to say that, instead of the loss of sonority of Greek, in Macedonian we are dealing with the loss of aspiration in Macedonian, which classifies the latter along with the Slavonic, the Germanic and the Celtic languages.
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But, if Macedonian was separated from Greek before the second millennium B.C., it cannot be considered a Greek dialect, even an aberrant one. What the partisans of such theories have not always explicitly stated is that they all rely on the postulate that the sounds rendered by the signs , , in Macedonian glosses and proper names are the direct heirs of the series of voiced aspirate stops of Indo-European and do not result from a secondary sonorisation, within Greek, of the series represented by the signs , , . However, one must be wary of short-cuts and simplifications in linguistics. For instance, the sound /t/ in the German word Mutter is not the direct heir of the same sound in the Indo-European word *mater, but has evolved from the common Germanic form *moer, which was the reflex of Indo-European *mater. The example of Latin demonstrates that the evolution /bh/>/ph/>/f/>/v/>/b/, envisaged above, is perfectly possible. Thus, the form albus (white) in Latin does not come directly from Indo-European *albhos. In fact the stem albh- became first alph- and then alf- in Italic, and it was only secondarily that the resulting spirant sonorised into alv- which evolved into alb- in Latin (cf. alfu=albos in Umbrian and in Greek). G. Hatzidakis (see especially Zur Abstammung der alten Makedonier [Athens 1897] 35-37) was the first and for many years the only one to stress the importance -- and at the same time the weakness -- of the implicit postulate of the partisans of the non-Greek character of Macedonian, to wit the alleged direct descent of the series represented by the signs of the voiced stops in the Macedonian glosses and personal names from the IndoEuropean series of aspirate voiced stops. Since the middle of the eighties of the last century the acceleration of archaeological research in Macedonia and also the activities of the Macedonian Programme of the Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity (KERA) mentioned above have occasioned numerous scholarly works exploiting the new evidence has been collected and allows us to go beyond the Gordian knot which since the nineteenth century had kept captive all discussion about the tongue of the ancient Macedonians (Cl. Brixhe, Anna Panayotou, O. Masson, L. Dubois, M. B. Hatzopoulos). It would not be an exaggeration to say that henceforward the obstacle hindering the identification of the language spoken by Philip and Alexander has been removed: ancient Macedonian, as we shall see, was really and truly a Greek dialect. On this point all linguists or philologists actively dealing with the problem are of the same opinion. It is equally true that they do not agree on everything. Two questions still raise serious contention: a. How should it be explained that this sporadic presence in Macedonian glosses and proper names of the signs of voiced stops (, , ) instead of the corresponding originally aspirate unvoiced ones (, , ) of the other Greek dialects? b. What is the dialectal position of Macedonian within Greek? The first question has been tackled several times in recent years, but with divergent conclusions by Cl. Brixhe and Anna Panayotou on the one hand and O. Masson, L. Dubois and the present speaker on the other. On the question of the dialectal affinities of Macedonian within Greek, besides the
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above mentioned scholars, N. G. L. Hammond and E. Voutiras have also made significant contributions. As far as I am concerned I have been gradually convinced that the two questions are intimately linked, or rather, that the search for the affinities of the Macedonian dialect can provide a satisfactory explanation of this controversial particularity of its consonantal system.
A problematic mutation
Down to very recent years discussion on the topic on the Macedonian consonantal system was almost exclusively dependent on literary evidence. The systematic collection of inscriptions from Macedonia in the Epigraphic Archive of KERA occasioned the publication of three articles exploiting this epigraphic material, the first two in 1987 and the third in 1988. The first one, written by the present speaker had its starting point in a series of manumissions by consecration to Artemis from the territory of Aigeai (modern Vergina), who was qualified as and (), the latter derived from the place name at which she was venerated ( ). It was obvious to me that the first epiclesis was nothing else than the local form of the adjective , , (the just one). As for the explanation of the less obvious epiclesis Blaganitis and of the place name Blaganoi, the clue was provided by Hesychius gloss , which I connected with one of the manumission texts qualifying Artemis as the godess [ ]. The two epicleseis of Artemis demonstrated that Macedonian might occasionally present voiced consonants in the case in hand represented by the letter gamma not only instead of unvoiced aspirates (in this case represented by the letter chi of ) but also instead of simple unvoiced stops (in this case represented by the letter kappa of ). This discovery had important implications, because it showed that the phenomenon under examination, of which I collected numerous examples, had nothing to do with a consonant mutation going back to Indo-European, which could concern only the voiced aspirates and would make a separate language of Macedonian, different from the other Greek dialects. In fact, it ought to be interpreted as a secondary and relatively recent change within Greek, which had only partially run its course, as becomes apparent from the coexistence of forms with voiced as well as unvoiced consonants also in the case of the simple unvoiced stop (cf. -, -, , -, -, -), but also from the presence of hypercorrect forms (cf. =, =, =). This tendency to voice the unvoiced consonants was undoubtedly impeded after the introduction of Attic koine as the administrative language of the Macedonian state and only accidentally and sporadically left traces in the written records, especially in the case of local terms and proper names which had no correspondents and, consequently, no model in the
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official idiom. In the second article published the same year I collected examples of forms with voiced and unvoiced sounds inherited from Indo-European voiced aspirates and was able to identify the complete series of feminine proper names with a voiced labial formed on the stem of : , , parallel to , , . These names presenting a voiced consonant, rendered by a beta, formed according to the rules of Greek, and the Greek etymology of which was beyond doubt, convinced me that the explanation of the phenomenon should be sought within that language. The third article, written jointly by Cl. Brixhe and Anna Panayotou, who was then preparing a thesis on the Greek language of the inscriptions found in Macedonia on the basis of the epigraphic documentation collected at KERA, followed another orientation. Whereas new evidence did not leave them in any doubt that the Macedonian of historical times spoken by Philip II and Alexander the Great was a Greek dialect, they contended that, besides this Macedonian, there had formerly existed another language in which the Indo-European aspirates had become voiced stops and that this language had provided the proper names and the appellatives presenting voiced stops instead of the unvoiced stops of Greek, for instance and instead of and . These ideas were later developed and completed in a chapter devoted to Macedonian and published in a collective volume. In this paper Cl. Brixhe and Anna Panayotou identified this other language that according to them had disappeared before the end of the fifth century B.C., not before playing a not insignificant part in the genesis of the Macedonian entity, with the language of the Brygians or Phrygians of Europe. Such was the beginning of a long controversy in the form of articles, communications to congresses and also private correspondence, which, as far as I am concerned, was particularly enriching, because it gave me the opportunity to refine my arguments. Their objection, at first sight reasonable, to wit that a form such as cannot be the product of the voicing of the first phoneme of , for the aspirate stop / ph/ has no voiced correspondent in Greek, obliged me to examine their postulate on the conservative character of the pronunciation of the consonants and, in a more general way, of the Attic koine spoken in Macedonia. With the help of documents such as the deeds of sale from Amphipolis and the Chalkidike and of the boundary ordinance from Mygdonia, I was able to show that by the middle of the fourth century in Northern Greece the ancient aspirate stops written with the help of the signs ,, had already lost their occlusion and had become spirants, that is to say they were formed by the simple contraction instead of the complete occlusion of the respiratory ducts; the ancient voiced stops written with the help of the signs , , were pronounced, without any phonological significance, as spirants as well as stops, according to the phonetic context, just like in modern Castillian (-; cf. andar-querido). This contention is proved by errors such as in a mid-fourth century B.C. deed of sale from Amphipolis, which cannot be explained unless phi, pronounced like an f,
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indicated the unvoiced correspondent of the phoneme pronounced like a v and written with the help of the letter beta. On the other hand, I drew attention to a series of allegedly Brygian terms since they are found in Macedonian proper names presenting voiced consonants as reflexes of IndoEuropean voiced aspirates which, however, showed a suspicious likeness with Greek words not only in their stems, but also in their derivation and composition. Thus, if we accept the Brygian theory, the name of the fifth Macedonian month presupposes the existence of a Brygian adjectif xandos parallel to Greek ; likewise the Macedonian personal name a Brygian substantive gaita (mane) parallel to Greek (); the Macedonian personal name a Brygian substantive maga parallel to Greek (); the Macedonian personal name a Brygian substantive stadmos parallel to Greek ; the Macedonian personal names , , , a Brygian stem bil- parallel to Greek phil- and also Brygian rules of derivation identical to the Greek ones responsible for the formation of the superlative , () and of the corresponding personal names , (); the compound Macedonian personal names and not only the Brygian substantives nika, bulon, maga and the verb bero parallel to Greek , , , , but on top of that rules of composition identical to the Greek ones responsible for the formation of the corresponding Greek personal names and . However, the Brygian language reconstituted in this manner is not credible, for it looks suspiciously like Greek in disguise. Finally, a series of observations 1) on the names of the Macedonian months, 2) on the use of the patronymic adjective, and 3) on a neglected piece of evidence for the Macedonian speech, induced me to reconsider the connexion between Macedonian and the Thessalian dialects. 1) The Macedonian calendar plays a significant role in the Brygian theory, because according to the latters supporters it testified the undeniable cultural influence of the Phrygian people in the formation of the Macedonian ethnos. They particularly refer to the months Audnaios, Xandikos, Gorpiaios and Hyperberetaios, which according to them can find no explanation in Greek. In fact, the different variants of the first month (, , , ) leave no doubt that the original form is F, which derives from the name of Hades, the invisible (a-wid-) and followed two different evolutions: on the one hand F>>>, with the disappearence of the closed vowel /i/ and the vocalisation of the semi-vowel /w/ and, later, with the closing of the long vowel /o:/ into /u/ (written -) and finally with the disappearence of this closed vowel, and, on the other hand F> , with the simple loss of intervocalic /w/. The case of Xandikos is even clearer. It was felt as a simple dialectal variant within the Greek language, as is apparent from the form attested both in literary texts and in inscriptions. Concerning , Hofmann had already realised that it should be connected
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with , the word for fruit in Greek, which makes good sense for a month corresponding roughly to August (cf. the revolutionary month Fructidor). This intuition is confirmed today, on the one hand by the cult of Dionysos attested in neighbouring Thessaly and, on the other hand, by the variant showing that we are dealing with a sonorisation of the unvoiced initial consonant, a banal phenomenon in Macedonia, and a double treatment of the semi-vowel /r/, of which there are other examples from both Macedonia and Thessaly. The name of the twelfth month , the Greek etymology of which was put in doubt, orientates us too in the direction of Thessaly. In fact it is inseparable from the cult of Zeus also attested in nearby Thessaly. 2) At the exhibition organised at Thessalonike in 1997 and entitled was presented an elegant funerary monument from the territory of Thessalonike of the first half of the third century B.C. bearing the inscription . as a dialectal form of Attic is also known from other inscriptions found in Macedonia. As for the use of the patronymic adjective instead of the genitive as a mark of filiation ( instead of ), which is characteristic of Thessalian and more generally of the Aeolic dialects, it had been postulated by O. Hoffmann on the basis of names of cities founded by the Macedonians, such as , , , . Now it was for the first time directly attested in a text which could be qualified as dialectal. The confirmation that the patronymic adjective constitutes a local Macedonian characteristic and that the monument of Pistareta could not be dismissed as set up by some immigrant Thessalians was provided by a third century B.C. manumission from Beroia, which, although written in Attic koine,refers to the daughter of a certain Agelaos as . 3) Finally, although it had been known for centuries, recent studies have ignored the sole direct attestation of Macedonian speech preserved in an ancient author. It is a verse in a non-Attic dialect that the fourth century Athenian poet Strattis in his comedy The Macedonians (Athen. VII, 323b) puts in the mouth of a character, presumably Macedonian, as an answer to the question of an Athenian ; (The sphyraena, whats that?): , , (Its what ye in Attica dub cestra). Thus research on the Macedonian consonantal system has led to the question of the dialectal affinities of this speech, to which it is closely connected. It was natural that the major controversy about the Greek or non-Greek character of Macedonian had relegated to a secondary position the question of its position within the Greek dialects. Nevertheless it had not suppressed it completely. Already F. G. Sturz, following Herodotos, considered Macedonian a Doric dialect, whereas O. Abel was even more precise and placed it among the northern Doric dialects. He thought that Strabo and Plutarch provided the necessary arguments for maintaining that Macedonian did not differ from Epirote.
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It was the fundamental work of O. Hoffmann that forcibly introduced the Aeolic thesis into the discussion, which is largely accepted in our days (Daskalakis, Toynbee, Goukowsky). The Doric-north-western thesis made a strong come-back thanks to the authority of J. N. Kalleris followed by G. Babiniotis, O. Masson and other scholars with more delicately shaded opinions (A. Tsopanakis, A. I. Thavoris, M. B. Sakellariou and Brixhe). Finally, N. G. L. Hammond held a more original position, arguing for the parallel existence of two Macedonian dialects: one in Upper Macedonia close to the north-western dialects and another in Lower Macedonia close to Thessalian. But a new piece of evidence, the publication of a lengthy dialectal text from Macedonia, created a new situation. It is a curse tablet from Pella dating from the first half of the fourth century B.C. which was discovered in a grave at Pella. [] [] , , [] , [] , , [ ] . () [ ?] , [], [] [] . [----][----].. , [][] [-----] [.].[----].[..]....[ ].[.]..[---] Of Thetima and Dinysophon the ritual wedding and the marriage I bind by a written spell, as well as (the marriage) of all other women (to him), both widows and maidens, but above all of Thetima; and I entrust (this spell) to Macron and the daimones. And were I ever to unfold and read these words again after digging (the tablet) up, only then should Dionysophon marry, not before; may he indeed not take another woman than myself, but let me alone grow old by the side of Dionysophon and no one else. I implore you: have pity for [Phila?], dear daimones, for I am indeed downcast and bereft of friends. But please keep this (piece of writing) for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably. [---] but let me become happy and blessed. [---] (translation by E. Voutiras, modified). E. Voutiras, the editor of the tablet from Pella, was well aware of the linguistic traits that his text shared with the north-western Greek dialects: in particular the conservation of the long /a/ (or of its reflex: ), the contraction of /a/ and /o/ (short or long) into a long /a/ (or its reflex: ), the dative of the first person singular of the personal pronoun , the presence of temporal adverbs ending in (), the apocope of verbal prefixes (), the dissimilation of consecutive spirants which betrays the use of the signs -- instead of --; but, on the other hand, he ignored, as if they were simple errors, the dialectal traits which did not conform to the purely north-western idea that he had of the
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dialect. These, as L. Dubois and I have pointed out, are in particular the forms , , , instead of , , , , which bear witness to phonetic phenomena having, in the first three cases, their correspondents both in dialectal Thessalian texts and in koine texts from Macedonia, whereas the fourth case presents the voicing of the unvoiced typical of the Macedonian dialect. Cl. Brixhe returned to this text with a thorough analysis which confirmed and refined those of his predecessors. He pointed out the treatment of the group sm-, with the elimination of the sibilant and the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, which is proper to north-western dialects but not Thessalian, the presence of the particle , expected in the north-western dialects as opposed to Thessalian , and the athematic form of the dative plural , attested in the north-western dialects but not in Thessalian, where one would expect ; he interpreted the graphic hesitation /, / (pronounced /u/) as resulting from a tendency, in the Macedonian dialect and, later, in the koine of the region towards a closing of the vocales mediae e and o, respectively becoming i and u, which indicated an affinity of Macedonian not with the north-western dialects but with Attic and even more with Boeotian and Thessalian and with the northern dialects of modern Greek; he adopted L. Dubois interpretation of and admitted that the spirantisation of the aspirates and the voiced stops in Macedonian had already taken place in the classical period, but persisted in considering more efficient his interpretation of forms such as as Brygian rather than Greek. In my opinion the presence of forms such as , , , , expected in Macedonia but alien to the north-western dialects, is a decisive confirmation of the local origin of the author of the text and allows the elimination of the unlikely hypothesis that it might have been the work of an Epirote resident alien living in Pella. But this is not all. The fact that the closing of the vocales mediae, of which the first three examples bear witness, is a phenomenon well attested in Thessalian confirms the coexistence of northwestern and of Thessalian characteristics in Macedonian; it indicates the intermediate position of the latter dialect, and legitimises the attempt to verify whether the tendency to voice the unvoiced consonants was not shared with at least some Thessalian dialects. Kalleris had already pointed out that the place names and and the personal names and , which were attested in Thessaly but were unknown in Macedonia, respectively corresponded to , , and to a composite name, the first element of which was -. Nevertheless he did not draw the conclusion that the sonorisation phenomenon, far from being limited to Macedonia, was common to that area and to Thessaly, because he refused to admit its localisation in Macedonia and in nearby areas, as P. Kretschmer had suggested. In previous papers I had added to these place names a third one, (), and a series of personal names either unknown (then) in Macedonia: () or attested in a different form: (), (). The publication of fascicule III.B of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, which contains the onomastic material from Thessaly makes it now possible to add additional examples: , , corresponding to , , , in
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the same manner that and correspond to and . Moreover, the frequent attestation of in Thessaly does not allow us to consider it as an onomastic loan from Macedonia, where this personal name is attested only once. Is it now possible to separate this hypocoristic from the family of personal names well represented in Thessaly and derived from the Greek appellative , one of which, namely , appears in Macedonia as ? And if the purely Thessalian , , , or the both Thessalian and Macedonian , , find a perfect explication in Greek, what need is there to solicit the Phrygian language in order to explain the Macedonian form , which is attested in Thessaly as , since its case is strictly analogous to that of /? If we now consider the geographic distribution of the forms with voiced consonants in Thessaly, we observe that they are concentrated in the northern part of the country, essentially in Pelasgiotis and Perrhaibia, with the greater concentration in the latter region. But in Macedonia also these forms are unequally distributed. They are to be found in significant numbers and variety bearing witness to the authentic vitality of the phenomenon in three cities or regions: Aigeai, Beroia and Pieria. Now all these three are situated in the extreme south-east of the country, in direct contact with Perrhaibia. I think that this geographical distribution provides the solution to the problem. We are dealing with a phonetic particularity of the Greek dialect spoken on either side of Mount Olympus, undoubtedly due to a substratum or an adstratum, possibly but not necessarily, Phrygian. If there remained any doubts regarding the Greek origin of the phenomenon, two personal names: and should dispel it. It is well known that the first comes from the Indo-European stem *ghebh(e)l-. If, according to the Brygian hypothesis, the loss of sonority of the aspirates had not taken place before the dissimilation of the breathings, the form that the Greek dialect of Macedonia would have inherited would have been and not , which is the result first of the loss of sonority of the aspirates and then of their dissimilation. Cl. Brixhe and Anna Panayotou, fully aware of the problem, elude it by supposing a faux dialectisme. , on the other hand, is obviously a Macedonian form of the ethnic used as a personal name with a probable transfer of the accent. We also know that the opposition between Attic and Boeotian requires an initial *gwhe-. Given, on the one hand, that in Phrygian, contrary to Greek, the IndoEuropean labiovelars lost their velar appendix without conserving any trace thereof, the form that the Greek dialect of Macedonia should have inherited according to the Brygian hypothesis would have an initial *-, which manifestly is not the case. On the other hand, the form , which the Macedonians pronounced with a voiced initial consonant, is to be explained by a form of the continental Aeolic dialects, in which, as we know, the aspirate labio-velars followed by an /i/or an /e/ became simple voiced labials. The Aeolic form , lying behind , provides us with a terminus post quem for the voicing phenomenon. For, if we take into consideration the spelling of the Mycenaean tablets, which still preserve a distinct series of signs for the labiovelars, it is necessary to date this phenomenon at a post-Mycenaean period, well after the elimination of the labio-velars, that is to say at the end of the second millennium B.C. at the earliest, and obviously within
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the Greek world. It is manifest that in the case of an ad hoc hypothesis of a faux dialectisme is inadmissible, for at the late date at which a hypothetical Macedonian patriot might have been tempted to resort to such a form the Thessalian ethnic had long since been replaced by the Attic koine form . Its remodelling into a more Macedoniansounding would have demanded a level of linguistic scholarship attained only in the nineteenth century A.D. Historical Interpretation According to Macedonian tradition the original nucleus of the Temenid kingdom was the principality of Lebaia, whence, after crossing Illyria and Upper Macedonia, issued the three Argive brothers , Gauanes, Aeropos and Perdikkas, as they moved to conquer first the region of Beroia, then Aigeai and finally the rest of Macedonia. It is highly probable that the royal Argive ancestry was a legend invented in order to create a distance and a hierarchy between common Macedonians and a foreign dynasty allegedly of divine descent. Might this legend nevetheless not retain some authentic historical reminiscence? In a previous paper, first read at Oxford some years ago, I attempted to show that Lebaia was a real place in the middle Haliakmon valley near the modern town of Velvendos, a region the economy of which was until very recently based on transhumant pastoralism. It is a likely hypothesis that during the Geometric and the Archaic period too the inhabitants of this region made their living tending their flocks between the mountain masses of Olympus and the Pierians and the plains of Thessaly, Pieria and Emathia, until under a new dynasty they took the decisive step of permanently settling on the fringe of the great Macedonian plain, at Aigeai. What were the ethnic affinities of these transhumant shepherds? A fragment of the Hesiodic catalogue preserves a tradition according to which Makedon and Magnes were the sons of Zeus and of Thyia, Deukalions daughter, and lived around Pieria and Mount Olympus. The Magnetes, of whom Magnes was the eponymous hero, were one of the two major perioikic ethne of northern Thessaly, who originally spoke an Aeolic dialect. The other one was the Perrhaibians. Although they were not mentioned in the Hesiodic fragment, we know by Strabo that even at a much later period they continued to practice transhumant pastoralism. Their close affinity with the Macedonians is evident not only from onomastic data, but also from their calendar. Half of the Perrhaibian months the names of which we know figure also in the Macedonian calendar. Thus, it is no coincidence that Hellenikos presents Makedon as the son of Aiolos. The above data outline a vast area between the middle Peneios and the middle Haliakmon valleys, which in prehistoric times was haunted by groups of transhumant pastoralists who spoke closely related Greek dialects. Is it unreasonable to think that, just as in modern times the Vlachs of Vlacholivado, who frequented precisely the same regions, spoke, under the influence of the Greek adstratum, a peculiar neo-Latin dialect, their
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prehistoric predecessors had done the same (undoubtedly under the influence of another adstratum which remains to be defined) and that the tendency to voice the unvoiced consonants was one of these peculiarities? As to the three Temenid brothers, according to Herodotos mythical founders of the Macedonian kingdom, already in antiquity there was a suspicion that they had not come from Peloponnesian Argos but from Argos Orestikon in Upper Macedonia, hence the name Argeadai given not only to the reigning dynasty but to the whole clan which had followed the three brothers in the adventure of the conquest of Lower Macedonia. Knowing that the Orestai belonged to the Molossian group, it is readily understandable how the prestigious elite of the new kingdom imposed its speech, and relegated to the status of a substratum patois the old Aeolic dialect, some traits of which, such as the tendency of closing the vocales mediae and the voicing of unvoiced consonants survived only in the form of traces, generally repressed, with the exception of certain place names, personal names and month names consecrated by tradition.
Select Bibliography

G. Babiniotis, Ancient Macedonia: the Place of Macedonian among the Greek Dialects, Glossologia 7-8 (1988-1989) 53-69. The Question of Mediae in Ancient Macedonian Greek Reconsidered , Historical Philology: Greek, Latin and Romance ( Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 87; AmsterdamPhiladelphia 1992) 30-33. Cl. Brixhe, Un nouveau champ de la dialectologie grecque : le macdonien, KATA DIALEKTON, Atti del III Colloquio Internqzionale di Dialettologia Greca. A.I.O.N. 19 (1997) 41-71. Cl. Brixhe - Anna Panayotou, Latticisation de la Macdoine: lune des sources de la koin, Verbum 11 (1988) 256. Le macdonien , Langues indo-europennes (Paris 1994) 206-220. R. A. Crossland, The Language of the Macedonians, Cambridge Ancient History III, 1 (1982) 843-47. L. Dubois, Une tablette de maldiction de Pella : sagit-il du premier texte macdonien ? , REG 108 (1995) 190-97. M. B. Hatzopoulos, Artmis, Digaia Blaganitis en Macdoine , BCH 111 (1987) 398-412. Le macdonien : nouvelles donnes et thories nouvelles , VI (Thessalonique 1999) 225-39. Lhistoire par les noms in Macedonia, Greek Personal Names. Proceedings of the British Academy 104 (2000) 115-17. La position dialectale du macdonien la lumire des dcouvertes pigraphiques rcentes, (J. Hagnal ed.) Die altgriechischen Dialekte. Wesen und Werden (Innsbruck 2007) 157-76. O. Hoffmann, Die Makedonen. Ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum (Gttingen 1906). J. N. Kallris, Les anciens Macdoniens, v. I-II (Athens 1954-1976). O. Masson, Macedonian Language , The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford-New York 1996) 905-906. Noms macdoniens, ZPE 123 (1998) 117-20. Em. Voutiras, (Amsterdam 1998) 20-34.
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2. Identity
Perception of the self and the other: The case of Macedon*
By Miltiades Hatzopoulos, VII International Symposion on Ancient Macedonia, 2002.
In my communication to the last Ancient Macedonia symposium on the character of the ancestral tongue of the Macedonians I cautioned that I did not pretend to solve the controverted question of the nationality of the ancient Macedonians, not only because language is, at best, only one of the several elements which contribute to the formation of group identity, but also and mainly because such a debate presupposed a previous response to the question of the nature of nationality in ancient Greece, provided of course that this question is well formulated and admits an effective answer.[1]In the ensuing years ethnic studies, as they are now called,[2] have enjoyed, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, a wild success comparable only to that of that other New World invention, gender studies.[3] Among recent publications on this subject the collective volume Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass. and London 2001) edited by Irad Malkin stands out for its scholarly quality. Several of the included contributions and especially the Introduction and Greek Ambiguities: Between Ancient Hellas and Barbarian Epirus by Irad Malkin himself and Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Ethnicity by Jonathan Hall, go a long way towards satisfying the condition I had laid down, to wit that the nature of Greek nationality be previously explored. Although a certain conformism of most contributors in their unreserved adoption of the politically correct antiessentialist view, which reduces group identities to mere inventions constructed on pure discourse, needs to be watered down,[4] the result is impressive, and Jonathan Halls paper in particular sets the parameters within which the question of the ancient Macedonian identity, which interests us here, can be approached. Hall challenges the view that Macedonia was marginal or peripheral in respect to a Greek centre or core, for the simple reason that such a Greek hard core never existed, since Greekness is constituted by the totality of multifocal, situationally bound, and self-conscious negotiations of identity not only between poleis and ethne but also within them, and because a view such as this assumes a transhistorically static definition of Greekness. [5] As he argues at greater length in his monograph,[6] in the fifth century, mainly as a consequence of the Persian Wars, the definition of Greek identity evolved from an aggregative noninclusive conception based on fictitious descent from the eponymous Hellen and expressed in forged genealogies (which may leave outside not only Macedonians and
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Magnetes, but also other goups such as Arcadians or Aitolians) into an oppositional one, turned against out-groups, relegating thus (fictitious) community of blood to the same level if not to an inferior one (vide infra) as linguistic, religious and cultural criteria. (In this perspective there is not much sense in opposing a putative compact, homogeneous and immutable Greekness to the contested identities of groups such as the Aitolians, Locrians, Acarnanians, Thesprotians, Molossians, Chaones, Atintanes, Parauaioi, Orestai, Macedonians).[7] Hall proceeds to a penetrating analysis of the shifting definitions of Greekness in Herodotus, Thucydides and Isocrates, our main sources for the evolution of the concept in the Classical period. Of Thucydides in particular he writes that, contrary to Herodotus, he did not view Greeks and barbarians as mutually exclusive categories but as opposite poles of a single, linear continuum. Thus, the inhabitants of north-western Greece are barbarian not in the sense that their cultures, customs, or behavior are in direct, diametrical opposition to Greek norms but rather in the sense that their seemingly more primitive way of life makes them Hellnes manqus.[8] Finally, not only he but also I. Malkin in his introduction and Rosalind Thomas in her contribution Ethnicity, Genealogy, and Hellenism in Herodotus, which contains a section on the Macedonians, stress the importance of religion, or rather of cults[9] (common shrines of the gods and sacrifices).[10] J. Hall in his conclusions confirms my doubts about the possibility of answering the question concerning the nationality of the ancient Macedonians. To ask whether the Macedonians really were Greek or not in antiquity, he writes, is ultimately a redundant question given the shifting semantics of Greekness between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. What cannot be denied, however, is that the cultural commodification of Hellenic identity that emerged in the fourth century might have remained a provincial artifact, confined to the Balkan peninsula, had it not been for the Macedonians.[11] This finely balanced verdict is all the more praiseworthy in that it does not hesitate explicitly[12] or implicitly to contradict[13] authoritative views current in the American academic establishment,[14] or even to modify opinions previously expressed by the author himself.[15] Moreover, it was partly attained through sheer reasoning and intuition, as crucial evidence was not accessible to him. Epigraphic data of capital linguistic interest which have become available only after the Center of Hellenic Studies Colloquium of 1997[16] and important recent monographs and articles which seem not to have been accessible in the United States,[17] if known, would have provided additional arguments and prevented some minor inaccuracies.[18] It is worth noting, however, that although Hall[19] fully shares Malkins view on the overriding importance of religion and in particular of common shrines and sacrifices,[20] he does not exploit the unique evidence of the theorodokoi catalogues,[21] which precisely list the Greek states visited by the theoroi, the sacred envoys, of the panhellenic sanctuaries and invited to participate through official delegations in sacrifices and contests celebrated in those sanctuaries.[22] It has long been established that the theoroi of the Panhellenic sanctuaries, did not
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visit mere urban centres, whatever their importance, but only states, be they of the polis or of the ethnos variety, for their mission consisted in announcing () the sacred truce and the oncoming contests to the state authorities.[23] Since only Hellenes participated in the Panhellenic sacrifices and contests,[24] it is obvious that the theoroi visited only communities which considered themselves and were considered by the others as Greek. Starting with one of the oldest catalogues, that of Epidauros, dating from 360, and continuing with those of Nemea, Argos, and Delphi, the Macedonian kingdom is never absent from their surviving North Aegean sections. At such an early date in the fourth century as that of the first one it cannot be claimed that the Macedonian presence was the result of the kingdoms political and military might. Nor can it be said that the invitation concerned only the Greek royal family, for, as we have already stressed, it was addressed not to individuals but to states.[25] One might object the post-Philippian date of the Nemea, Argos and Delphi lists. It is true that none of the three is earlier than the last quarter of the fourth century, but even the most recent one, the late third century great list of the theorodokoi of Delphi, following a long established tradition, includes, with very few and obvious exceptions, only the coastal, cities of Asia.[26] Still for the sake of argument, we can start by considering only the list of Epidauros, which dates back to around 360, years before it could be argued that Macedonia by its meteoric rise had imposed itself on the terrorised personnel of the panhellenic sanctuaries.[27] The Epidaurian list, in its surviving sections, on a first stele, starting from Megara moves through Attica and Boeotia to Thessaly, Macedonia, Chalkidike and Thrace. On a second stele are listed the theorodokoi of Corinth, Delphi, Ozolian Lokris, Aitolia, Akarnania, Sicily and southern Italy. Of particular interest are the Macedonian (including Chalkidike) and Epirotic sections. In the first, after Thessalian Homolion, one reads the names of the theorodokoi of Pydna, Methone, Macedonia, Aineia, Dikaia, Poteidaia, Kalindoia, Olynthos, Apollonia, Arethousa, Arkilos, Amphipolis, Berga, Tragila, Stagira, Akanthos, Stolos, Aphytis, Skiona and Menda. Fortunately we possess a contemporary document describing the same region, the work of Pseudo-Skylax.[28] He describes the Macedonians as an ethnos after the Peneios, mentions the Thermaic Gulf, and lists Herakleion as the first city of Macedonia, then Dion, Pydna a Greek city, Methone a Greek city, the river Haliakmon, Aloros a city, the river Lydias, Pella a city and a palace in it and a waterway up the Lydias to it, the river Axios, the river Echedoros, Therme a city, Aineia a Greek city, Cape Pallene, and after an enumeration of the cities of Chalkidike, Arethousa a Greek city, Lake Bolbe, Apollonia a Greek city, and many other cities of Macedonia in the interior. As U. Kahrstedt was the first to understand, the distinction between Greek cities and Macedonian cities or simple cities is not ethnological but political. Independent cities are qualified as Greek, while the cities remaining within the Macedonian kingdom have to content themselves with the simple qualification of cities.[29] The list of the theorodokoi of Epidauros confirms the nature of this distinction, for in
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the section west of the head of the Thermaic Gulf it enumerates only three states: Pydna, Methone and Macedonia. Thus the first, although a city originally Macedonian,[30] is called a Greek city, just like the originally Eretrian colony of Methone, because at the time they were both independent from the kingdom and members of the Second Athenian League, while the equally Macedonian Herakleion, Dion, Aloros and Pella were simply styled as cities. The Epidaurian theorodokoi visited only Macedonia, that is to say the capital of the state, presumably Pella or Aigeai, not because this was the only Greek city of the kingdom and even less because they intended to invite the king only the invitation, as we have seen, was extended to communities not to persons, but because there was the seat of the authorities to whom the epangelia had to be made, as at that time, before the reforms of Philip II, the several Macedonian cities did not possess sufficient political latitude to qualify as autonomous cities and to be eligible to participate as such in panhellenic festivals.[31] Similarly the section Epirus lists the states of Pandosia, Kassopa, Thesprotoi, Poionos, Korkyra, Chaonia, Artichia, Molossoi, Ambrakia, Argos (of Amphilochia). Of these the Elean colony of Pandosia and the Corinthian colonies of Korkyra and Ambrakia represent the southern Greek element, while Kassopa, the Thesprotoi, the Molossoi, Chaonia and Argos the native Epirote one. (Nothing is known of Poionos and Artichia). The important point is that colonial cities, Epirote cities and Epirote ethne, republican and monarchical alike, are considered equally Greek and invited to the great panhellenic sacrifices at Epidauros. The same picture emerges from the slightly later lists of Argos[32] and Nemea[33] and from the late third century list of Delphi, the main difference being that after Philip IIs reforms the several Macedonian cities take the place of the central Macedonian authorities,[34] while Epirus wavers between a single centralised and several civic representations. A piece of evidence which until very recently had gone unnoticed is the actual presence of Macedonians and Epirotes in the panhellenic sanctuaries, which is first attested in the Archaic period, but increases dramatically in the second half of the fourth century. Alexander I was neither the first nor the only Macedonian active at a panhellenic sanctuary in the fifth century. He had been preceded at Delphi by Macedonians from Pieria, and both his fifth century successors Perdikkas II and Archelaos participated in panhellenic festivals at Olympia, Delphi or Argos.[35] It is in this context that we can properly understand some other facts that have puzzled modern historians, such as the participation of Macedonian envoys in the panhellenic conference held at Sparta in 371[36] or the inclusion of the Macedonian ethnos and not just king Philip in the Delphic Amphictiony.[37] Under these conditions Demosthenes outrage at the presence of Philip II and his Macedonians at Delphi loses much of its candour and credibility.[38] As J. Hall rightly observes, the rhetorical contrast between Greeks and Macedonians in the age of Alexander, by which some American scholars set much store, has military-political rather than ethnic connotations.[39] A case in point is the list of Alexander the Greats trierarchs in Arrians Indica, which E. N. Borza, labouring to demonstrate the un-Hellenic character of the ancient Macedonians, adduced inter alia in an article in honour of E. Badian.[40] The men appointed by Alexander to command the Hydaspes River, he writes, are
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named according to their ethnicity: these were the Macedonians altogether: as for the Greeks .... (houtoi men hoi sympantes Makedones, Hellenon de...). Arrian concludes by mentioning the appointment of a single Persian, thus preserving the distinction among Macedonians, Greeks, and others, as mentioned elsewhere (2.17.4 and 7.30.2-3). I regard the men...de usage as significant.[41] The list of the trierarchs is admittedly an interesting document and the ........ usage is indeed significant, provided they are accurately reported and correctly analysed. In reality, to the of the Macedonians are opposed not one but two ( . ..... ....), followed by the single Persian ( ...). Thus Arrian, or rather his source, distinguishes (if we leave aside the odd Persian), between three groups: the Macedonians, the Greeks and the Cypriots. The next point which arises concerns the exact nature of this distinction. Borza has no doubt that it relates to the ethnicity of these men. He explains that he uses this term to describe a cultural identity that is near the meaning of nationality, but without the necessity of membership in a political organism... and proposes to use as criteria language, contemporary perceptions, historical perceptions, and cultural institutions.[42] As I recently wrote in a different context,[43] the case of the Macedonians is bound to remain paradoxical as long as it is viewed by itself. I then had in mind the parallel case of Epirus, which was geographically excluded from Greece and whose inhabitants from the time of Thucydides to that of Strabo were qualified as barbarians, even from the linguistic point of view, although they undoubtedly spoke a Greek dialect that we have no difficulty in understanding, enjoyed Greek institutions and shared, as we have seen, the same shrines and sacrifices and participated in the same panhellenic events as the other Greeks.[44] In their case, the reason for the occasional and paradoxical denial of their Hellenism is probably to be sought in the absence before the Hellenistic period of urban centres deserving the name and status of poleis.[45]The Cypriot case, however, is equally instructive. An overview of the evidence concerning Cyprus, which I reserve for fuller treatment elsewhere,[46] would lead us to the conclusion that, whatever the physical appearence of ancient Cypriots,[47] it did not cast any doubts on the Hellenic origin of the kingdoms of the island, on the Greek character of the local dialect or on the Hellenic nature of the gods venerated there with the only and obvious exceptions of the Phoenician city of Kition and of the autochthonous one of Amathous. The Cypriot syllabic script was indeed an obstacle to written communication, but from the middle of the fourth century the use of the Greek alphabet spreads across the island. [48] For oral communication the Cypriot dialect probably sounded exotic then as now to some but not all[49] Greek speakers from the Aegean area. But then many Greeks were aware of the existence of other Greeks with uncouth tongues. Did Thucydides not write that the Eurytanians speak a most incomprehensible tongue[50] and has it not been said of the Eleans that they are speakers of a barbarous tongue[51]? Nonetheless, at least as far as practical policies are concerned, the Greekness of neither of them was ever contested. Sacred prostitution assuredly shocked more than one Greek. But it was in no way a Cypriot monopoly. The Epizephyrian Locrians, for instance, reputedly followed the same practice.
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[52] The Cypriot kingships, whatever their exact origin and nature, were for most city-state Greeks an anomaly. But monarchies had survived in Cyrenaica and the northern fringes of the Greek world or had reappeared in Sicily. Thus, no single criterion can satisfactorily explain the exclusion of the Cypriots from the Greek community in the list of Alexander the Greats trierarchs, but not from participation in panhellenic sacrifices and contests, as the theorodokoi lists attest. For, whatever the conditions in earlier periods, it seems that by the last quarter of the fourth century most Greeks and apparently all foreigners recognised the Cypriots as Greeks.[53] The unsatisfactory results of our inquiry oblige us to question the validity of the premisses on which it was based, to wit that Alexanders trierarchs are named according to their ethnicity, as Borza thought. An obvious anomaly should have made us suspicious. The list of the Macedonian trierarchs comprises at least two persons whose impeccable Greek ethnicity[54] the American historian would readily recognise: Nearchos son of Androtimos and Laomedon son of Larichos hailing respectively from the Cretan city of Lato and the Lesbian city of Mytilene. Borza makes no mention of this difficulty in his comment on the list, but attempts to deal with the first case in a note referring to a different context, hesitating between casting doubts on the reliability of the list[55]and on that of Nearchos origin. [56] In fact, just as the presence of the forgotten category of the Cypriots contradicts the alleged binary opposition between Greeks on the one hand and Macedonians on the other, discrepancies such as the above belie the supposed ethnic character of the list and cannot be explained, unless the latter reflects nationality, Staatsangehrigkeit, rather than ethnicity. Borza, who sets great store by the case of Eumenes handicap as an ethnic Greek, despite his long years in Macedonian service, could not convincingly argue that Nearchos and Laomedon and thousands of other Greeks from beyond Olympus ceased to be ethnic Greeks -- whatever that may mean -- when they settled in Macedonia.[57] The explanation of the presence of Nearchos and Laomedon in the Macedonian list is obvious: contrary to Eumenes, when they moved to Macedonia, they did not simply settle in the country, but became citizens of Amphipolis and ipso facto also of the Macedonian Commonwealth. It is thus more than clear that the trierarchs are not named according to ethnicity. The classification is determined by political criteria. All citizens of Macedonian civic units are classified as Macedonians, whatever their origin. Who then are the Greeks? Medios son of Oxythemis from Larissa, Eumenes son of Hieronymos from Kardia, Kritoboulos son of Platon from Kos, Thoas son of Menodoros and Maiandros son Mandrogenes from Magnesia, Andron son of Kabeles from Teos. Now, the home cities of these trierarchs share a common feature: they were all members of the Hellenic League (of which Macedon itself was no part), Larissa and Kardia from the time of Philip II,[58] Kos and Magnesia and Teos since 332.[59] On the other hand the kingdoms of Cyprus, which joined Alexander at the siege of Tyre, never adhered to the League officially styled as the Hellenes. A closer look at other passages collected and adduced by Borza as supposedly revelatory of the ethnic that is to say, according to him (vide supra), of the cultural distinction between Greeks and Macedonians betrays similar difficulties and discrepancies. As
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M. B. Sakellariou has aptly stressed, the contrast and occasionally the antagonism between Greeks and Macedonians in the age of Philip and Alexander, of which the American historian makes so much, was political and had to a certain extent social causes.[60] In fact the Macedonians satisfied the criteria of Greekness put forward by the Athenians in their celebrated answer to the Spartan envoys, as it is reported by Herodotus.[61] Nevertheless, it is equally true that their Hellenic quality was recurrently disputed, especially when political animosities created a suitable political environment. For the opposition was political and doubly so, between polis-states and an ethnos-state, as well as between regimes which ideally were democratic and a reputedly tyrannic monarchy. Thus, even for proMacedonians wanting to dispel legitimate fears that the Macedonian kings might extend their monarchical regime to the Greek cities, it was important to dissociate as much as possible the Temenid kingdom from the world of the polis-states. This was the reason why Isokrates, eager to reassure his readers that a Macedonian hegemony was not dangerous for their liberties, insisted that, just as Philips ancestors, knowing that the Greeks could not suffer monarchical regimes, rather than enslave their fellow citizens, preferred to leave Greece altogether and rule over a different ( ) people,[62] so Philip himself would not dream of imposing his rule on the Greeks, but would content himself with reigning over the Macedonians.[63] In this often-cited passage the Athenian orator masterfully exploits the implicit correspondence between the geographical term and the ethnic , from which it derives, in order to enforce in the mind of his readers the un-Hellenic character of , the subjects of the Macedonian kings, since for most writers of the Classical and Hellenistic periods[64] Hellas did not extend geographically beyond the Ambracian Gulf and the river Peneios.[65] It is not excluded that the Macedonian king himself shared the Athenian orators concern, and that, heeding his advice, he preferred to keep his kingdom completely apart from the Hellenic League.[66] It should then not come as a surprise that the modern scholars who have best understood the Macedonian paradox are the nineteenth and early twentieth century Germans, who were aware of the particular position of Prussia vis--vis the rest of Germany, initially outside the borders of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and, even after the abolition of the latter, an entity whose citizens were to be reckoned separately from the other Germans.[67] Did not Jakob Salomon Bartholdy write in such terms to his brother-in-law Abraham Mendelssohn on 6 February 1817: Als ich hier (in Neapel) kam, fand ich viele deutsche und preussische Knstler von entschiedenen Anlagen und Talenten, and can one not still in 1990 publish a book under the title Preussen und Deutschland gegenber dem Novemberaufstand 1830-1831? Does not the reluctance of the South German states to submit to Prussia, and at the same time the Prussian kings desire to maintain direct and exclusive hold on his own kingdom, for which reason William I styled himself Deutscher Kaiser, Knig von Preussen rather than Kaiser der Deutschen in 1871, ring Isocratic echoes?
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Abbreviations

Badian, Greeks = E. Badian, Greeks and Macedonians in Beryl Bar-Sharrar E. N. Borza (ed.), Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times (Washington D.C. 1982) 33-51. Borza, Archelaos = E. N. Borza, The Philhellenism of Archelaos, Ancient Macedonia V (Thessalonike 1993) 237-44 (= Makedonika 124-33). Borza, Greeks = E. N. Borza, Greeks and Macedonians in the Age of Alexander: The Source Traditions, in R. W. Wallace E. M. Harris (eds.), Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360-146 B.C. in Honor of E. Badian (Norman, Okla.-London 1996) 122-39. Daskalakis, Hellenism = Ap. Daskalakis, The Hellenism of the Ancient Macedonians (Thessalonike 1965). Hall, Ethnicities = J. Hall, Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Greek Identity, in I. Malkin, (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.London 2001) 159-86. Hall, Language, = J. Hall, The Role of Language in Greek Ethnicities, ProcCamPhilSoc 41 (1995) 83-100. Hatzopoulos, Epigraphie = M. B. Hatzopoulos, Epigraphie et philologie: rcentes dcouvertes pigraphiques et gloses macdoniennes dHesychius, CRAI 1998, 1189-1218. Hatzopoulos, Herodotos = M. B. Hatzopoulos, Herodotos (VIII 137-138), the Manumissions from Leukopetra, and the Topography of the Middle Haliakmon Valley, The World of Herodotus (forthcoming). Hatzopoulos, Macdonien = M. B. Hatzopoulos, Le macdonien: nouvelles donnes et thories nouvelles, Ancient Macedonia VI (Thessalonike 1999) 225-39. Hatzopoulos, Institutions = M. B. Hatzopoulos, Macedonian Institutions under the Kings: A Historical and Epigraphic Study (= 22; Athens 1996). Malkin, Ambiguities = I. Malkin, Greek Ambiguities: Between Ancient Hellas and Barbarian Epirus, in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.-London 2001) 187-212. Malkin, Introduction = I. Malkin, Introduction, in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.-London 2001) 1-28. Mari, Olimpo = Manuela Mari, Al di l dellOlimpo: Macedoni e grandi santuari della Grecia dellet arcaica al primo ellenismo ( 34; Athens 2002). Perlman, City = Paula Perlman, City and Sanctuary in Ancient Greece: The Theorodokia in the Peloponnese (Gttingen 2000). Thomas, Ethnicity = Rosalind Thomas, Ethnicity, Genealogy, and Hellenism in Herodotus, in I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.-London 2001) 213-33.
* Abbreviations are listed at the end of this paper.
Christine Sourvinou-Inwoods important paper Greek Perceptions of Ethnicity and the Ethnicity of the Macedonians, Identit e prassi nel Mediterraneo greco (Milano 2002), which the author had the kindness to send me, came to my knowledge too late for inclusion in the present discussion.
1. Hatzopoulos, Macdonien 225: La prsente communication ne prtend nullement rsoudre la
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2.
3.
4.
5. 6. 7.
8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
question tant controverse de la nationalit des anciens Macdoniens. Un tel dbat prsuppose une rponse la question pralable de la nature de la nationalit dans le monde grec, supposer quune telle question soit bien pose et quelle comporte effectivement une rponse. Quoi quil en soit, il est hors de doute que la langue nest au mieux quun des lments qui concourent au sentiment dappartenance d un groupe... . Cf. F.W. Walbank, Hellenes and Achaeans: Greek Nationality Revisited, Further Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia Einzelschriften 138; Stuttgart 2000) 18. F. W. Walbank, in 1951, still named his relevant article, without any inverted commas, The Problem of Greek Nationality, Phoenix 5 (1951) 41-60 (= Selected Papers [Cambridge 1985] 1-19). Is it merely coincidental that the word ethnicity is untranslatable except as a calque in languages such as French or Greek? Cf. the rich bibliography in J. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 1997; in I. Malkin, The Returns of Odysseus: Colonization and Ethnicity, Berkeley, Cal. 1998; and at the end of each contribution in the collective volume I. Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Cambridge Mass.-London 2001. Among the numerous recent works, besides those already cited, I would also mention the following: Cinzia Bearzot, La Grecia di Pausania. Geografia e cultura nella definizione del concetto di , in Marta Sordi (ed.), Geografia e storiografia nel mondo classico, Milan 1988, 90-112; Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy, Oxford 1989; Catherine Morgan, Ethnicity and Early Greek States: Historical and Material Perspectives, PCPhS 37 (1991)131-63; E. N. Borza, Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexanders Court, AncW 22 (1991) 21-25 (= Makedonika, Claremont Cal. 1995, 149-58); Marta Sordi (ed.), Autocoscienza e rappresentazione dei popoli nellantichit, Milan 1992; P. Cartledge, The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others, Oxford-New York 1993; Catherine Morgan, The Origins of Panhellenism, in Nanno Marinatos R. Hgg (eds.), Greek Sanctuaries, London-New York 1993, 18-44; A. Giovannini, Greek Cities and Greek Commonwealth, in A. Bulloch, E. S. Gruen, A. A. Long, A. Stuart (eds.), Images and Ideology: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World, BerkeleyLos Angeles-London 1993, 265-86; J. Hall, The Role of Language in Greek Ethnicities, PCPhS 41 (1995) 83-100; F. Cassola, Chi erano i Greci?, in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci: Storia, cultura, arte, societ, 2.1, Turin 1996, 5-23; D. Asheri, Identit greche, identit greca, in the same work 2.2, Turin 1997, 5-26. And attracts the ironic scepticism of the editor (p. 1): The tone of the current writings about ethnicity, any ethnicity, reflects a ubiquitous antiessentialism. Things have no essence, no core. Ethnicity? There is no such thing, as such, and the key words for discussing it are now invention and construction. (He might have added discourse). Hall, Ethnicities 166. Hall, Identity 40-51; cf. id., Language 91-96. As, for instance, E. N. Borza systematically does for the Macedonians. Cf. In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon, Princeton, N.J. 19922, 94-97; 258; 268-72; 275-82; id., Before Alexander: Constructing Early Macedonia. Publications of the Associations of Ancient Historians 6, Claremont Cal. 1999, 32-34. Hall, Ethnicities 169-72. Hall, Ethnicities 179, n. 92; Malkin, Introduction 6; Thomas, Ethnicity 215 and 219. Cf. Herod. 8.144.2: , , ... Hall, Ethnicities 172. Hall, Ethnicities 173, n. 8. Cf. Hall, Ethnicities 171.
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14. Cf. E. Badian, Greeks and Macedonians, in Beryl Bar-Sharrar E. N. Borza (eds.), Macedonia
15. 16.
17.
18.
and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times, Washington D.C. 1982, 33-51; id., Herodotus on Alexander I of Macedon: A Study in some Subtle Silences, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography, Oxford 1994, 35-51; E. N. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus. The Emergence of Macedon, Princeton, N.J. 19901; 19922; id., Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexanders Court, AncW 22 (1991) 21-25 (= Makedonika 149-58); id., The Philhellenism of Archelaos, Ancient Macedonia V, Thessalonike 1993, 237-44 (= Makedonika 124-33); id., Greeks and Macedonians in the Age of Alexander: The Source Traditions, in R. W. Wallace E. M. Harris (eds.), Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360-146 B.C., in Honor of E. Badian, Norman, Okla.London 1996, 122-39; id., La Macedonia di Filippo e i coflitti con le poleis, in S. Setis (ed.), I Greci. Storia, Cultura, Arte, Societ 2.3, Turin 1998, 21-46; id., Macedonia Redux, in Frances B. Titchener R. F. Moorton Jr. (eds.), The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1999, 249-66, and particularly 263, n. 17; P. Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1990, 3-5; Sarah B. Pomeroy, S. M. Burstein et al., Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, New York-Oxford 1999, 373-75, etc. Cf. Hall, Identity 63-65. See C. Brixhe, Un nouveau champ de la dialectologie grecque : le macdonien , . Atti del III Colloquio Internazionale di Dialettologia Greca, A.I.O.N. 19 (1997) 4171; Sophia Moschonisioti, A. Ph. Christides, Theodora Glaraki, , in A. Ph. Christides D. Jordan (eds.), . , Athens 1997, 193-98; E. Voutiras, : Marital Life and Magic in Fourth Century Pella, Amsterdam 1998; M. B. Hatzopoulos, Epigraphie et philologie : rcentes dcouvertes pigraphiques et gloses macdoniennes dHsychius ; CRAI 1998, 1189-1218; id., Le Macdonien : nouvelles donnnes et thories nouvelles , Ancient Macedonia V, Thessalonike 1999, 225-39 ; id., Lhistoire par les noms in Macedonia , in Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence, ProcBritAcad 104 (2ooo) 99-117; id., La position dialectal du macdonien la lumire des dcouvertes pigraphiques rcentes , Die alte griechischen Dialekte, ihr Wesen und Werden (forthcoming); id., Herodotos (VIII. 137-138), the Manumissions from Leukopetra, and the Topography of the Middle Haliakmom Valley ,The Word of Herodotus (forthcoming). This is the case of much of the fundamental archaeological and epigraphic scholarly production published in Greece, such as the fourteen volumes of T , 1-14 (1987-2000) series, the volumes of the series and the seventeen volumes of the series devoted to Macedonia, some of which have a direct bearing on the present subject. For instance, the epigraphic discoveries mentioned in the previous notes have greatly reduced the importance of glosses and have rendered redundant much of the relevant discussion. In particular, dreptos (p. 162) is a ghost (see Anna Panayotou, , Ancient Macedonia IV, Thessalonike 1986, 417). Strabo 7.7.8 (p. 163) does not say that Macedonians, Epirotes and Illyrians shared some dialectal commonalities. In fact he says two different things: 1) that some extend the term Macedonia to the whole country (west of Upper Macedonia) as far as Corcyra, because the inhabitants of this area (to wit the Epirotes opposite Corcyra and not the Illyrians, who lived farther north, beyond the Ceraunian mountains), use similar hairstyles, dress and dialect (cf. R. Baladi, Strabon, Gographie. Livre VII, Paris 1989, 228, n. 4 ad locum; 2) some of the Epirotes inhabiting this area are bilingual (presumably they spoke Greek as well as Illyrian). Epigraphic evidence accumulating over the years has rendered Tarns list of
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19. 20. 21.
22. 23.
24.
divinities and its discussion (p. 164) irrelevant. Thaulos, Gyga, Zeirene, Xandos, Bedu, Arantides, Sauadai, Sabazius never occur in epigraphic documents; Totos, attested once in Roman times, is an imported Egyptian deity (cf. H. Seyrig, Tithos, Totos et le Sphinx panthe , Annales du Service des Antiquits dEgypte 35 (1935) 197-202; Ch. Picard, La sphinge tricphale, dite panthe, dAmphipolis et la dmonologie gypto-alexandrine , CRAI 1957, 35-46; id., La sphinge tricphale dite panth, dAmphipolis et la dmonologie gypto-alexandrine , Mon.Piot 50 (1958) 49-84; Gazoria is a local epithet from the name of the eastern Macedonian city of Gazoros (cf. M.B. Hatzopoulos, Artmis Agrotra, Gazoreitis et Bloureitis: une desse thrace en Macdoine , Festschrift Ivan Marazov [forthcoming]). Judging from dedicatory inscriptions, the most popular gods of the Macedonians were Zeus, Herakles, Asklepios, Dionysos and a feminine deity variously appearing as Demeter, the Mother of the Gods, Artemis, Pasikrata, Ennodia etc. Catherine Trmpys excellent monograph, Untersuchungen zu den altgriechischen Monatsnamen und Monatsfolgen (Heidelberg 1997) 262-65, has made obsolete previous discussions of the Macedonian calendar. For the months Peritios, Dystros and Hyperberetaios in particular, cf. Hatzopoulos, Macdonien 237-39 ; id., Epigraphie 1202-1204. Klodones and Mimallones (p. 176, n. 54) have nothing to do with Thrace; see M. B. Hatzopoulos, Cultes et rites de passage en Macdoine ( 19; Athens 1994) 73-85. On the political system of the Molossi (p. 166), cf. the divergent view of J. K. Davies, A Wholly Non-Aristotelian Universe: The Molossians as Ethnos, State, and Monarchy, in R. Brock-St. Hodkinson (eds), Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece, Oxford 2000, 258: ...so far from being un-Greek, as supercilious southerners thought, their world shows clear signs of similarity to that of the communities of southern Aegean and proto-urban Greece in the archaic period. Concerning the Aiolian ancestry of the Macedonians in Hellanicus version, as opposed to the Dorian one of the royal dynasty (p. 169), it is not impossible that this Lesbian historians invention may have stemmed from the contrast between the Upper Macedonian origin of the Argeads and the north-Thessalian one of the Lower Macedonian commoners; cf. Hatzopoulos, Herodotos. Hall, Ethnicities 72, n. 92. Malkin, Introduction 5-6. See now Paula Perlman, City and Sanctuary in Ancient Greece. The Theodorokia in the Peloponnese, Gttingen 2000. For the Delphic catalogues, awaiting for the new edition by J. Ouhlen, Les Tharodoques de Delphes (doctoral dissertation, Universit de Paris X, 1992), see A. Plassart, Inscriptions de Delphes. La liste des tharodoques , BCH 45 (1921) 1-85. Its date in the late third century, first proposed by G. Daux, Liste delphique de tharodoques ; REG 62 (1949) 12-27, has been confirmed by a series of new discoveries; cf. Ph. Gauthier, Nouvelles inscriptions de Sardes II, Geneva 1989, 149-50 ; M. B. Hatzopoulos, Un prtre dAmphipolis dans la grande liste des tharodoques de Delphes , BCH 115 (1991) 345-47 ; D. Knoepfler, Le temple de Mtron de Sardes et ses inscriptions ; Museum Helveticum 50 (1993) 26-43. Cf. Hatzopoulos, Institutions 472-76. This has been admirably done now by Manuela Mari in her monograph Al di l dellOlimpo: Macedoni e grandi santuari della Grecia dallet arcaica al primo ellenismo ( 34; Athens 2002). See in particular L. Robert, Villes de Carie et dIonie dans la liste des tharodoques de Delphes , BCH 70 (1946) 510 (= OMS I 331); id., Documents dAsie Mineure, Paris 1987, 292-95; cf. BullEpigr 1980, 297; cf. Perlman, City 32-33; ead., . Panhellenic Epangelia and Political Status, in M.H. Hansen, Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State, Copenhagen 1995, 113-47). This widely attested fact (cf. Herod. 5.22.1-2) has recently been commented upon by R. Parker,
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25. See now also Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Greek Perceptions of Ethnicity and the Ethnicity of 26. L. Robert, Villes de Carie et dIonie dans la liste des tharodoques de Delphes , BCH 70 (1946) 27. 28. 29. 30.
the Macedonians, Identintit e prassi storica nel Mediterraneo greco, Milano 2002, 190-92. 515-16 (= OMS 336-37). IG V 1, 94-95; cf. Perlman, City 177-79; Ep. Cat. E. 1. Pseudo-Skylax 66. U. Kahrstedt, Stdte in Makedonien, Hermes 81 (1953) 91-111. The relevant information in the literary sources (Thuc. 1.137.1 and Diod. 11.12.3) has been confirmed by recent epigraphic and other archaeological discoveries. Cf. M. Bessios, , . 3, 1989, Thessalonike 1992, 155-63; J. B. Cuberna D. Jordan, Curse Tablets from Pydna, (forthcoming). Cf. Hatzopoulos, Institutions I 473. From Argos we have a fragmentary list (P. Charneux, Liste argienne de Tharodoques , BCH 90 [1966] 156-88; Perlman, City 100-104, Ep. Cat. A. 1) dating from c. 334-325/4 and preserving the names of the theorodokoi from north-western Greece, the Peloponnese, and western Asia Minor and the Aegean islands, and a fragmentary list preserving the amounts of contributions from Thessaly and Macedonia, probably related to the expenses of the sacred envoys, and dating from the end of the fourth century (IG IV 617; cf. Perlman, City 127-29). S. G. Miller, The Theorodokoi of the Nemean Games, Hesperia 57 (1988) 147-63; Perlman, City 236-39, Ep. Cat. N. 1. The fragmentary catalogue probably dates from c. 321-317 (Hatzopoulos, Institutions 474, n. 7) and preserves the names of the theorodokoi of Cyprus, Akarnania, the Ionian Islands, Macedonia, the Hellespont, Kyme, Eretria and Chios. Cf. Hatzopoulos, Institutions I 472-86. See the new monograph by Manuela Mari, (Olimpo 29-66). Imaginative scenarios about Archelaos and the other Macedonian kings exclusion from the panhellenic shrines and the creation of counter-Olympics at Dion (cf. Badian Greeks 35; Borza, Archelaos 129) not only are explicitly contradicted by the unique available literary source (Solinus 9.16), but are also implicitly refuted by epigraphic evidence such as the Epidauros list and the inscribed tripod from the great tomb of Vergina (M. Andronikos, Vergina: The Royal Tombs, Athens 1984, 165-66; see now Mari, Olimpo 35-36). From Epirus too, in the first half of the sixth century, the Molossian Alkon had been present at the Olympic Games along with other young Greek nobles (Herod. 6.127.4; cf. Cabanes, Les Illyriens 24; Malkin, Ambiguities 201. Aesch. 2.32; cf. Badian, Greeks 37 with n. 28; N. G. L. Hammond, Literary Evidence for Macedonian Speech, Historia 43 (1994) 134-35 (= Collected Studies IV 80-81). P. Marchetti, A propos des comptes de Delphes sous les archontats de Thon (324/3) et de Laphis (327/6) , BCH 101 (1977) 14, n. 37; N. G. L. Hammond, Some Passages in Arrian Concerning Alexander, CQ 30 (1980) 462-63; id., Were Makedones Enrolled in the Amphictyonic Council in 346?, Electronic Antiquity I/3 (1993). See now F. Lefvre, LAmphictionie pylodelphique: histoire et institutions, Paris 1998, 94-101; Mari, Olimpo 71, n. 4. Dem., 19. 327. Hall, Ethnicities 173, n. 8. Cf. though Badian, Greeks 39-40 and 49, n. 50, who is much more cautious in his discussion of that particular passage. Borza, Greeks 125. Borza, Greeks 136, n. 2.
Cleomenes on the Acropolis, Oxford 1998, 10-11.
31. 32.
33.
34. 35.
36. 37.
38. 39. 40. 41. 42.
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43. M. B. Hatzopoulos, Prefazione in Mari, Olimpo 9-10. 44. M. B. Hatzopoulos, The Boundaries of Hellenism in Epirus during Antiquity, in M. B. Sakellariou 45. Hatzopoulos, Institutions I 473, n. 4. 46. M. B. Hatzopoulos, Epirus, Macedonia, Cyprus and Other Controverted Cases of Greek Identity
(ed.), Epirus, Athens 1997, 140-42.
47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.
55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.
63.
64. 65.
(; forthcoming); cf. P. J. Stylianou, The Age of the Kingdoms. A Political History of Cyprus in the Archaic and Classical Periods ( ; Nicosia 1989) 492 [117]-510 [136]. Cf. G. Hill, History of Cyprus, vol. I, Cambridge 1949, 93-94. Cf. O. Masson, Les inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques, Paris 19832, 46-47. For instance, not to the Arcadians. Thuc. 3.94.5. Hesych. s.v. . Ath., Deipn. 12.516a. Cf. Perlman, City 115-16. The word ethnicity, as already mentioned, is practically untranslatable in languages such as Greek, German or French, except as a calque from Engish. Its success in the latter language, and in particular in American English, is probably due to the shift in meaning of the term nation in a country without a long national tradition, which, instead of the people, came to be used for the state, causing the need for the creation of a new term. For a Greek the existence of an or for a German the existence of a nation is clearly independant from that of a state apparatus. Nearchos is mentioned among the notables, but Arrian (rather than Nearchos himself, Ind.18.4) classifies him among the Macedonians (Borza, Greeks 137-38, n. 14). While probably of Cretan origin... (Borza, Greeks 138, n. 14, my italics). It is not a question of probability but of certainty based on both literary and epigraphical evidence (cf. H.Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage I-II, Munich 1926, 269, no 544). Cf. Badian, Greeks 39-40 and 49, n. 48-50. N. G. L. Hammond G. T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia, vol. II, Oxford 1979, 381. E. Badian, Alexander and the Greeks of Asia, Ancient Societies and Institutions. Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg, Oxford 1966, 37-96. M. B. Sakellariou, The Inhabitants, in M. B. Sakellariou (ed.), Macedonia, Athens 1983, 52; cf. Hall, Ethnicities 173, n. 8. Herod. 144.2. Given the obvious opportunism of the passage, it is vain to delve into the exact meaning of the term, which in Greek has meanings as varied as the word , from which it is composed. In any case, it is noteworthy that it can be used to denote not necessarily another race or nation, but just another Greek population (cf. Thuc. 1.141, aptly adduced by Daskalakis, Hellenism 274, n. 56.). Isocr., Phil 107-108: , , ... , , . Cf. Daskalakis, Hellenism 249-56. Cf. Ephor. FGrHist 70 frg 143; Pseudo-Skylax 33; 65; 66; Dion. Calliph. 24 and 31-36. Nearly a century and a half later a Macedonian King, in a sarcastic repartee (Pol. 18.5. 7-9: ; , ,
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;) exploited the same ambiguity in order to stress the absurdity of the proposed exclusion of Macedonia from Greece. Cf. le commentaire de P. Cabanes, Cit et ethnos dans la Grce ancienne , Mlanges P. Lvque II, Paris 1989,75: Suivre cette voie qui conduit lexclusion de la Grce dune trs grande rgion de la Grce septentrionale, cest aussi carter de lhellnisme aussi bien lOlympe cher aux dieux du panthon des Hellnes que le sanctuaire de Dodone, dj visit au temps de lIliade, et le pays des morts arros par lArchron et le Cocyte runis proximit du Nekromanteion dEphyre de Thesprotie, o Ulysse vient la rencontre du devin Tiresias, selon le rcit de lOdysse . 66. Which proved to be a mistake, for it enabled anti-Macedonian politicians to construe a Hellenic identity from which Macedonia was excluded. 67. See in particular, F. Geyer, Makedonien bis zur Thronbesteigung Philipps II, Munich and Berlin 1930, 32: Nicht anders steht es mit dem Hinweis darauf, dass die Makedonen sich namentlich in der Zeit Alexanders des Grossen und der Diadochen als ein Volk fr sich gefhlt htten: Dieses Gefhl war lediglich ein Ausfluss nationalen Stolzes auf die unerhrten Leistungen, die ihnen die stliche Welt zu Fssen gelegt hatte, eine Wirkung des stolzen Bewussteins, auch den Griechen militrisch und politisch unendlich berlegen zu sein. Ganz hnlich haben sich die Preussen zur Zeit Friedrichs des Grossen allen anderen Deutschen gegenber als ein besonderes Volk gefhlt, haben sich mit Stolz als Preussen und nicht als Deutschen bekannt.
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3. Modern linguistics
Response to linguistics professor and Balkan Studies scholar Victor Friedman
March, 2009 In his interview on www.Balkanalysis.com (12/14/2008) [1], Linguistics professor and Balkan Studies scholar Victor Friedman portrays Greeks as a most undemocratic and oppressive nation, from ancient to present time, and places the role of Greece in the Balkans in a most negative light. The core of his arguments seems to lie in what he considers suppression of multilingualism and minorities in Greece, which he associates with the current dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on the name of the latter country. As scholars and academics, some of us students of Macedonian history and culture, we wish to offer an alternative perspective and rebut Friedmans views and assertions in regard to the identity of the modern Greek nation and the true nature of the current dispute between Greece and FYROM. It should be noted that, prior to our decision to write this letter, we invited Dr. Friedman to debate his views in the Hellenic Electronic Center/Professors Forum*, but he declined our invitation. Friedmans overt bias is best exemplified in his remark Greeks get away with this cradle of democracy image! Give me a break! Ancient Greece was a slave-owning society, which defies further comment. It is indeed unfortunate that such a statement came from a scholar. We will not respond with similar sensationalism here. Rather, we will remain close to the facts and scholarly sources, and address those points made by Friedman which might sound reasonable to a reader who is not familiar with the past and the recent history of the Southern Balkan region. 1) Friedman states that Greeks have been trying to destroy the Slavic culture and its literacy since the Middle Ages. Quite to the contrary, the Greeks of Byzantium and the post-byzantine period immensely and crucially contributed to the development of the Slavic cultures of Russia, Bulgaria, and Serbia, during their conversion to Christianity [2]. Remarkably, Friedman neglects to acknowledge that the written Slavic languages were developed by two Byzantine Greek monastic scholars and linguists, Cyril and Methodius of Thessaloniki. Among others, Friedman also displays sheer disregard for: a) the pivotal contributions to Russian literature
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and philosophy by 15th century Athonite luminary monk Maximus Graecus ( )[3]; b) the learned Greek brothers, Ioanniky and Sofrony Likhud (), founders of Moscows first institution of higher learning, the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, in 1687 [4]; and c) the centuries-old devotion of the Mother Church (Patriarchate of Constantinople) and Greek clergy to their Slav brethren, as embodied in the published works of the 19th century influential theologian and scholar Konstantinos Oeconomos ( )[5], a strong advocate of the historical ties and close kinship between Greeks and Slavs through the centuries. 2) In his rather bookish and rigidly circumscribed view about linguistically divergent constituencies in Greece, Friedman challenges the very essence of Modern Greek identity by disregarding in a historical sense the inclusive tradition of Romiosyni, the natural precursor of the Modern Greek nation. The concept of Romiosyni is, in many respects, akin to a Greek Commonwealth, which transcends racial, tribal, and regional linguistic barriers. In failing to bring this concept into consideration when it comes to the historical context of multilingualism in the Balkan region, Friedman echoes earlier claims bylet us noteGreek scholars such as the late Loukas Tsitsipis [6] of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the late Kostas Kazazis [7] of the University of Chicago. Friedman who is no stranger to Arvanitika, Vlahika and Slavonic dialects in the geographic region of Macedonia fails to acknowledge that linguistically variegated groups such as Vlach-, Arvanite-, and Slavonic speakers in Macedonia, members of the Ottoman Rum millet and loyal followers of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, were not Hellenized subjects (by way of coercive or repressive assimilation) but rather they comprised dominant forces decisively partaking in the fermentation process leading to the shaping of Modern Greek identity and the dissemination of Greek letters in Ottoman Rumelia long before the eruption of ethnic feuds, divisions, and regional nationalisms [8, 9]. 3) Friedman alludes to Greek indifference or even resistance to learning foreign languages, unlike other Balkan peoples. It is surprising that a Linguistics scholar uses the (presumed) lack of a Greek proverb to the effect that languages are wealth as evidence that Greeks do not value multilingualism. This kind of rhetoric does not constitute a sound linguistic argument, and though possibly appealing to a lay-person, it reflects a way of thinking (called strong relativism) that has been largely discredited in current Linguistics. To go back to scholarly sources, in his book Bilingualism and the Latin Language Cambridge University Press, 2003 [10], John N. Adams, Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, asserts that whilst it has long been the conventional opinion that Greeks were indifferent or hostile to the learning of foreign languages, recently it has been shown that that view is far from the truth. Latin in particular was widely known, as has been demonstrated by Holford-Strevens and on a massive scale by Rochette. [11] With reference to the modern history of the Greek Nation (), members of the Rum millet and Romiosyni, ranging from those belonging to the high echelon of diplomats and luminaries of the Sublime Porte (viz. the Phanariots) to the ubiquitous Balkan merchants and retailers in the Ottoman Rumelia, were in fact polyglot (Greek-, Vlach-, Albanian-,
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Slavonic-, and/or Turkish-speaking, many of them acquainted with Russian, French, German and/or English). Noteworthy in this regard was the precocious (18th century) Greek renaissance in Moschopolis/Moscopole (present day Albania) [12] and the 19th/ early 20th century Greek cultural dimension in Pelagonia (Krushevo and Monastir/Bitola; present day FYROM) [8, 9]. These centers fostered the dissemination of Greek culture and letters, promoted by bilingual or polyglot speakers with fervent Greek national identity. Vestiges from this, once flourishing, community are still present today in FYROM. The famous Protopiria (Primer), an Albanian-German-Modern Greek-Vlach dictionary written by the polymath cleric and scholar Theodoros Anastasiou Kavaliotis (Kavalliotes) [13], was the forerunner of comparative linguistics in the Balkans. It was printed in 1770 in Venice, and stands as a reminder of the widespread multilingualism in the flourishing Grecovlach center of Moschopolis/Moscopole and across the territories of the Ottoman Rumelia (the geographical region of Macedonia included). Reference is made herein to the published works by Thomas Paschidis (1879) [14] and Mihail Lanbrinydis (1907) [15], which capture the collective memories of Arvanite and Vlach Greeks during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. These works offer a palpable proof of the Greek-Albanian kinship perceived by the 19th century Greek scholars. Noteworthy in this regard are the demonstrative sentiments of Thomas Paschidis, a bilingual - possibly polyglot - Greek Epirote/Arvanite luminary, towards his Grecovlach and Bulgarian brethren. His book contains an appendix in Arvanitika using Greek characters, which is especially informative and enlightening [14]. Given the above, we contend that claims for the presence of divergent identities of Greeks, Arvanites, Vlachs, and so-called Macedonian Slavs, based solely on linguistic grounds, should be viewed with cautious circumspection and within the context of time and space. In particular, it is somewhat surprising that Friedman did not consider the massive diffusion of Arbresh (Arvanite) speakers southward into the Helladic Mainland and the Peloponnese during the 14th and 15th centuries (and the most relevant Stradioti saga). he remarkable fermentation and integration of Arbresh/Shqiptar-speaking populations with Greek-, Vlach/Armn-, and Slavonic-speaking members of the Rum millet during the ensuing centuries remains at the core of Romiosyni and Modern Greek ethnogenesis. Thus, from a modern historic and anthropological perspective, the rigidly circumscribed and sharply delimited ethno-linguistic definitions and compartmentalizations brought forward by Friedman are open to critical reappraisal. Importantly, they are, to a large extent, alien and irrelevant to the Greeks of Arvanite or Vlach origin, whose identity has been shaped by their collective participation in the Modern Greek Experience during the past two (and possibly more) centuries. The Declaration of the Northern Epirotes from the Districts of Korytsa and Kolonia Demanding Union of Their Native Province with Greece -- Pan-Epirotic Union in America, (Boston, 1919) is a testament to the perception of their Greek identity among Albanian-, Vlach- and Greek speakers in Southern Albania/Northern Epirus http:// www.helleniccomserve.com/pdf/Declaration%20of%20Northern%20Epirotes%20in%20 19%5B1%5D...pdf
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Whilst the vision of the 18th century Grecovlach luminary Rigas Velestinlis Thettalos (Feraios) for the creation of a post-Ottoman Balkan Federation/Commonwealth, transcending regional and linguistic differences, did not materialize, the idea nonetheless reflected the sentiment of many emancipated Greeks at the time. But the ethnic/ national awakenings and the divisive forces were already underway, heralding the partial disintegration of Romiosyni followed by a protracted and intractable course of regional feuds and dissensions, which unfortunately live up to this day. The emergence of the ethnocentric national(istic) narrative of Makedonism is symptomatic of delayed awakening thanks in part to the contributions by scholars like Dr. Victor Friedman. 4) Friedmans argument that the Greeks came up with a line claiming the Macedonians could not claim the name Macedonia unless they were descended from the Ancient Macedonians is a sheer misrepresentation. The basis of the dispute between Greece and FYROM lies on the open attempt by the FYROM government to appropriate a very significant part of the Greek history (see examples: http://faq.macedonia.org/history and http://www.macedoniatimeless.com). As part of its newly constructed national narrative, FYROM has opted to trace its historical roots to classical antiquity, underrating the predominantly Slavonic cultural heritage of the majority of its population, which is shared with its Bulgarian brethren. In the words of Dr. Evangelos Kofos, Greeces leading authority on Modern Macedonian History, this all-encompassing doctrine of Makedonism is encroaching upon an illustrious past, which had been recorded in the annals of Hellenic heritage, almost a millennium prior to the arrival of Slavic tribes in the region [16] (N.B. There was no Slavic presence in Macedonia until nearly 1,000 years after the time of Alexander the Great). Aside from the grandiose ideations traceable to antiquity, there is yet another darker side to the ethnocentric national narrative of Makedonism. Central to the problem at hand is the morbid obsession with race, DNA, HLA haplotypes, and the likes, underlying a broader racial purity narrative. In the video below, one can see footage from a staged propaganda-style inspirational film titled Makedonska Molitva (Macedonian Prayer), which was aired on the government-run MTV1 - National TV, First Channel television station of Skopje. Note that the video culminates in a crescendo blending biblical apocalyptic delusions with overtly racial overtones from a different era. Thus, using Hellenized terms, the narrator speaks Gods words to the children of the Sun and Flowers telling them that Mother Earth gave birth to three races: Makedonjoide = white race, Mongoloide = yellow race, Negroide = black race (all others being mulattoes). And God went on to say to the Makedontsi that, All white people are your brethren because they carry Macedonian genes. [17] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZJ62MGF7xI. It is indeed regrettable that Friedman has opted to downplay the gravity and long-term implications of a morbidly nationalistic narrative nurtured in the primary and secondary school curricula of FYROM. Greeks throughout the world do not harbor any enmity or hostility toward FYROM nationals, and yearn for a peaceful and productive coexistence between the two peoples. Greece has an earnest desire for mutual respect and the realization of a lasting political solution with its northern neighbor. Greece does not deny the nationals of FYROM their
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identity (or identities). In this dispute, Greece is only compelled to delineate the distinction between the ethno-cultural domains of Greek Macedonia and FYROM. With this in mind, we wish that the people of FYROM start questioning the state propaganda and reflect into their recent history. They were victimized for half a century under a totalitarian regime and were nurtured under a propagandistic educational system. In keeping with this entrenched tradition, Article 6 of the Law on the Scientific Research Activity, as published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia Nos.13/96 and 29/02, proscribes the development of any scientific research on the ethnic identity of the citizens of FYROM. We believe that such obsessive pre-occupation with national identity in the 21st century, coupled with misrepresentation of history, only harms the citizens of FYROM. As a geographic region, Macedonia has long been known for its ethno-linguistic diversity for which the time-honored term Macedonian salad was coined. Hence, Macedonia is neither a single country nor the cradle of a single nation, but a geographic region (with protean borders throughout history) parts of which belong nowadays to three states, each with its distinctive cultural heritage, national identity, and collective memory. It is most disturbing that Skopje claims the entire geographic Macedonian region of modern times as part of that nations tatkovina (fatherland), thus effectively laying claim to unredeemed territories in Greek Macedonia [18]. This is not a hidden agenda. The government of FYROM has published and circulated a state map showing FYROM to extend over Greek territory, including Thessaloniki [19]. The Hellenic identity of ancient Macedonia is indisputable; it is supported by historical, archeological, and linguistic evidence. For the socio-political and historical facts, the most authoritative source is the classic work of the leading scholar on the history of ancient Macedonia, the late Prof. Nicholas Hammonds book, The Macedonian State, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. As regards the language, by 5th century B.C, Attic Greek was standardized as the language of Ancient Macedonia (Makedon). For instance, of the 1,044 inscriptions included in the fascicle Inscriptiones Thessalonicae et Viciniae (ISBN 3 11 0018594) one of the most painstaking and complex volumes of the Berlin corpus, encompassing all the inscriptions of ancient Thessaloniki from the 3rd century B.C. to the 7th or 8th century A.D. most are Greek, while a few are Latin (personal communication with Dr. John C. Rouman, Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of New Hampshire) [20]. When considering the pre-5th century B.C. language (for which evidence is more fragmentary), the current consensus seems to be that it was a Hellenic dialect. The term Hellenic has been proposed by Professor Brian Joseph (Ohio State University, 1999, 2001) [21] to refer to the linguistic sub-family within the Indo-European languages that comprises Ancient Macedonian and the rest of the Greek dialects. This classification has been adopted by the LINGUIST list (the official electronic site of Linguistics); see http://www.linguistlist.org/forms/langs/GetListOfAncientLgs.html and http://linguistlist. org/forms/langs/get-familyid.cfm? CFTREEITEMKEY=IEG On the first site, it is additionally cautioned that Macedonian is the ancient language of the Macedonian kingdom in northern Greece and modern Macedonia during the 1st millennium B.C. Not to be confused with the modern Macedonian language, which is a close relative of
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the Slavonic Bulgarian [emphasis ours]. For additional references on the subject, see G. Babiniotis, Ancient Macedonian: The Place of Macedonian among the Greek Dialects in: A. M. Tamis (ed.), Macedonian Hellenism, Melbourne 1990, pp. 241-250; C. Brixhe, A. Panayotou, Le Macdonien in: Langues indo-europennes, ed. Bader, Paris, 1994, 205220; and J. Chadwick, The Prehistory of the Greek Language, Cambridge 1963. 5) Friedmans assertion that the Greek State has implemented repressive measures against the Macedonian minority in Greece is politically motivated. Most importantly, it misrepresents the real demographic situation in the Northwestern prefectures of Greek Macedonia, by not taking into account the fact that the use of variant local Slavoniclike idioms/dialects is widespread among bilingual, indigenous Greek Macedonians with unambiguous Greek identity. These bilingual Greek Macedonians (also known as Grecomans or Grkmani) along with Grecovlachs were the backbone of Romiosyni and Hellenism in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries. Friedman should by now be cognizant of the fact that when it comes to Macedonian identities it ultimately boils down to choices of national affiliation, as, not infrequently, even members of the same family may profess divergent ethnic/national identities. And even though Greece disputes the existence of a Macedonian minority on the grounds of definition, the self-described party of the Macedonian minority in Greece, Rainbow-Vinozhito, enjoys full recognition by the Greek state (and receives a negligible number of votes in elections). Vinozhitos members are free to openly express their grievances and dissenting opinions. The problem is further compounded by the rekindling of old family feuds and grievances dating back to the days of the Greek Civil War (1945-1949), which have nowadays resurfaced thanks to the bitter politics embraced by a third generation of politicians in Skopje, belonging for the most part to the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party [16, 22]. Some of them, like current Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, identify themselves as Aegean Macedonian (Egejski) political refugees, based on their family roots in Greek Macedonia [16]. At issue are claims for restitution and/or repatriation [23]. Whilst during the past thirty years the Greeks have managed to heal some of the Civil War wounds, there are still fresh memories, even among members of the Greek Communist Party, about the subversive actions of Makedonski autonomist bandsmen of NOF endangering the territorial integrity of Greek Macedonia. By playing the Egejski card half a century later, in the midst of negotiations over the thorny name issue, Skopje shows an increasingly intransigent and confrontational -rather than constructive- approach. We conclude by emphasizing that sensationalism and sheer bias, as displayed in Friedmans interview, serve neither historical truth nor a constructive scholarly or political discourse; and they certainly do not help the people of FYROM. No intellectual and scholar should feel comfortable accepting, let alone promoting, such rhetoric.
ENDNOTES
1. Victor Friedman on Macedonia: the Balkanalysis.com Interview
http://www.balkanalysis.com/2008/12/14/victor-friedman-on-macedonia-the-balkanalysiscominterview/
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2. Byzantium nurtured the untamed tribes of the Serbs, Bulgars, Russians and Croats and shaped
3.
4.
5. 6.
7. 8.
9. 10. 11.
them into nations. It gave them its religion, its institutions, its traditions, and taught their leaders how to govern. Indeed, [Byzantium] gave them the essence of culture written language/script and philology. F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe sicle, II, Paris 1928 and P.P. Charanis, The development of Byzantine Studies in the United States. Acceptance lecture by Professor P. Charanis upon his conferral of Doctor honoris causa by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (14.3.1972), Thessaloniki, 1973, 34. Cited in Achille Lazarou, Ellinismos kai Laoi Notioanatolikis (NA) Evropis. Diachronikes kai Diepistimonikes Diadromes. Tomos A. Lychnia Publishers, Athens, 2009, p. 218 [ISBN 978-960-930950-9]. Antonios-Emilios Tahiaos O Athonitis Monahos Maximos o Graikos. O Teleftaios ton Vyzantinon sti Rossia, published by the Society for Macedonian Studies, Peoples Library, Thessaloniki 2008. http://www.ems.gr/ems/client/userfiles/file/EKDOSEIS/MAKEDONIKI_LAIKI_BIBLIOTHIKI/ Taxiaos_Maximos_Graikos.pdf Before coming to Moscow, the Greek brothers studied in Venice and Padua. At the Moscow Academy, Ioanniky taught physics while his brother Sofrony taught physics and logic in the Aristotelian tradition, while also emphasizing the works of Byzantine philosophers. The Greek brothers embodied the so-called Greek trend that prevailed in Russian culture prior to the radical reforms introduced by Peter the Great. Unlike the Latin tradition, which emanated from medieval Western scholasticism with a slant toward rhetoric and poetry, the Greek trend focused heavily on philosophy, history, and natural sciences. The rich and fertile rivalry between these two scholarly and scientific traditions was a prevailing feature of Russian culture during the late 17th century [Source: Alexander Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture: A History to 1860, Stanford University Press, 1963] P. Matalas, Ethnos kai Orthodoxia. Oi peripeteies mias schesis. Apo to Elladiko sto Voulgariko schisma. Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kritis, 2002 Lukas D. Tsitsipis. A linguistic anthropology of praxis and language shift: Arvantika (Albanian) and Greek in contact. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Also, see Victor Friedmans The Albanian Language in Its Eastern Diaspora. Arvanitika kai Ellenika: Zetemata polyglossikon kai polypolitismikon koinoteton [Greek: Arvanitika and Greek: Problems of multilingual and multicultural communities], Vol. 2, ed. by Loukas Tsitsipis. Livadeia, Greece: European Union & The Prefecture of Levadeia, 1998, pp. 215-231. Kostas Kazazis obituary by Victor Friedman posted on the website of Society Farsrotul, a United States-based political activist group promoting the so-called independent Aromanian movement http://www.farsarotul.org/nl25_5.htm Antonis M. Koltsidas monograph entitled Greek Education in Monastir Pelagonia Organisation and Operation of Greek Schools, Cultural Life. [English Translation by Janet Koniordos] published by the Society for Macedonian Studies, Macedonian Library - 105, Thessaloniki 2008 http:// www.ems.gr/ems/client/userfiles/file/EKDOSEIS/MAKEDONIKI_BIBLIOTHIKI/Koltsidas_ Monastiri_Pelagonia.pdf See Christos D. Katsetos article entitled Vlahoi. Rahokokalia tou Ellinikou ethnous (Vlachs The backbone of the Greek nation) published in the Athens newspaper Apogevmatini (on 11 November, 2007, p. 17) http://www.vlahoi.net/content/view/257/109/ See the excerpt from the Introduction of J.N. Adams book. http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/17714/excerpt/9780521817714_excerpt.pdf See Rochettes treatise Les Romains et le latin vus par les Grecs. http://www2b.ac-lille.fr/langues-anciennes/telechargement/20Latinetgrec4eme.pdf
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12. See Lazarou, op. cit., p. 293 [vide supra]. Prokopios Dimitrios Pamperis Moschopolitis, 13.
14.
15.
16.
17. 18. 19.
20.
21. 22.
, Hamburg, 1772. Reprinted by Karavias Publishers, Athens, 1966 http://www.rarebooks.com.gr/book.asp?catid=361 Theodoros Kavaliotis, founder of the New Academy of Moschopolis, was the author of a quadrilingual dictionary entitled Protopiria. Das dreisprchige Wrterverzeichnis von Theodoros Anastasiu Kavalliotes aus Moschopolis, gedruckt 1770 in Venedig: albanisch-deutsch-neugriechischicharomunisch/ neu bearbeit, mit dem heutigen Zustande der albanischen Schriftsprache verglichen_ [Protopiria () = Primer. Three Lists of Words in Three Languages, which was printed in 1770 in Venice: Albanian-German-Modern (Nea) Greek-Armn/Vlach; New edition, with the todays Situation of the Albanian written Language]. Thomas Paschidis, - , . [Shqiptart dhe e ardhmja e tyre n helenizm - Me shtes mbi grekovlleht dhe bullgart] Th. Paskidu, 1879 [The Albanians and their future in Hellenism -With an appendix on Grecovlachs and Bulgarians]. Reprinted by Karavias Publishers, Athens, 1981 http://www.rarebooks.com.gr/book.asp?catid=356 http://www.shqiptarortodoks.com/tekste/albanologji/Paskidu_1879.pdf Mihail Lambrinidis, (), , 1907 [Shqiptart n Greqin qendrore dhe n Peloponez Mihail Lambrinidou, 1907] [The Albanians in Mainland Greece and Peloponnese (HydraSpetsae)]. Reprinted by Karavias Publishers, Athens, 1981 http://www.rarebooks.com.gr/book. asp?catid=357 and http://www.shqiptarortodoks.com/tekste/albanologji/Lambrinidu.pdf See analysis by Dr. Evangelos Kofos of the ICG Report Macedonias Name: Breaking the Deadlock http://blogs.eliamep.gr/en/kofos/analysis-icg-report-macedonias-name-breaking-thedeadlock/#more-92. Also, see essay by the same author entitled The Unresolved Difference over the Name: The Greek perspective. In: Kofos E, Vlasidis V (Eds) Athens-Skopje: An Uneasy Symbiosis, 1995-2002. Research Centre for Macedonian History and Documentation at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, Thessaloniki, 2005 http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/InterimAgreement/ Downloads/Interim_Kofos.pdf See claims about the Sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks in state-sponsored ethnogenetic studies. http://www.makedonika.org/processpaid.aspcontentid=ti.2001.pdf Kofos, ibid Vance Stojcev. Voena Istorija Na Makedonija: Skici. Sojuzot na drustvata na istoricarite na RM i Voenata akademija General Mihailo Apostolski, ISBN 9989776075 (9989-776-07-5)/ Military History of Macedonia. Military Academy General Mihailo Apostolski, ISBN 9989134057 (9989134-05-7) Excerpted from the letter of Dr. Rouman to the New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson (dated 2002). Dr. Rouman was for five years, both at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, research assistant during Professor Charles F. Edsons protracted and difficult project, focusing on the editing of all the inscriptions of ancient Thessalonica from the third century B.C. to the seventh or eighth century A.D. for the German Academy of Berlin. For his meritorious contribution Dr. Edson was awarded the prestigious Charles Goodwin Award of Merit of the American Philological Association. Brian Joseph (1999), Ancient Greek in: J. Garry, C. Rubino, A. Faber, R. French (editors), Facts About the Worlds Languages: An Encyclopedia of the Worlds Major Languages: Past and Present, New York/Dublin, H. W. Wilson Press, 2001 See article by Aristide D. Caratzas titled Oi nazistikes rizes tou VMRO (the Nazi origins of
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VMRO) published in the Athens newspaper Ethnos (2.8.2009) http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=11378&subid=2&tag=8334&pubid=1370687 Also, see article by the same author entitled Why the Greek People Cannot Easily Accept FYROMs Claims published in The National Herald (30.8.2009) http://rieas.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=739&Itemid=41 23. See commentary by Evangelos Kofos titled Unexpected Initiatives: Towards the resettlement of a Slav-Macedonian minority in Macedonia? (Originally published in the Athens newspaper To Vima on June 25, 2003) http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Opinion/comm_20030710Kofos.html
SIGNATURES
Martis, Nikolaos, Former Minister of Macedonia/Thrace Albrecht-Piliouni, Effie, Professor of Linguistics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA. Albrecht, Ulrich, Professor of Mathematics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL USA. nagnostopoulos, Stavros A., Professor of Civil Engineering, Head, University of Patras, 26500, Patras, GREECE. Anastassiou, George, Professor of Mathematics, University of Memphis, USA. Andreadis, Stelios T., Ph.D., Professor, Bioengineering Laboratory, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, New York, USA. Antoniou, Antonios, Dr. Dent., D.M.D., Dental Surgeon, Lemesos, CYPRUS. Arkas Evangelos, Ph.D., CEO Prometheus Technology Inc. London, UK. Aroniadou-Anderjaska, Vassiliki, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Dept. of APG and Dept. of Psychiatry, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA. Athanassouli, Georgia, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Patras, GREECE. Baloglou, George, Associate Professor of Mathematics (retired, SUNY Oswego), Thessaloniki, GREECE. Balopoulos, Victor, Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Thrace, GREECE. Barbas, John T., Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, USA. Billis, Euripides, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Bitros, George C., Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Department of Economics, Athens, University of Economics and Business, Athens, GREECE. Botsas, Lefteris N., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Economics Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA. Boundas, Constantin V., Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, CANADA. Bouros, Demosthenes, MD, Ph.D. FCCP Professor of Pneumonology, Chairman, Dept, of Internal Medicine, Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Bronstein, Arna, Associate Professor of Russian, Dept. of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA. Burriel, Angeliki R., DVM, MSc, MSc, PhD, MRCVS, GREECE. Bucher, Matthias, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, ECE Dept., Technical University of Crete, Chania, Crete, GREECE.
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Cacoullos, Theophilos, Emeritus Professor, University of Athens, Athens, GREECE Chaniotakis, Nikos, Professor of Chemistry, University of Crete, Crete, GREECE. Christodoulou, Manolis A., Professor of Control Laboratory, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Crete, GREECE. Chrysanthopoulos, Michael, Ph.D., Historian, Hagiographer, Thessaloniki, GREECE. Cladis, John B., Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics, Lockheed Martin Space Physics Lab, Palo Alto, California, USA. Clairmont, Richard, Dr., Senior Lecturer of Classics, University of NH, USA. Constantinides, Christos, Professor Emeritus, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wyoming, USA. Constantinou, Philip, Ph.D., Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. National technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Coucouvanis, Dimitri, Professor of Chemistry, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. Daglis, Ioannis A., Ph.D., Research Director, Institute for Space Applications National Observatory of Athens, Penteli, GREECE. Damianou, Pantelis, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Cyprus, 1678, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Danginis, Vassilios A., Ph.D., Director of Engineering, SMSC, Hauppauge, NY 11788, USA. Deltas, Constantinos, Professor of Genetics, Chairman of Biological Sciences, Head, Laboratory of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Cyprus, Kallipoleos Nicosia, CYPRUS. Demetracopoulos, Alex C., Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, 265 00, Patras, GREECE Demopoulos, George P., Ph.D., Eng., FCIM, Professor and Gerald Hatch Faculty Fellow, Associate Chair and Graduate Program Director, Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Wong Building, 3610 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2B2, CANADA. Dokos, Socrates, Dr., Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales Sydney, AUSTRALIA. Doulia, Danae, Professor of Nat. Techn. University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Dritsos, Stephanos E., Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, 26500, Patras, GREECE. Economou, Thanasis, Senior Scientist, Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, IL, USA. Efthymiou, Pavlos N., Professor, Dr. ret. nat., Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR - 541 24 THESSALONIKI, GREECE. Episcopos, Athanasios, Associate Professor, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, 10434, GREECE. Eriotis, Nikolaos, Associate Professor of Accounting, University of Athens, Philothei, GREECE. Fleszar, Aleksandra, Assoc. Professor of Russian, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA. Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, Maria, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. Fotopoulos, Spiros, Professor, Electronics Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Patras, GREECE.
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Foudopoulos, Panayotis, Ph.D., Electrical Engineer, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Fthenakis, Vasilis, Director, Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Earth and Environmental Engineering Department, Columbia University, 926 S.W. Mudd, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA. Gatzoulis, Nina, Supreme President of the Pan-Macedonian Association (USA) and Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of New Hampshire, USA. Gavalas, George, Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, USA. Gavras, Irene, MD, Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. Georgakis, Christos, Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Bernard M. Gordon Senior Faculty Fellow of Systems Engineering, TUFTS University, Medford, MA, 02155, USA. Georges, Anastassios T., Professor, Department of Physics, University of Patras, GREECE. Georgiou, Demetrius A., Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Giannakidou, Anastasia, Professor of Linguistics, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Chicago, USA. Groumpos, Petros P., Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras, GREECE. Halamandaris, Pandelis, Ph.D., Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Brandon University, Deputy Director, University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization, CANADA. Hassiotis Sophia, Ph.D., Civil Engineering Program Director, CEOE, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J. 07030, USA. Horsch, Georgios M., Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, GREECE. Ioannou, Petros, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering-Systems, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA. Kakouli-Duarte, Thomais, Ph.D., President, Hellenic Community of Ireland, and Lecturer, Environmental Bio-Sciences, Dept. of Science and Health Institute of Technology, Carlow, IRELAND. Kamari, Georgia, Professor, Division of Plant Biology, Department of Biology, University of Patras, GR-265 00, Patras, GREECE. Kambezidis, Harry, Dr., Research Director, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Karabalis, Dimitris L., Professor, University of Patras, GREECE. Karageorgis, Demetris, Information Science Teacher, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Karagiannidis, Iordanis, Ph.D., Assistant Researcher, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Karakatsanis, Theoklitos S., Ph.D., Electrical Engineer N.T.U.A, Assistant Professor D.U.TH., Dept. of Production Engineering & Management, School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Karayanni, Despina A., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Patras, Department of Business Administration, GREECE. Katsetos, Christos D., M.D., Ph.D., FRCPath, Professor of Pathology, Drexel University College of Medicine and St. Christophers Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
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Katsifarakis, Konstantinos L., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GREECE. Katsifis, Spiros, Ph.D., FACFE, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Biology, University of Bridgeport Bridgeport, CT, USA. Katsoufis, Elias C., Associate Professor of Physics, School of Applied Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Katsouris, Andreas, Professor of Ancient Greek Philology, Division of Classical Philology, University of Ioannina, GREECE. Kitridou, Rodanthi C., MD, FACP, MACR Professor Emerita of Medicine (Rheumatology), USC Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Komodromos, Petros, Lecturer, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering University of Cyprus, CYPRUS. Konstantatos (Kostas), Demosthenes J., Ph.D., M.Sc., M.B.A., Telecommunications, Greenwich, CT, USA. Kottis, George C., Emeritus Professor, Athens University of Economics and Business Science, Athens, GREECE. Kugiumtzis, Dimitris, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GREECE. Koussis, Antonis D., Ph.D., Research Director, Institute for Environmental Research, National Observatory of Athens, Metaxa & Vassileos Pavlou, GR - 152 36 Palaia Penteli, Athens, GREECE. Koutroumbas, Konstantinos, Ph.D., Researcher, Institute for Space Applications & Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens, Palea Penteli, 15236 ATHENS-GREECE. Koutselini, Mary, Dr , Department of Education, University of Cyprus, CYPRUS. Kritas, Spyridon K., DVM, Ph.D., Dipl. ECPHM Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, School of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, GREECE. Kritikos, Haralambos N., Professor Emeritus, Department of Systems and Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, USA. Kyriacou, George A., Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Kyriakou, Anastasia, Plant Pathologist, Agricultural Research Institute, Lefcosia, CYPRUS. Ladikos, Anastasios, Professor, Department of Criminology and Security Sciences, University of South Africa, Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. Lagoudakis, Michail G., Assistant Professor, Technical University of Crete, Chania, GREECE. Lambrinos, Panos, Professor of Mathematics, School of Engineering, Democritus, University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Lampropoulos, George A., Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, ECE Dept., University of Calgary, CANADA. Lampropoulou, Venetta, Professor of Deaf Education, Deaf Studies Unit, Department of Education, University of Patras, GREECE. Lazaridis, Anastas, Professor Emeritus, Widener University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013, USA. Leventouri, Theodora, Dr., Professor, Department of Physics, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA.
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Lialiaris, Theodore S., BSc, MD, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Medical Biology and Cytogenetics, Medical School of Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Lolos, George J., Professor, Physics Department, University of Regina, CANADA. Lymberopoulos, John Ph.D., Leeds School Summer Dean, Professor of International Business & Finance Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Manias, Stefanos, Professor, National Technical University of Athens, Dep. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical Machines and Power electronics Laboratory, Athens, GREECE. Manolopoulos, Vangelis G., Assoc. Professor of Pharmacology, Democritus University of Thrace, Medical School, Alexandroupolis, GREECE. Maragos, Petros, Professor, National Technical University of Athens, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Athens , GREECE. Melakopides, Costas, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Mermigas, Eleftherios, Professor, ASCP, Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University at Buffalo NY, USA. Metallinos-Katsaras, Elizabeth, Ph.D. RD, Associate Professor, Nutrition Department, Simmons College, Boston MA, USA. Michaelides, Stathis, Ph.D., P.E. Professor and Chair, Mechanical Engineering University of Texas at San Antonio One UTSA Circle San Antonio, TX, USA. Michopoulos, Aristotle, Dr., Greek Studies, Hellenic College, Brookline, MA, USA Miller, Stephen G., Professor Emeritus, Classical Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley CA, USA. Mylonakou-Kekes Iro, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational, Sciences, Faculty of Primary Education, University of Athens, 13A Navarinou, 10680 ATHENS, GREECE. Milonas, Nikolaos, Professor of Finance, University of Athens, Marousi, GREECE. Moulopoulos, Konstantinos, Dr., Associate Professor of Physics, University of Cyprus, CYPRUS. Mourtos, Nikos J., Ph.D., Professor, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, San Jose State University, One Washington Square San Jose, CA, USA. Nasis, Vasileios T., Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, Drexel University College of Engineering, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Newman, Constantine, Reverent Dr., Classics Professor-University of New Hampshire, USA. Newman Anna, Professor of Classics-University of New Hampshire, USA. Nikolakopoulos, Konstantin, Professor, Institute of Orthodox Theology, Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity, Munich, GERMANY. Panagiotakopoulos, Chris T., B.Sc., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Educational Technology, University of Patras - School of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Education, Archemedes Str., 265 04 Rio Patras, GREECE. Panagiotakopoulos, Demetrios, Professor of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Panagiotopoulos, Dimitrios P., Assoc. Professor, University of Athens, Attorney-at-Law, President of International Association of Sports Law, GREECE. Papadopoulos, George K., Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Epirus Institute of Technology, Arta, 47100, GREECE. Papadopoulos, George, Professor Emeritus, Applied Electronics Laboratory, Electrical and
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Computer Engineering, University of Patras, GREECE. Papadopoulos, Kyriakos, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA. Papamarkos, Nikos, Professor, Democritus University of Thrace, School of Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, GREECE. Papavassiliou, Dimitrios P., MD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Pediatric Cardiology, Morgan Stanley Childrens Hospital of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center. New York, NY, USA. Papazoglou, Georges, Professor of Palaeography, Chairman - Department History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, KOMOTINI, GREECE. Patitsas, Steve, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor, Physics Department, University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 3M4, CANADA. Patitsas, Tom Athanasios, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics and Astronomy Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, CANADA. Pelekanos, Nikos, Professor of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, Heraklion-Crete, GREECE. Pelides, Panayiotis, Ph.D., Consultant Anesthesiologist, American Heart Institute, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Persephonis, Peter, Professor, Physics Department, University of Patras, GREECE. Phufas, Ellene S., Professor, English/Humanities SUNY- ECC Buffalo, NY, USA. Pintelas, Panagiotis E., Professor of Computer Science, Dept. of Mathematics, University of Patras, Patras, GREECE. Pittas, Stamatios, Head of Marketing Dept., KOSTEAS GROUP OF COMPANIES, Chalkis, GREECE. Plionis, Manolis, Ph.D., Research Director, Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, National Observatory of Athens, GREECE. Pnevmatikatos, Dionysios, Assoc. Professor, ECE Department, Technical University of Crete, GREECE. Polychroniadis, K.E., Professor, Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GREECE. Poularikas, Alexander D., Professor Emeritus (University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama), Houston, Texas, USA. Pozios, John LL.B., MBA, Director, Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, CANADA. Psaras, GK, Ph.D., Professor, Section of Plant Biology, Department of Biology, University of Patras, Patras, GR 265 00, GREECE. Psyrri, Amanda, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Rantsios, Apostolos T., Ph.D., Dipl., Past President, World Veterinary Association, Marousi, GREECE. Rapsomanikis, S., Ph.D., Professor, Director, Laboratory of Atmospheric Pollution, Control Engineering of Atmospheric Pollutants, Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Raptis, Aristotle, Professor, University of Athens, GREECE. Rigas, Fotis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Roilides, Emmanuel, MD, PhD., Assoc. Professor, 3rd Dept. Pediatrics, University of
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Thessaloniki, Hippokration Hospital, Thessaloniki, GREECE. Romanos, Michael, Ph.D., Professor of Economic Development, School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Rontoyannis, George P., Professor, Dept. Phys Ed Sports, Science University of Thessaly, GREECE. Rouman, John C., Dr., Professor Emeritus of Classics. Sarafopoulos Dimitrios, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Samaras George, Professor, USA. Samothrakis, Periandros, Ph.D., P.E., Hydraulic Engineer, Frederick, Maryland, USA. Sapatinas, Theofanis, BSc, MSc, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Statistics, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Savvas, Minas, Professor Emeritus, San Diego State University, SanDiego, CA, USA. Siafarikas Panayiotis, Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Patras, GREECE. Sideris, Kosmas, Ph.D., Civil Engineer Lecturer, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, GREECE. Simitses, George J., Professor Emeritus of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. Siolas, John G., Ph.D., Educator, New York, USA. Sivitanides, Marcos P., Ph.D., CCP. Associate Professor, Information Systems, McCoy College of Business, Texas State University San Marcos, Texas, USA. Skias, Stylianos G., Assist. Professor, Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Sotiropoulou, Georgia, PhD, Assoc. Professor, Department of Pharmacy, School of Health Sciences, University of Patras, Rion-Patras 26500, GREECE. Staikos, Georgios, Assoc. Professor, Laboratory of Organic Chemical Technology Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, University Campus Rion, GR - 265 04 Patras, GREECE. Stamatoyannopoulos, George, M.D., Dr., Sci., Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences, Director, Markey Molecular Medicine Center, K-240 Health Sciences Building, Box 357720, Seattle, WA 98195-7720, USA. Stamboliadis, Elias, Associate Professor, Mineral Resources, Engineering Dept, Technical University of Crete University, Campus Chania, Crete, GREECE. Stavrou, Esther, Ph.D., Associate Clinical Professor, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York, USA. Stephanopoulos, Greg W.H., Dow Professor, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Cambridge, MA, USA. Tassios, Dimitrios, Professor Emeritus, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Tavouktsoglou, Athanasios N., Ph.D., Professor, Concordia University, College of Alberta, CANADA. Thramboulidis, Kleanthis, Assoc. Professor, Software Engineering Group (SEG) - Electrical & Computer, University of Patras, PATRAS, GREECE. Triantaphyllopoulos, Demetrios D., Professor, Department of Archaeology and History, University of Cyprus, CYPRUS. Tryphonopoulos, Demetres P., A/Dean, School of Graduate Studies, Professor, Dept. of
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English, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N.B., CANADA. Tsakiridou, Cornelia A., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Philosophy, Director, Diplomat-InResidence Program, La Salle University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Tsatsanifos, Christos, Ph.D., Civil Engineering MSc., D.I.C. M.ASCE. Athens, GREECE. Tsinganos, Kanaris, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Athens, Athens, GREECE. Tsigas-Fotinis, Vasiliki, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Caldwell College, Caldwell, New Jersey, USA. Tsohantaridis, Timotheos, Ph.D., Professor of Biblical Studies and Greek, George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon, USA. Valanides, Nicos (visiting scholar at DePaul University, Chicago, USA), Associate Professor (Science Education), Nicosia, CYPRUS. Velivasakis, Emmanuel E., PE, FASCE, President, PANCRETAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA & HELLENIC AMERICAN NATIONAL COUNCIL, New York, USA. Vardulakis, Antonis, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GREECE. Varkaraki, Elli, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Centre for Renewable Energy Sources, GREECE. Vasilos, Thomas, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA. Velgakis, Michael, Professor of Physics, Engineering Science Dept., University of Patras, Patras, GREECE. Vlavianos, Nickie, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, Calgary, CA, USA. Vomvas, Athanassios, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Patras 26500 Patras, GREECE. Voudrias, Evangelos A., Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, GREECE. Vrongistinos, Konstantinos, Ph.D., Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology, 18111 Nordhoff St., California State University, Northridge, CA, USA. Yannopoulos, Panayotis C., Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, GREECE. Yiacoumettis, Andreas M., Assoc. Professor, Plastic Surgery, Democritus University of Thrace, Secretary General ESPRAS ExCo, President 11th ESPRAS CONGRESS, President UEMS Section Plast. Rec.& Aesthetic Surgery, GREECE. Ypsilanti, Maria, Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Literature, University of Cyprus, Dept. of Classical Studies and Philosophy, PO Box 20537, 1678, Nicosia, CYPRUS. Zavos, Panayiotis, Professor Emeritus, Reproductive Medicine & Andrology, Lexington, KY, USA. Zervakis, Michalis, Professor of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, GREECE. Zervos, Nicholas A., Ph.D., Director, Adv. Multimedia ALGOSYSTEMS, Athens, GREECE. Zotou, Vassiliki, Ph.D., Language and Linguistics, University of Thessaly, Volos, GREECE.
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4. Ethnicity
Greek Perceptions of Ethnicity and the Ethnicity of the Macedonians
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, in Identit e Prassi Storica nel Mediterraneo Greco (Milan 2002) 173-203
The realization that Macedonian is a Greek dialect1 has created serious problems for those scholars who are convinced that the Macedonians were not, and were not perceived to be, Greeks. Their conviction, I will argue, is based on conclusions concerning Greek perceptions of Macedonian ethnicity which resulted from the implicit and explicit deployment of flawed presuppositions about Greek perceptions of ethnicity in general.2 Ethnic identity is not a timeless essence, but a fluid construction, involving sets of culturally determined perceptions, so the meaningful question about the ethnicity of the Macedonians is; How was this ethnicity perceived by the Macedonians themselves and by the non Macedonian Greeks? It may be thought that many past enquiries investigated precisely this question, and concluded that the Macedonians wanted to be thought of as Greek, but the other Greeks believed that they were barbarians. However, I will try to show, such investigations often implicitly relied on modern logic (which, for example, overprivileged notions such as political manipulations and propaganda) and on modern presuppositions about ethnic identity, and also about the meanings of myths pertaining to ancestry and about religion, and they also deployed by default modern assumptions in the reading of ancient statements. For unless the assumptions that had shaped the ancient formulations (and their readings by their contemporaries) are reconstructed, these formulations are inevitably made sense of through commonsense and thus, inevitably, culturally determined, presuppositions which leads to culturally determined conclusions. The danger of culturally determined distortions lurks even at the most basic level of reading. Since the word barbaros did not only mean non Greek, but also rude, uncivilized, brutal3, in Greek eyes the words meanings were different depending on whether they perceived the person or people so characterized to be Greek or not; if not, the word certainly denoted their non Greekness (with or without the connotations of cultural inferiority, depending on the context); if those so characterized were perceived to be Greek, then the word characterized them as culturally inferior, like barbarians, it was, in other words, a cultural insult which may or may not have had the potentiality of being understood as casting aspersions on the Greekness of the people thus insulted. There is, then, a danger of circularity in commonsense readings of Greek statements pertaining
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to ethnicity, the danger of reading into the evidence expectations derived from modern assumptions or of simply adopting the lectio facilior. In order to avoid these dangers it is necessary to begin with the most crucial assumptions that shaped the relevant Greek filters, Greek perceptions of Greek ethnic identity, and then reconstruct the ways in which these perceptions related to perceived Macedonian realities. I have discussed elsewhere4 archaic and classical Greek perceptions of Greek ethnic identity, and argued that it is an extremely complex and fluid construction, and that the people who shared in the Greek ethnic identity were the people who perceived themselves to be Greeks, and whose self-perception was validated by those who had the dominant role in controlling the boundaries of Greekness, such as, in the fifth century, the Hellanodikai who controlled participation in the Olympic Games. That is, Greeks were those who perceived themselves, and were perceived, to be members of a group which defined itself as Greek through a cluster of cultural traits which pertained, above all, to perceived ancestry, language and religious practices. Material culture is not a strongly defining trait; it was also adopted by non Greeks in various circumstances, and there were strong regional diversities in the material cultures of the Greek world, which involved among other things varying degrees of input from different non Greek cultures, and included colonial hybridities in cities that were unequivocally perceived to be Greek.5 Nevertheless, material culture does have a place albeit a peripheral one in the cluster of traits defining Greekness, above all in so far as it reflected, and was perceived to be reflecting, a common way of life, which contributed to the construction of Greek identity.6 Ancestry was the most effective argument for convincing those who had the dominant role in controlling the boundaries of Greekness, but implicit in such arguments concerning ancestry was the fact that the petitioners shared in the language, religion and other cultural traits that were considered Greek. For the role of ancestry, and the discourse of Greek ethnicity in general, was, I have argued elsewhere, much more complex, and less monolithic, than is often assumed.7 Though the Greeks appeared to privilege ancestry, this was perceived by them as one element in a complex system of interacting traits that made up perceived Greekness, in which one or another element could be privileged or underprivileged, depending on the circumstances. For example, despite the importance of ancestry, people could have barbarian ancestors and still perceived to be Greek, as is illustrated by myths about barbarian kings such as Pelops, and barbarian peoples who had lived in Greece, such as the Pelasgians and the Leleges, who became absorbed in the Greek mainstream.8 Because blood ancestry was not the only criterion for Greek ethnicity, barbarians could become Greeks. What, then, of the Macedonians? With regard to the first crucial criterion of Greek ethnic identity, language, it is now unambiguously clear that Macedonian is a Greek dialect related to Northwest Greek.9 As for the second criterion, religion, space prevents me from discussing Macedonian religion in other than the most superficial terms. The minimum that can be asserted with certainty is that as soon as the religion of the Macedonians becomes visible to us, it is part of Greek religion, involving Greek cults, deities and rites.10 Like the religious systems of all Greek poleis and ethne, it is a local religious system, the system of a
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particular ethnos, with its own characteristics and emphases for Greek religion consists of interacting local systems, each with their particular characteristics, and also of a Panhellenic dimension which interacted significantly with the local religious systems.11 Methodologically, it is not more rigorous to think that Macedonian religion had been a non Greek religion before it becomes visible to us than it is to think that it had been Greek in the early archaic period. On the contrary, since there is no evidence whatsoever to support the notion that Macedonian religion had ever been non Greek, it is far less rigorous to believe that it was. The only reason why such a position may misleadingly appear to be rigorous is because we cannot be sure that Macedonian religion was a Greek religion from the beginning takes the superficial form of skepticism, which appears rigorous because we cannot be sure that sounds like scholarly caution; but in reality it relies on an implicit fallacy, since the fact that we cannot assume that A is right does not entail that it is more rigorous to presume that, unless the opposite can be demonstrated conclusively (in an area where very little can) A is wrong, though all the evidence indicates that it is right. All the evidence does indicate that Macedonian religion was a Greek religious system, and there is no evidence that it had been non Greek at any time. In fact, the more information becomes available, the further back Macedonian religion can be shown to have been part of Greek religion. At Dion, for example, recent excavations have shown that the sanctuary of Demeter was in use at least as early as the late sixth / early fifth century.12 Moreover, the cultic institutions that are the rights of transition to adulthood which are associated with divine cults have been shown to be closely comparable to those in the rest of Greece, with similarities to, and differences from, those of other Greek religious systems, comparable to the similarities and differences that govern the relationships between such rites in the different Greek religious systems.13 All this indicates that there is no reason to think that the Macedonians had ever had any religious system that had not been Greek, and that, on the contrary, all the available evidence suggests that Macedonian religion had been a Greek local religious system. Material culture, we saw, has a place albeit a peripheral one in the cluster of traits that defines Greekness, especially in so far as it reflects a common way of life. However, defining what constitutes Greek material culture in the archaic and classical period (let alone which aspects of it reflect a common way of life) is an extremely complex issue, involving the consideration of regional diversities, and above all of colonial hybridities in cities unequivocally perceived to be Greek.14 It should also involve defining more specifically the material cultures of the elites, the Panhellenic aristocracy, the most international segment of all archaic Greek societies, and also of the non elite cultures in each society, and determining the extent to which the latter as well as the former were similar to, and different from, each other in the different Greek cities, ethne and regions, and how that situation related to the situation in Macedonia. Thus, an investigation of Macedonian material culture in the archaic and classical period,15 and the ways in which, if any, it may have reflected (and to what extent) a common way of life with the other Greeks, for example in burial customs, would require at the very least one whole book. All I can do here is set out my own view on this extremely complex issue simply as a personal assessment, for I would
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need a great amount of space to present even a rudimentary form of an argument. I believe that it is becoming increasingly clear that the Macedonians, to a certain extent at least, shared the material culture of the other Greeks (at least the Macedonian elite of the other Greek elites) in the archaic period; the objects imported by the Macedonians from southern Greece do not appear to have been deployed as exotic or in other ways in which alien elites deploy material objects appropriated from other cultures; on the contrary, I suggest, they are deployed, for example as grave offerings, in ways comparable to those in which they had been used in their original Greek contexts of production, with the imports slotting into preexisting functions, being luxury replacements of local products which, in my view, would suggest a common way of life between Macedonians and other Greeks. I will now consider the ancestry of the Macedonians, the discussion of which will also involve an attempt to reconstruct the assumptions that will allow us to read the various discourses of Macedonian ancestry as much as possible through Greek eyes; this discussion will eventually become intertwined with the consideration of Greek statements about the ethnicity of the Macedonians. The earliest formulation pertaining to the Macedonians ancestry comes from a fragment of the Catalogue of Women or Ehoiai,16 which is probably of early sixth century date17 and had circulated orally in the seventh century.18 According to this poem, Thyia, the daughter of Deukalions and sister of Hellen, had two sons from Zeus, Magnes and Makedon, who lived around Pieria and Olympos.19 Another sister of Hellen and Thyia, Pandora, was the mother of Graikos, also from Zeus.20 In order to attempt to reconstruct the perceptions concerning the Macedonians ethnic identity that had shaped this genealogy, and the ways in which the archaic and classical Greeks had made sense of it, we need to reconstruct the assumptions that had shaped their filters. Starting with the set of assumptions that is most concretely available to us, the Magnetes, whose eponymous hero was Magnes, were perceived to be Greek. Most specifically, they were perceived to be Greek in the particular geographical and cultic milieu in which the Catalogue of Women had been constructed and circulated, since they had two votes in the council of the Delphic Amphictyony.21 Since in this genealogy Magnes, the eponymous hero of the Magnetes, was the brother of Makedon, the eponymous hero of the Macedonians, it is unambiguously clear that in the assumptions concerning ethnic identity that had shaped the genealogy, and in the eyes of the Greeks making sense of this representation, the Macedonians were perceived to have had the same ethnic identity as the Magnetes, and therefore to be Greek. This genealogy, then presents the Macedonians as Greek, and would have been understood to be doing so by the archaic and classical Greeks. This conclusion is supported by other arguments. Before I consider them, I should say something about the modern belief that only the people who are descended from Hellen were perceived to be Greek in the assumptions articulating this poem, and that therefore this poem presents the Macedonians as non Greek.22 That this belief is mistaken23 is illustrated, for example, by the fact that the Arcadians, who were unequivocally perceived to be Greek, were not descended from Hellen; Arkas was, on his mothers side, in one way or another,
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of autochthonous descent24 and this is correlative with the myths that make the Arcadians autochthonous.25 Since this was more significant than descent from Hellen, he was not made to be descended from Hellen, precisely because in Greek eyes descent from Hellen was not a necessary part of Greek ethnic identity. The expectation that because Hellen became the eponymous hero of the Greeks, and the Catalogue presents so many eponyms and royal houses as his descendants, all those perceived to be Greeks would have been made into his descendants is a reflection of modern preconceptions concerning Greek ideas of blood ancestry. But ancient perceptions were not so tidy, and this particular expectation about descent from Hellen is invalidated by the poem. Besides the Arcadians, the Locrians also ought to have been perceived to be non Greeks if descent from Hellen was a necessary precondition of Greekness. For in the Catalogue26 Lokros was the leader of the Leleges, who had been created from the stones thrown by Deukalion and Pyrrha. The poem, then, presents the Locrians as being descended from a barbarian people created from stones. Thus, if those not descended from Hellen had been perceived to be barbarians, the Locrians would have been perceived the most barbarian barbarians, since they were descended from barbarians who were descended from stones; they certainly would have been much more barbarian than the allegedly barbarian Macedonians, ant the same would be true for the Arcadians, since, unlike the Arcadians and the Locrians, the Macedonians were descended from Hellens sister. In reality, of course, the Locrians were perceived to be Greeks, indeed were members of the Delphic Amphictyony; their allegedly barbarian ancestry does not make them any less Greek, nor does the fact that they may have been perceived to be, or accused of being, culturally backward.27 Such commonsense readings, then, can be seen to be mistaken when they can be tested; the Greeks started with certain presuppositions when constructing, and also when making sense of, these genealogies, and we should try to reconstruct at least some of these to read the poem in ways as near as possible to those of the Greeks. It could be argued that if the Macedonians were indeed perceived to be Greeks, we would expect that at some point a genealogy would have been constructed that made them descendants of Hellen. Such a genealogy had indeed been constructed. Hellanikos28 is quoted as saying that Makedon, the eponym of the Macedonias, was the son of Aiolos who was the son of Hellen in the Catalogue of Women.29 The particular quotation referred to comes from the first book of The Priestesses of Hera at Argos, but since Hellanikos had written a Deukalioneia it is likely that he had created (or adopted) this genealogy in the context of that work. Another argument that shows that the Catalogue presents the Macedonians as Greek, and would have been understood to be doing so by the archaic and classical Greeks, concerns the mother of Magnes and Makedon. The poem articulates three elements of her persona. First, her name, which in Greek eyes evoked connotations that we need to reconstruct if we are to try to make sense of Makedons genealogy as much as possible through Greek eyes. Second, her familial associations: she is the daughter of Deukalion and sister of Hellen. Finally, her story is structured through the schema woman has sex with a god, a hero is born,
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in a variant which involves two heroes, and in which the god is Zeus not only the most powerful Greek god, and the father of many heroes, but also a god especially connected with Olympos and the Pieria region, and therefore an especially appropriate father for Magnes and Makedon. What of Thyia? The name Thyia is closely connected with Dionysos. Thyiai or Thyiades is a term for women associated with the worship of Dionysos.30 Thyia is the name of an Elean festival of Dionysos.31 Thyia is also a name associated with Delphi.32 In one version of his myth, Delphos, the citys eponym, was the son of Apollo and Thyia, the daughter of the autochthon Kastalios.33 Thyia was the first priestess of Dionysos, and the first to celebrate orgia for the god; and people call the women who for the god Thyiades, after her. There is a very close connection, etymological and ritual, between Thyiades and : the Thyidades are the women who .34 The mythological female companions of Dionysos were also called Thyiades at Delphi, and in some other contexts, and they were associated with .35The other main association of the name Thyia is with central Greece; besides the connection with Delphi, Thyios is the name of a month in Thessaly, Boeotia and Naupaktos, presumably name after a festival of Dionysos.36 I submit that the fact that the mother of Magnes and Makedon has a name that is intimately connected with Greek religion, specifically the cult of Dionysos,37 and also with central Greece, adds support to the reading that in the perceptions shaping the selections that led to the construction of this genealogy the Macedonians were perceived to be Greeks, and would have been so understood by the archaic and classical Greek readers38 of this genealogy. The central Greek associations of the name Thyia strengthens the notion that the genealogy of Makedon in the Catalogue was a central Greek construct. It is possible to go further, and suggest that the basic genealogical schema that had structured the early versions of the Catalogue was tripartite, and had involved descendants of Deukalion who were eponyms of places in central Greece:39 first, the group whose eponym is Deukalions son Hellen, the Hellenes inhabiting Hellas, to be understood as Thessaly,40 and then the other groups, whose eponyms are the sons of Deukalions daughters from Zeus, through the deployment of the schema woman has sex with a god, a hero is born.; This is as we would expect, since the Catalogue stands at the end of a process that took place in the seventh century, and of which the first stage involved north-central Greece41 it was focused on that region and articulated relationship between its different peoples: Hellen is the eponymous hero of the region Hellas, and his sisters sons are the eponymous heroes of other peoples in the regions, of whom Makedon and Magnes are associated with Pieria and Olympos,42 who were perceived to be related to the people of Hellas not to the Hellenes = Greeks, but to the Hellenes = the inhabitants of Hellas. Once Hellen came to be seen as the eponymous hero of the Greeks, genealogies were constructed (through the deployment and reshaping of other genealogical constructs) to show that specific heroes were descended from Hellen. In the tripartite schema involved the offspring of Deukalion the groups whose eponyms are Deukalions daughters sons are in one way less privileged, because they are descended from
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daughters, but in another way more privileged, because their eponyms have a divine father. When the figure of Hellen came to be privileged because he became the eponym of the Greeks (thought not the ancestor of all of them) he was given divine paternity, the schema woman has sex with a god, a hero is born came to structure his myth, so that in one version he was only said to be the son of Deukalion, while in reality he was the son of Zeus.43 A discourse about barbarians in Greece ascribed to Hekataios by Strabo44 includes a statement pertaining to the ethnicity of the Macedonians. Hekataios of Miletos says of the Peloponnese that before the Greeks it was inhabited by barbarians. Nearly the whole of Greece was the abode of barbarians in the past, if one draws inferences from the traditions themselves. Then Strabo, probably reporting Hekataios, mentions Pelops bringing over peoples from Phrygia and Danaos from Egypt, and ht also mentions the Dryopes, Kaukones, Pelasgians and Leleges, before going on to claim that Attica was once held by Eumolpos Thracians, Daulis in Phokis by (the clear implication is the Thracian) Tereus, and Thebes by the Phoenicians who came with Kadmos; then he states that (among others) Kodros and Kekrops are shown to have been barbarians by their names, and goes on to say that even now the Thracians, Illyrians, and Epirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks, and that barbarians hold many parts of the land which is at the present time indisputably Greece, Macedonia is held by the Thracians, as are parts of Thessaly, and the parts above Akarnania and Aitolia are held by Thesprotians, the Kassopaeans, the Amphilochians, the Molossians, and the Athamanes who are Epirot ethne. It is not certain that this last segment reflects Hekataios. If it does not, then it is not relevant to my investigation. But in order to conduct this investigation as rigorously as possible I will examine the position that is most inimical to the conclusions that I have reached so far; that is, I will assume as a working hypothesis that the last segment is based on a formulation by Hekataios. If it is assumed that this segment is based on a formulation by Hekataios, the first problem that arises is, in whose present were these lands indisputably Greece? If it was in Hekataios present, if, that is, the formulation was part of Hekataios text, what would have made Hekataios think of Macedonia as indisputably Greek, if he believed that it had been inhabited by Thracians? There are two possibilities. First, the formulation has been Hekataios, in which case it would follow that Macedonia had been considered indisputably Greek in the Greek collective representations of his time which would entail that the Greeks as a whole had not believed that its inhabitants were Thracians; or, second, and most likely, this segment was shaped by Strabo, through Strabos filters, which were different from Hekataios. I do not think that we can know Hekataios perception of Macedonia,45 but he clearly considered the country east of the Axios river to be Thrace,46 while for Strabo Macedonia extended from the Adriatic on the West to the river Hebros in the East.47 There certainly were Thracians in territories that were conquered and absorbed by the Macedonians in the wake of the Persian Wars, such as Mygdonia and Bisaltia and also other non Greeks, such as the Paiones.48 Thus, if the segment of the text under consideration had been shaped through Strabos filters, it is impossible to reconstruct even the general lines of what Hekataios had said; he
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may have said that Macedonia was held by Thracians, or he may simply have named specific areas, for example Mygdonia and Bisaltia, as being Thracian, and perhaps also others as being non Greek, and Strabo gave it that particular spin, summarized it as Thracians holding the now indisputably Greek land of Macedonia. In these circumstances, it is unsafe to conclude that Hekataios had said that Macedonia, in the sense of the land west of the Axios, and especially the kingdom of Macedon, was held by Thracians. But even if Hekataios had made such a statement, would it have been taken by fifth century Greeks to mean that the Macedonians had been Thracians? Though we cannot reconstruct what Hekataios had said, let alone the nuances of his text, it is possible to set in place some of the parameters that would have shaped the main lines of the ways in which fifth century Greeks would have made sense of the main lines of the discourse in Strabo that may be reflecting Hekataios and so to chart a rough sketch of how it would have been perceived to have related to common Greek perceptions. First, this discourse privileges a strong version of the notion of barbarians as ancestors of the Greeks and so implies a strong version of the Greek perception that barbarians can become Greek; it is based on the manipulation of complex myths, through rationalization and a radical expansion of the barbarian element, not least through the claim that Pelops, Danaos and Kadmos brought with them peoples from Prygia, Egypt and Phoenicia respectively, so that what were myths about the arrival of heroes became stories about population movements. Second, some of these statements would have run counter to the common Greek representations and would have been considered invalid by the specific Greeks involved. For example, the statement that the names of Kodros and Kekrops show that the people who bore them were barbarians would have been considered wrong by the Athenians. The same would probably have been true of the claim that a barbarian Thracian Tereus held Phokis (on which is clearly based Thucydides statement that Daulis in Phokis was inhabited by Thracians when the story of Prokne and Tereus had taken place),49 which can be seen to be based on a rationalizing interpretation, through the filter of strongly privileging the notion of barbarians in Greece in the heroic age, of the fact that there were two versions of the myth of Tereus, in one of which he was from Daulis in Phokis, while in the other that he was a Thracian. In reality, each of these versions is mythologically significant, constructs different meanings pertaining to Tereus role as husband and father, perpetrator and victim, which is beyond my scope to discuss here. Finally, the claim that Thracians held parts of Thessaly in the present (if it had been made by Hekataios) does not, to my knowledge, correspond to a Greek perception that at c. 500 parts of Thessaly were inhabited by people whom the Greeks perceived to be non Greek. Thus, there is a disjunction between common Greek perceptions of the ethnic identity of the inhabitants of Thessaly and the statement attributed to Hekataios Consequently, fifth century Greeks would almost certainly not have believed all these statements to be correct (even if they had been made by Hekataios),and so would probably not have believed that the Macedonians wereThracians. If (which, we saw, is far from certain) Hekataios had written thatthe kingdom of Macedon was held by Thracians, which would imply that theMacedonians were Thracians, fifth century Greeks would have perceived this
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as an exaggeration to fit the ideological bias of his discourse, thus leaving open the ethnicity of the Macedonians, since even readers who knew nothing about that ethnicity would have registered Hekataios discourse concerning what they did know about as distortions, and would have adjusted their filters accordingly.50 To sum up. So far we have seen that Macedonians are presented as Greek in the earliest extant text relevant to the issue, the Catalogue of Women; this is especially interesting, since the first stage of development of this poem involved north-central Greece,51 and so was shaped in an area, and by people, who had knowledge of the Macedonians, and would thus have been aware of the fact that they shared in the system of interacting cultural traits that defined Greekness, above all language and religion. Strabos version of Hekataios discourse cannot be used to support the belief that in the Greek perceptions the Macedonians were considered to be non Greeks though if the relevant segment is indeed reflecting Hekataios, and reflecting him correctly, it may indicate their vulnerability to being subsumed together with the barbarian neighbours when looked at from a distance, if the texts ideological thrust makes this desirable. If Hekataios had said that Macedonia was held by barbarians, which is far from certain, he would have blurred distinctions to class all the inhabitants of the wider geographical region together, in a context in which he stressed the presence of barbarians in Greece and lessened the distance between Greeks and barbarians. Herodotos, the next earliest source on the ethnicity of the Macedonians, presented the Macedonians as Greeks. He articulated two sets of relevant perceptions, one pertaining to the Macedonian ethnos as a whole, the second pertaining to king Alexander and the Macedonian royal family.52 Herodotos connects the Macedonians with the Dorians twice. First, in the highly problematic passage 1.56,53 the Dorian , which was an Hellenikon ethnos, had been driven from Histaiotis and gone to live in the Pindos area, where it was called Makednon from there it migrated to Dryopia, and eventually to the Peloponnese, where it came to be called Dorian. Herodotos, then, identifies the early Dorians with the Macedonians though, obviously, the Macedonian Dorians who, in his articulation, went to the Peloponnese would not have been perceived to have been the same as the Macedonians who now live in Macedonia, but those who are now Dorians are those who left Macedonia. But there can be no doubt that the fact that Herodotos presents the Dorians as Macedonians entails that he perceived the Dorians to be closely connected with the Macedonians of Macedonia; and that therefore he perceived the Macedonians to have been among those who were already Greek when the early Ionians were Pelasgian, and who had spoken Greek assumptions the fifth century Macedonians were speaking Greek which is historically correct. A comparable assumption is articulated in book 8, where he calls various Peloponnesians (the Lacedaemonians and others) a Dorian and Macedonian () ethnos.54 Alexander, Herodotos reports, referred to his father Amyntas as a Greek man in a message he sent to the Persian king ( ).55 A bit later on Herodotos asserts the Greek ethnicity of the Macedonian kings in his own voice:56 That these descendants of Perdikkas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself happen to know and will prove it in the later part of my writing. Then he says that the Hellenodikai at
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Olympia established that the Macedonian kings are indeed Greeks, for when Alexander went to compete at the Olympic Games, some of those who were to compete against him tried to stop him by saying that the competition is for Greeks only and not for barbarians, but Alexander proved himself to be an Argive, and was judged to be a Greek. Herodotos eventually57 fulfills his promise to prove the Greek ethnic identity of the Macedonian kings by telling the story of there Herakleid ancestry. According to this myth the Macedonian royal house was descended from Herakles via Perdikkas, a descendant of Temenos (who was a descendant of Heracles), who had fled Argos with his two brothers and become king of Macedonia. Euripides Archelaos tells a different variant of the myth: the Macedonian royal house was descended from a different exiled Temenid Argive, a son of Temenos called Archelaos. Finally, according to Herodotos,58 Alexander, speaking in secret to the Athenian generals before the battle of Plataea, says that he cares for ; the selections that shaped this formulation may suggest that Herodotos is presenting Alexander as thinking of his own country, Macedonia, as part of Greece, since they may suggest an underlying meaning I care for the whole of Greece, not just my own country. Then he explains that he himself is Greek by ancient descent, at this rhetorically appropriate point, when the Athenian generals were still ignorant of this identity, which he reveals at the very end, I am . The story that some of those who were to compete against Alexander at the Olympic Games had tried to stop him by claiming that he was a barbarian may be a narrative dramatization, an articulation through an agonistic schema, of the notion Alexander had to prove that he was Greek, or it may be reflecting a real event, perhaps an attempt to eliminate a strong competitor (which we know Alexander was, since gvnizmenow stdion sunejpipte t prt), or it may be a narrative marking of Alexanders Greekness. In the story Alexander by-passes the question of whether the Macedonians were Greeks, by demonstrating that he himself is an Argive.59 The implications of this story in the eyes of fifth century Greeks have not, in my view, been fully realized, and this, together with certain fourth century statements I will be discussing below, has helped to generate the modern view according to which the Macedonian royal family was considered to be Greek, but the other Macedonians were considered barbarians. This, of course, was the irreducible minimum Greekness that modern discourses based on the ancient statements about the Macedonians ethnicity have to perceived by the other Greeks to be Greek. But this interpretation, (besides being in conflict with statements which will be discussed below, which should alert us to the fact that the situation is more complex than may appear)60 would also, I will now argue, not have been consistent with the implications of Herodotos story in Greek eyes, or indeed with Herodotos own presentation of the Dorians. Herodotos, we saw, presents the Macedonians as Dorian, and their kings as Achaeans, descendants of Herakles. This is also how represents the Spartans, Dorians whose kings were Herakleids, descended from Eurysthenes and Procles, the twin sons of Aristodemos son of Aristomachos, son of Kleodaios, son of Hyllos,61 and so of Achaean origin.
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Herodotos, then, has constructed identifications and isomorphisms between on the one hand the Macedonians, and on the other the Dorians of the Peloponnese in general, but most specifically and closely, the Spartans. All four elements of this construct, the Spartan Dorians and their Achaean kings, the Macedonians (whom he identified with Dorians) and their Achaean kings, are Greek; but in both cases the peoples are more purely Greek than their kings; first, because Herodotos claims that the Dorians are the most purely Greek among Greeks,62 and second, because he says of the Spartan Herakleid kings and this in his eyes would have been also valid of the Macedonian Herakleid kings that though their ancestors were reckoned to be Greeks by Perseus times, if one goes further back than that, then the leaders of the Dorians had Egyptian ancestors.63 Once again, we see the Greek perception that people can become Greek, here coupled with the paradox that the leaders of the Dorians who were the most purely Greek are descended from Egyptians. This paradox would have been activated at 8.137-9, where Alexanders Argive descent, proves to be a Herakleid descent (as had not been stated at 5.220, which gives him a glorious ancestry, by which also in Herodotos schema, makes him somewhat less purely Greek than his subjects, the Macedonian people.64 The stated Greekness of Herodotos Macedonians and their place in the construct involving he Spartans is one of the arguments that invalidate the notion that the story of Alexander at the Olympic Games shows that the Macedonian royal family was considered to be Greek, but the other Macedonians were perceived to be barbarians. Herodotos readers had been told that the Macedonians are Greeks, and later on they will be directed to seeing them through the filters of the Spartans with their Herakleid kings. So they would be assuming that the Hellanodikai acknowledged the Greekness of a Macedonian king of Argive descent who ruled over Macedonians who were Dorian Greeks, especially since and this is a second, related, but also independent and most important argument in my case in Greek perceptions of ethnicity ancestry alone, we saw, was not enough to define someone as Greek; it was the most effective argument, but implicit in discourses that deployed it was the fact that those claiming to be Greek shared in the language, religion and other cultural traits that were perceived to be defining Greekness. Consequently, it would have been a necessary presupposition for Alexanders argument about his ancestry to have been accepted by the Hellanodikai that should have lived in a place in which Greek was spoken and Greek religion was practiced and which, at least to some extent, shared in the main lines of what could be called the Greek way of life. Herodotos readers certainly would have brought to bear the knowledge derived from Herodotos text that the Macedonians were Dorian Greeks. It is now clear that the decision of the Hellanodikai was right; the Macedonians did indeed speak Greek and practise Greek religion. The sanctuary of Demeter at Dion is one Macedonian sanctuary, a Greek sanctuary to a Greek deity, that predated the Persian Wars.65 The notion that in terms of these other cultural traits as opposed to ancestry Alexander could have been judged separately from the rest of the Macedonians, and the related notion that Alexanders admission to the Olympic Games had only involved the acknowledgment of Greekness for himself and the royal family, and not for the Macedonians as a whole, also
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conflicts, I will not argue, with the religious mentality articulated the Panhellenic Games. In Greece membership of a group was expressed and reinforced through cult. The Greeks saw themselves as a religious group; their common sanctuaries and sacrifices was one of the things that made them all Greek, and this identity was expressed in , and reinforced through, ritual activities in which the worshipping group was all the Greeks, all those who were members of a Greek polis or ethnos, the most important of which was the Olympic Games. Participation in the Olympic Games defined Greeks as a worshipping group, helped define Greekness, because the Panhellenic Games were the ritual shared by all Greeks.66 At the same time, and correlatively with this, an individuals participation in Panhellenic religion was mediated by the polis or ethnos; one participated in Panhellenic religion in virtue of being a member of a polis or ethnos.67 To think that it would have been different for Alexander because he was the king is to impose logical schemata on a conceptual framework governed by a different mentality; for in terms of Greek mythological (and so also ethnicity shaping) mentality, kings define kingdoms to a greater of lesser extent, in different contexts: at one end of the spectrum, Erichthonios autochthony and descent from Hephaistos, for example, gave all Athenians a share in autochthony and a claim to being the sons of Hephaistos;68 at the other end, we saw, the Dorian Spartans had Herakleid Achaean kings, as did the Macedonians; but even here (in the case of the Spartan kings for which we have the evidence), the disjunction is within circumscribed parameters: kings and Dorian Spartans shared a common history since the conquest of the Peloponnese, and they certainly shared a language, religion and way of life. Since Herodotos invites us to see the Macedonian kings and the Macedonian people through the filter of the Spartan kings and the Spartan people, there can be no doubt that he perceived and presented the two relationships as isomorphic, and so that his presentation of the story about the Olympic Games did not involved assumptions in which the kings were to be perceived as radically different from the Macedonian people. The acknowledgement of the Greekness of the Macedonians by the Hellanodikai was of fundamental importance, precisely because participation in the Olympic Games defined Greekness.69 This acceptance, then, would have sealed the Greek ethnicity of the Macedonians in Greek perceptions, so that even those Greeks who were not familiar with them would have perceived them to be Greek. But if this is right, how can we make sense of Greek statements that appear to contradict this? Before I attempt to answer this question I will sum up the discussion on ancestry, since from now on the focus will be on statements pertaining to ethnicity. Editors note: the author might have noted, in this context, the fragment of an ode by Pindar in honor of Alexander I (fr 120-121). Although usually considered an enkomion rather than a victory ode, it certainly places Alexander in the mainstream of contemporary literary efforts, and just might have referred to his Olympic victory. The earliest myth about the Macedonians ancestry, which was generated and circulated
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from at least as early as the early sixth century, probably since the seventh century, in northcentral Greece, the area with which the Macedonians interacted most closely, presents them (when read through archaic Greek assumptions) as Greeks, descended from an eponym who was the son of Zeus and Hellens sister Thyia. Herodotos, the only other extant early source on the ancestry of the Macedonians, presents the Macedonian people as Dorians and the Macedonian kings as Achaean Herakleids, in an isomorphic relationship with the Spartan kings and the Spartan people; both the Macedonian and the Spartan kings were less purely Greek than their subjects. This representation of the Macedonians as Greek that has been reconstructed here is, I submit, consistent with the conceptual geography that shaped the representations articulated in, and articulating, Greek tragedies, in which Thrace represents the marginal other especially the version in the in the fourth stasimon of Sophocles Antigone, in which there are degrees in the otherness and marginality of Thrace, with the land of the Edonoi and Lykourgos, around Strymon and Mount Pangaion, being less remote and less marginal, and Salmysessos at the other end the most other and most savage.70 Like Herodotos, Thucydides also stated that the Macedonian royal family were descended from a Herakleid: in his discussion of the history and expansion of the Macedonian kingdom71 he says that the Macedonian kings were descended from the Argive Temenos.72 I will not consider Thucydides statements pertaining to the ethnicity of the Macedonians, and try to reconstruct the perceptions articulated in them. A cluster of references to the Macedonians in book 4, at 124-126, contains formulations that have given rise to the belief that Thucydides had not, or may have not, considered the Macedonians to be Greeks. There are two such formulations at 4.124.1. First, Thucydides says that Perdikkas led the Macedonian forces, oen krtei Makednvn tn dnamin and a hoplite force of Greeks who lived in the country, tn noikontvn Ellnvn pltaw. It has generally been thought that Thucydides sets out an opposition here between Macedonians and Greeks, with the implication that in his view the Macedonians were not Greeks.73 But I submit that the contrast at 2.124.1 is not between Macedonians and Greeks, but between Macedonians on the one hand, oen krtei Perdikkas, and on the other non Macedonian Greeks living in Macedonia. In the second formulation at 4.124.1 Thucydides first refers to the entire hoplite forces of the Greeks, who came to about three thousand, jmpan d t plitikn tn Ellnvn trisxlioi mlista, then to the Macedonian cavalry with the Chalkidians, nearly one thousand strong, flppw d ofl pntew koloyoun Makednvn jn Xalkidesin lgou w xilouw, and also a great crowd of barbarians ka llow milow tn barbrvn polw. It has been suggested that while just before Thucydides had made a binary distinction between Macedonians and Greeks, here it looks as though he is sorting into three categories, Greek, Macedonians and barbarians, with the Macedonians intermediate between Greeks and barbarians.74 However, I would suggest that the tripartite division here is not structured by perceptions pertaining to three different types of ethnicity, but by three categories of combat forces, a categorization which partly also involved ethnicity: first, the hoplites who
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were Greeks from different places, who came to about three thousand; second the cavalry, which consisted of Macedonians and Chalkidians (from the Chalkidian League), who came to nearly a thousand; and finally a great crowd of barbarians, presumably lightly armed, and with or without the connotation of absence of proper military discipline, certainly to be distinguished from both hoplites and cavalry. In the third passage, at 4.125.1, Thucydides speaks of ofl mn Makednew ka t plyow tn barbrvn. Here there is an opposition between Macedonians on the one hand and barbarians on the other, which fits perfectly the readings proposed for the two passages at 4.124.1.75 The final passage is not in Thucydides own voice. At 4.126.5 he sets out a speech by Brasidas to his troops, in which Brasidas refers to the Macedonians as barbarians: he speaks of the barbarians, whom you now fear because you have no experience of them, and then says from the contests you have had before with the Macedonians among them, tow Makedsin atn. As Hornblower noted, in such a speech by a Spartan general a slighting reference to a recently defeated sub-group of Macedonians, . . the Lynkestians, as barbarians is rhetorically appropriate and says nothing about Th.s own categorization.76 It is not the main, Perdikkas, Macedonians to whom Brasidas refers as barbarians, but the Lynkestian Macedonians.77 Indirectly, the insult may or may not have been perceived as affecting Perdikkas Macedonians; if it did, it would be hardly surprising that this would not have worried Brasidas or his audience, since the reason they were in a difficult position just then is because the Macedonians had ran away, together with the barbarians. Let us consider more closely the rhetorical manipulation involved in this passage. Thucydides Brasidas begins his speech by addressing the army as Peloponnesians, while most were not Peloponnesians; he is rhetorically treating the army as a cohesive unit.78 So the rhetorical manipulation of ethnicity begins at the very beginning in an overt way, and this sets the filters for the rest of the speech; what Brasidas is presented as doing with the Lynkestian Macedonians is the mirror image of the address: he refers to the opposing enemies as also one unit, barbarians, through a pars pro toto trope that allows him implicitly to construct the claim that the Illyrians, the barbarians whom, we are told at 125.1, everyone feared, were no different from the Lynkestian Macedonians, whom his forces had defeated before. In these circumstances, the filters through which Thucydides readers would have made sense of his slighting reference to the Lynkestian Macedonians would have left open the question of their actual ethnicity. Given the readers assumptions, the formulation (tow Makedsin atn) may well not have been anchored to the meaning from among the barbarians for Thucydides readers, though that meaning would have registered as a rhetorical construct; the reading may have implicitly slid to among the enemy. Be that as it may, it is, in any case, clear that this passage tells us nothing about Thucydides or indeed Brasidas - perceptions of the ethnicity of the Macedonians. To sum up. On my reading, there is nothing in these passages to suggest that Thucydides thought that the Macedonians were not Greek. On the contrary, I suggest, the problem
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of apparent inconsistencies between the different passages disappears in the readings that construct meanings articulated by the perception that the Macedonians were Greeks. However, we have also seen an instance of the use of the term barbarian being allowed to be constructed as a cultural insult against the Macedonians. After the Macedonians conquered the territories of neighboring Thracian tribes, they had absorbed many of those non Greeks, and they Hellenized people and places.79 So the notion Macedonians would have come to include a spectrum of people, from the Greek Macedonians of the kingdom which had its capital at Aigai to the not yet Hellenized Thracians of the latest conquest. However, given Greek perceptions of ethnicity, according to which people can become Greek, and did, hence the Greek identity of Greek colonies with mixed populations,80 this did not mean that the Greek ethnic identity of the Macedonians became unstable. But this state of affairs my well have the Macedonians in certain polemical contexts with the cultural inferiority meaning of barbarian both facilitating this and also entailing that the accusation was never clearly unambiguously about ethnicity. However, the notion that the Macedonian royal family was considered to be Greek, but the other Macedonians were barbarians (which, I argued, is a modern construct), appears at first glance to be supported by a statement of Isocrates. In Philippus (5) 106-108 Isocrates tells Philip that the Argive founder of the Macedonian kingdom81 had wanted a kings power, but did not pursue it in the same way as other Greeks did, by fomenting stseiw and bringing about bloodshed in their own cities; he left the Hellenic territory and became king in Macedonia because he knew that Greeks were not accustomed to submit to monarchy, while the others cannot order their lives without some such control. And so (108) because he along among the Greeks did not feel worthy of ruling over a people of kindred race, he alone managed to escape the dangers involved in monarchies. Thus, while those Greeks who had acquired one-man power over Greeks were destroyed, as was their , he lived happily and bequeathed the kingdom to his descendants. I will now set in place some of the parameters for the reconstruction of the main lines of the ways in which Isocrates contemporaries would have made sense of this discourse. To begin with, Isocrates statement is not only in conflict with Herodotos presentation of the Macedonians, and my readings of the Catalogue and of Thucydides, and of the religious significance of Alexanders participation in the Olympic Games, it is also in conflict with some statements of Demosthenes, which are of interest because they articulate a rejection of the Greekness of the Macedonian royal family, which even on modern culturally determined readings is guaranteed by Alexanders participation in the Olympic Games. In one of his speeches against Philip82 Demosthenes claims that Philip is not only not Greek, nor related to the Greeks, he is not even a barbarian from a place that can be named with honour, but a pestilent (leyrow) Macedonian, from a place from which one couldnt even buy a good slave. This characterization, it should be noted, was presented at a time when Macedonian culture was Greek to an extent that even skeptical commentators cannot deny. Demosthenes claim is in conflict with reality, that is, with Greek perceptions of the Macedonian royal family even on the modern minimalist reading of Alexanders participation in the Olympic
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Games. Obviously, this distortion is correlative with the orators hostility towards, and his forensic construction of contempt for, Philip. Demosthenes remarks on Philips ethnicity are a cultural insult, which radically distorts the generally perceived reality partly through a reliance on an implicit blurring of the notion barbarian as a non Greek and barbarian in the sense of uncivilized. At 3.24 Demosthenes rhetorical manipulation of the Macedonian kings ethnicity is explicitly correlative with his rhetorical manipulation, and distortion, of past history.83 For he claims that Perdikkas II had been a subject of the Athenians, as it was appropriate, sper st proskon for a barbarian to be the subject of Greeks. In fact, Perdikkas II had not been the subject of the Athenians, or anything like it. Demosthenes claim that Philip and the Macedonians were barbarians is correlative with his ideological desire to eliminate from the Athenians conceptual university any possibility that a positive paradigm of Panhellenic unity under Philips leadership may challenge Demosthenes presentation of reality.84 Denying that they were Greeks was a radical strategy for achieving such elimination. Demosthenes statements illustrate the fact that descriptions of the Macedonians as non Greeks in rhetorically charged contexts can radically distort what we would consider to be historical reality; therefore they must not be assumed to be necessarily reflecting historical Greek perceptions in every case in which they cannot be shown to be wrong as they can in the case of Demosthenes statements.85 Like Demosthenes, Thrasymachos also appears to have characterized a Macedonian king as a barbarian. He is said to have deployed a modified form of a formulation from Euripides Telephos in his pr Larisavn Will we, who are Greek, be slaves to the barbarian Archelaos?86 Since we do not know the context of the Euripidean formulation, or the context of the deployment of the modified Euripidean expression by Thrasymachos, we cannot reconstruct the ways in which the readers would have made sense of they had deployed in making sense of it, we are not entitled simply (and implicitly) to assume that the meaning was straightforward, that the formulation referred to a generally accepted barbarian ethnicity for Archelaos, let alone for the Macedonian royal family as a whole, especially since such a notion is in conflict with the acknowledgment of the Greekness of (at the very least) the Macedonian royal family by the Hellenodikai. Archelaos was hardly a colourless Macedonian king figure. He was an ally of the Athenians, who bestowed public approval on him, but he also aroused strong feelings of hostility in Platonic circles and Plato traduced him in Gorgias as a paradigm of an evil man.87 His mother is said to have been a slave, though he was certainly legitimized.88 Thrasymachos expression, then, would have activated knowledge of Archelaos mothers (probably) barbarian identity of the Argeads had been firmly established) would have made his mothers ethnicity an issue and evoked her (at least alleged) slave statue. This is an insult, constructed through rhetorical manipulation of perceived reality in a hostile context, which activated the issue of one individuals idiosyncratic parentage; it should therefore not form the basis of modern assessments of Greek perceptions of the ethnicity of the Macedonians. I now return to Isocrates. In order to set the parameters for reconstructing the filters that will allow us to make sense of the passage in Philippus 106-108 as much as possible
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in ways similar to those of Isocrates contemporary Greeks we should first look at another passage from the same oration, Philippus 117, which involved matter for which we have better access to evidence that will allow us to chart the relationship between Isocrates rhetoric and the generally perceived reality. In this passage Isocrates is making a distinction between on the one hand benevolent gods who bring blessings, and who, he says, are called Olympian, and on the other those who bring punishments and disasters, who, he says, have less pleasant names; he claims that to the first group are offered temples and altars, while the second is not honoured in prayers and sacrifices but only apotropaic rites are performed, rites intending to push them away. The descriptions, especially of the second group, are somewhat vague and ambiguous. This is not an accident; it is the result of the fact that, we shall see, this statement presents a version of Greek religious realities that is polarized to the point of distortion. The vagueness of the description prevents complete identification with the relevant cultic categories, and this partly protects Isocrates statement from total invalidation. For it was not only chthonic gods who received chthonic cult; celestial gods also received chthonic cults and chthonic deities had non chthonic cults. The real situation in Greece, that deities in each category, Olympian or chthonic, had sides and cults belonging to the other, does not correspond to Isocrates claim. Another dissonance is that Isocrates has grouped under the second category al those deities who bring disasters and punishments, whom he contrasts to, and differentiates from, the Olympians. But in fact the gods who bring calamities and punishments are a much broader category than simply the Chthonian gods, and include at least some of the Olympians. Even the most Olympian, full of light, gods could have a dark side; Apollo, for example, was also a death bringer. We can make sense of this disparity between Isocrates statement and Greek religious beliefs and practices when we consider the context of this statement: Isocrates is urging Philip to be benevolent towards the Greeks, arguing that benevolence makes people more well disposed toward the superior who is benevolent, while harshness is bad for those who exercise it as well as for those who suffer it. Clearly, in this context it suited his purposes to manipulate reality to make things appear much more polarized than they in fact were, to stress the binary opposition in a form exaggerated to the point of distortion of the actual beliefs and practices. This is deliberate rhetorical manipulation, a restructuring of reality that allows Isocrates to articulate implicitly the compliment that the best way of thinking of the relationship between Philip and the Greeks was on the model of that between the gods and humanity. Isocrates is doing something comparable in 106-108, where his rhetorical manipulation of reality allows him to distance the Macedonian royal family from the bad connotations of kingship and tyranny (which he subsumes under monarchy) in the Athenian collective representations, indeed to contrast the two to the benefit of the Macedonian monarchy. In order to construct this contrast he has deployed the scheme Macedonians as barbarians, a cultural insult reversing an anti-Macedonian schema into a pro-Macedonian royal family one. But even in this exaggerated rhetoric, he does not use the word barbarian to refer to the Macedonians though he does contrast them to the Greeks: at 107 tow mn Ellhnaw . . . tow d llouw includes the Macedonians, and also Macedonia is contrasted to tpow Ellhnikw, and at 108 the Macedonian king rules over an ox mfulon
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gnow. At 5.154, Isocrates says that Philip should eergeten the Greeks, basileein over the Macedonians and rxein over as many barbarians as possible. The assumptions underlying the distinction between Greeks and Macedonians is obvious here: Philip is king of the Macedonians, Isocrates obviously does not want him to be king of all the other Greeks. that concerned the Southern Greeks, and then major players in Southern Greek politics, their ethnicity became open to rhetorical manipulation, or rather, they became vulnerable to the cultural insult barbarian, with the help of the deployment of the cultural inferiority meaning of barbarian, so that the accusation was not unambiguously about ethnicity. It is not that perceptions of the Greekness of the Macedonians became unstable; it was the acknowledgement of their Greekness that became unstable at the level of rhetoric, it was manipulated as a weapon. But in Greek eyes the Greek identity of the Macedonians was indelibly sealed through their admittance as participants in the Panhellenic Games, which in the Greek collective representations defined Greekness, and defined not simply the individual, but also, I hope to have made clear, his polis or ethnos, as Greek. Appendix: Deconstructing a construct Borza pays lip service to the dangers of attempting to define ethnicity on the basis of archaeological evidence,89 but he uses archaeological evidence to support his thesis that the Macedonians were not Greek in his argument concerning the Late Bronze Age.90 For he claims that there are no genuine Mycenaean settlements in Macedonia, just imports and local imitations of Mycenaean pottery, and that this places an additional burden on those who think that the Macedonians were Greek later; for If the roots of the Greek world lie in the Mycenaean period, but Macedonia is not part of the Mycenaean world, where are the Greek roots of Macedonia? That is, if Macedonia was not Greek in the Late Bronze Age, when and under what circumstances did it become Greek? This argument, and his underlying assumption, that unless we identify through the material culture whether the Macedonians were, or became Greek, in the Late Bronze, or the Early Iron, Age it is difficult to believe that they were Greek in the historical period, are, I will now try to show, deeply flawed. First, B. Speaks of Macedonia being Greek rather than the Macedonians perceiving themselves and/or being perceived by other Greeks as Greek or not Greek, as the case may be which we saw, is the only meaningful issue. Then, through the deployment of the hazy notion the roots of the Greek world lie in the Mycenaean period B. implicitly, through suggestion, makes the presence of Mycenaean material culture into a diagnostic index of Greek ethnicity in the historical period. But a series of arguments invalidate this construct. To begin with, the ways in which the roots of the Greek world pertain above all to Greek perceptions of the heroic age; what matters is not the historical realities concerning the ethnicity of a particular region in the Mycenaean period, but the perceptions (in that region, and among the other historical realities contributed to the creation of such perceptions, but the relationships between the two are complex and shifting, and they most certainly do not involve a simple equation. Furthermore, a consideration of, first, the distribution of known - 99 -
Mycenaean settlements, and second, of the complex upheavals in the transition between the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age and in the Early Iron Age,91 both suggest that the notion that the index of Greek ethnicity in the historical period is very unlikely to be correct. B.s belief that he can determine whether or not Macedonia was Greek in the Mycenaean period on the basis of whether or not there had been Mycenaean settlements might have had some validity if Mycenaean material culture had been brought from outside by a newly arrived group of incomers that could that those incomers had not settled in a particular region. However, Mycenaean material culture developed out of Middle Helladic culture with the help of Minoan influences, with localized features eventually becoming mention, was only one possible development out of Middle Helladic culture. The handmade mattpainted pottery that characterizes the area that concerns so developed out of the Middle Helladic tradition.92 I must stress that the area that concerns us is Macedonia west of the Axios, for B/s contention about Mycenaean culture and later ethnicity in Macedonia should implicate only the area inhabited by the Macedonians in the early period;93 It is this area that, given his argument, he needs to show was non-Greek in the Late Bronze Age. It is not without interest that the Axios is the cultural boundary94 for the distribution of the pottery, a development alternative to that which (under Minoan influence) had created Mycenaean pottery which was then both imported and imitated in Macedonia. The central problem implicated in B.s argument, is one which he has not even considered: what does it mean to be Greek in the Mycenaean period? We do not know that there was a Mycenaean notion of Greekness at all; but if there was, judging both from historical Greek perceptions of ethnicity and from cross-cultural parallels, Greekness would not have been equated with sharing an identical material culture which is a marginal defining trait that pertained above all to its reflection of a common way of life, which is difficult enough to determine even in the historical period. Macedonian language in the Mycenaean period is inaccessible to us, and religion virtually so though further finds, and a systematic study of all the relevant material may give some answers. Limitations of space prevent me from setting out what I think may be deduced on the basis of the present, extremely limited, evidence with regard to religion and way of life in Late Bronze Age Macedonia west of the Axios or indeed of attempting to define the modalities of penetration and deployment of Mycenaean material culture in the different parts of Late Bronze Age Macedonia.95 But if the inhabitants of the area that concerns us had spoken Greek and had a Greek religious system with local variations, like the other religious systems of Mycenaean Greece they would have perceived themselves, and the other Greeks would have perceived them, to be Greek. In these circumstance, it is clear that the available evidence cannot tell us anything about the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Macedonia west of the Axios in the Late Bronze Age, and it most certainly does not allow the conclusion that the Macedonians were not Greek in the Mycenaean period let alone offer any support for the notion that they were not Greek in the historical period.
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Editors note: The author might have pointed out that Borzas unhappy theory that the absence of Mycenaean settlements in the prehistoric period in Macedonia indicates the absence of Greeks in the historic period if applied elsewherewould mean that there were never Greeks in Magna Graecia, very few in Ionia, etc. ENDNOTES
* I am very grateful to Professor Robert Parker for discussing some of these problems with me. Professor Ernst Badian will probably disagree with my conclusions, so I hope that he will not mind if I mention that what led me to pursue some of these issues further was a most inspiring and stimulating discussion with him at Harvard. See O. Masson, s.v. Macedonian language , in OCD3 (1996), 905-906; C. Brixhe,Un nouveau champs de la dialectologie greque: le Macdonien, in A.C. Cassio (acura di), Kata Dialekton. Atti del III Colloguio Internazionale de Dialettologia greca(Napoli-Fiaiano dIschia 1996), Napoli 1999, 41-71; see also M.B. Hatzopoulos, Cultes et rites de passage in Macdoine, Athnes-Paris 1994, 121. Sometimes with the help of extraneous preconceptions pertaining to the modern world preconceptions of which oneself is, of course, free, but the other (especially the modern Greek other) is guilty (see some striking examples of this attitude in E. N. Borza, In the shadow of Olympus: the emergence of Macedon, Princeton-Oxford, 1990, 90-91; E. N. Borza, Before Alexander: constructing early Macedonia, Claremont, Calif. 1999, 34-37, 39. ARISTOPH. Nub. 492; DEM 21.150; 26.17. Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and others. Myth, ritual, ethnicity (forthcoming), chapter I.2 (in which I also set out a critique of J.M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 1997); see also my forthcoming paper entitled Herodotus (and others) on Pelasgians: some perceptions of ethnicity, to be published in a volume edited by Prof. R. Parker and Dr. P. Derow and dedicated to the memory of W.G. Forrest. In colonial situations the dominant culture of the colonists and the native cultures of the people of the area being colonized mix in complex ways resulting in new cultural artifacts, - not simple combinations of two cultures, but complex interactions generating complex phenomena that may be subsumed in the post colonial concept of hydridity. (On hybridity see H.K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London 1994, 102-122, cf. esp. 111-116; 127; cf. also 85-92; P. Van Dommelen, Colonial constructs: Colonialism and archaeologyin the Mediterranean, in C. Gosden (ed.), Culture Contact and Colonialism, inWorld Archaeology, 28, 1997, 305-323, esp. 309-310, 314-320. Borzas flawed perceptions of the relationship between material culture and Greek ethnicity (for example, the simple fact that there is no essence Greek material culture to which we can compare Macedonian material culture) can be illustrated by the fact that he appears to believe that the notion that Macedonian craftsmen developed a regional style, heavily indebted to Greece, but with abundant Balkan and Asian influences in shape and decoration is an argument against the Greekness of the Macedonians (Borza Before Alexander, cit., 33). See the notion of yea mtropa in Hdt. 8,144,23. This similar way of life was reflected, in complex ways, in the material culture. See supra n. 4. I have discussed the complex issue of the ethnicity of the Pelasgians elsewhere (Sourvinou-Inwood, Herodotos, cit.). On the Leleges see infra.
1.
2.
3. 4.
5.
6. 7. 8.
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9. See supra n. 1. 10. That Macedonian religion was Greek is also stated by M. Oppermann, s.v. Macedonia, cults, in 11.
12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
OCD3 (1996), 905: they also shared in the common religious and cultural features of the Greek world. but regional characteristics have to be noted. I have discussed these issues in Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri: a model for personality definitions in Greek religion, in JHS), 98, 1978, 101-121 (=C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Reading Greek culture: texts and images, rituals and myths, Oxford 1991, 147-188): see also C. Sourvinou-Inwood, What is polis religion?, in O. Murray-S. Price (eds.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, Oxford 1990, 295-322 [also published in: R. Buxton (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, Oxford 2000, 13-37]. LS. Pingiatoglou, To hiero tis Dimitras sto Dion. Anaskaphi 1990, in Archaeologiko Ergo ste Macedonia kai Thrake, 4, 1990 [1993[, 205-215; AR, 1997-1998, 82; M. B. Hatzopoulos, Macedonian institutions under the kings, Athens-Paris, 1996, 129-130. Hatzopoulos, Cutles, cit. passim, see esp. 122. See supra n. 5. The investigation of Macedonian material culture before the fifth century needs to be directed to the area west of the Axios, and focused on Vergina, the Haliakmon and its surrounding area and down to Olympos. (Restrictions of space prevent me from attempting to discuss Macedonian geography and the history and expansion of the kingdom of Macedon, so I will simply say that the area suggested above is not coterminous with the kingdom of Macedon from an early period, but it involves the areas known to have been inhabited by people perceived to be Macedonians from an early period; the perception that shaped Catalogue of Women fr. 7 M-W. suggests that they included (in one way or another, and whoever the Pieres may have been if they had any historical existence and were not a later construct) Pieria]. The Greek colonies in the Chalcidice and the lands of the non Macedonian tribes in part of the central and in the eastern part of present day Macedonia are not directly relevant though a systematic study should use them as a set of comparanda, since they can provide sets of similarities with, and differences from, the land of the Macedonians, in the different periods, which would help place more precisely the Macedonian forms of use of Greek material culture by determining the extent to which on the one hand Greek colonies interacted with local non Greek material culture and created certain hybridities, and on the other non Greeks took over Greek material culture. On the Catalogue of Women see now R.L. Fowler, Genealogical thinking, Hesiods Catalogue, and the creation of the Hellenes, in PCPhS 44, 1998, 1-19 with bibliography. It is certainly not later than the last quarter of the sixth century at the very latest (see Fowler, art. cit., 1 n. 4). See Fowler, art.cit., 1. Catalogue of Women fr. 7 M-W. Fr. 5 M-W. On the connection between the Catalogue of Women and the Delphic Amphictyony see Fowler, art. cit., 11-15 See, for example, most recently, Fowlers opinion (Fowler, art.cit. 14-15): unhellenic, like the Macedonians and the Graikoi, who descended not from Hellen, but from daughters of Deukalion, sisters of Hellen. Their descent directly from Deukalion acknowledges their affinity to the Hellenes . . . . It would be unthinkable for Makedon or Graikos to be brothers of Hellen. This formulation leaves out Magnetes, for he would have invalidated the argument, since the Magnetes are Greek; its latter part shows that it is based on, or at least facilitated by, the assumption that the Macedonians
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23. I have set out a longer argument against the view that only the people who are descended from 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
cannot be Greeks.
31.
32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.
38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
Hellen were perceived to be Greek elsewhere (Sourvinou- Inwood, Hylas, cit., chapter I.2). Cf. e.g. Hesiod, frs. 160-161 M-W; See Jacoby, Komm ad FGrHist 3F156, 1a, 427. Cf. e.g. Hdt. 8.73; Hell. FGrHist 4F161. Fr. 234 M-W. See Thuc. 1.5 on the Ozolian Locrians; S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume I: Books 1-III, Oxford 1991, 24 ad loc. Hell. FGrHist 4F74 Fr. 9 M-W. On the Thyiades see e.g. Paus. 10.4.3; 10.32.7; Plut. Aetia Graeca 293F; M.- Ch. Villanueva Puig, A propos des thyiades de Delphes, in Lassociation dionysiaque dans les socits anciennes. Actes de la table rond organise par lcole franaise de Rome (Rome 1984), Paris-Rome 1986, 31-51. A. Henrichs, Der rasende Gott: Zur Psychologie des Dionysos und des Dionysischen in Mythos und Literatur, in A&A, 40, 1994, 31-58. Cf. also H.s. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman religion 1. Ter Unus. Isis, Dionysos, Hermes. Three studies in Henotheism, Leiden 1990, 137-138. See Paus. 6.26.1-2; Plut. Aetia gr. 299A; Theop. FGrHist 115F277. See also M.P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religiser Bedeutung mis MAusschluss der attischen, Leipzig 1906, 291-293; V. Mitsopoulos-Leon, Zur Verehtrung des Dionysos in Elis. Nochmals: AXIE Taure und de sechzehn heiligen Frauen, in MDAI(A) 99, 1984, 275-290; Versnel, op.cit. 138-139 and bibl. in n. 168. Cf. Hdt. 7.178.2 (a place called Thyia in which there is a temenos to Thyia the daughter of Kephisos). Paus. 10.6.4 Henrichs, art.cit. 53-54. See Henrichs, loc.cit. On the West pediment of the temple of Apollo Delphi see Paus. 10.19.4; Villanueva Puig, art.cit., 38-39; cf. bibl.: Henrichs, art.cit. 56 n. 97. See also Soph, Ant. 1149-1152, where the Thyiades . See e.g. C. Trmpy, s.v. Monatsnamen. Griechenland, in NP, VIII (2000), 357. There are also connections between other Thy- names and Dionysos: Thyone was another name for Semele (see e.g. Apollod. 3.5.3); or Thyone was a nurse of Dionysos (Panyassis fg. 5 Davies); or Thyene was the name of one of the Dodonidai Nymphs who was a nurse of Dionysos (Pherrec. fr. 90 d; see the text in R.L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography I, Oxford 2000, 323). I use this term conventionally, to include the notion audiences. The Catalogue (fr. 6 M-W) says that those descended from Deukalion reigned in Thessaly, as does Hekataios (FGrHist 1 F 14). Hellanikos (FGrHist 4 F 6; cf. F 117) says that Deukalion reigned in Thessaly. Cf. also Fowler, art.cit. 11 for the association between Hellen and Thessaly. See Fowler, art.cit., 15. On Graikos and Graikoi see F. Gschnitzer, s.v. Grai, Graikoi, in DNP, IV (1998), 1195. See Acou. fr. 34 Fowler. Hecat. FGrHist 1 F 119 (= Strabo 7.7.1, C 321). Hatzopoulos, Institutions, cit. 465 agrees with the view that Strabo 7 fr. 11 reflects Hekataios. I am far from convinced. Cf. N.G.L. Hammond, A History of Macedonia I, Oxford 1972, 146-147. An illustration of the difference between Hekataios and Strabos conception of Macedonia can be seen, for example, in FGrHist 1 F 146, a quotation from Stephanos Byzantios, who says that according to Hekataios
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47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.
60. 61. 62. 63. 64.
Chalastra was a Thracian town, while according to Strabo it was a town of Macedonia. Chalastra was a town in Mygdonia conquered by the Macedonians in the wake of the Persian Wars. On Chalastra see Hatzopoulos, Institutions, cit., 107-108. Strab. 7 fr.10. On Strabo on Macedonia see also Borza, Shadow, cit., 292-293. On the history of the Macedonian kingdom and its expansion see e.g. Thuc. 2.99; Hatzopoulos, Institutions, cit., 105-123,; 167-179; 463-486 with bibl. On the process of Macedonization see e.g. on Lete in Mygdonia: Hatzopoulos, Cultes, cit. 42-53 passim. Thuc. 2.29.3; see Hornblower, op.cit., 287-288 ad loc. Very much later Greek readers is another matter, which does not concern me here. See Fowler, art.cit., 15. On Alexander I in Herodotos see also E. Badian Herodotus on Alexander I of Macedon: A Study in Some Subtle Silences, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography, Oxford 1994, 107-130. I discuss this passage elsewhere, together with some aspects of Herodotos perceptions of ethnicity and the problems concerning the Greekness of the Ionians and the Pelasgians (Sourvinou-Inwood, Herodotos, cit.) Hdt. 8.43: These, except the Hermioneans, are Dorians and Macedonians who had last come from Erineos and Pindos and Dryopia. Hdt. 5.20. This is discussed in Badian, Herodotus on Alexander, cit., 114-115. Hdt. 5.22. See also R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context. Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion, Cambridge 2000, 223. Hdt. 8.137-139. Hdt. 9.45; see also Badian, Herodotus on Alexander, cit., 118-119. E. Badian, Greeks and Macedonians, in B. Barr-Sharrar E.N. Borza (eds.), Macedonia and Greece in late classical and early Hellenistic times, Washington 1982, 35 noted that Alexander I was described as Philhellene in the lexicographers who go back to fourth century sources, and suggested that such an adjective would not have been used for a Greek. The last point is indeed valid, but, in my view the fact that the attestation is late, and is more likely than not to have been a construct by later readers, who were steeped in and conditioned by, fourth century cultural insults suggests that it is not a valid argument against the view that Alexander was perceived to be Greek in the fifth (and indeed fourth) century. [Editors note: both Badian and the author are mistaken. See FAQ #1.] See esp. Dem. 3.24; 9.31; cf. also 30.32 Hdt. 6.52; cf. Ephor. FGrHist 70 F 117. See C. Calame, Spartan Genealogies: The Mythological Representation of a Spatian Organization, in J. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, London 1987, 175-177. Hdt. 1.56, 58. Hdt, 6.53 The myths of the Herakleid ancestry, and indeed of the Macedonian/Dorian movements in central and northern Greece, should be considered only as myths; what is pertinent is these myths meanings and functions in Herodotos text and in the Greek collective representations in general, and what perceptions they articulated (for ex. that Herodotos perceived them, or at the very least chose to present them, as correlative with the Spartans). Attempts to reconstruct history on the basis of myths (as in Borza, Shadow,cit., 78-79, 81-84) are doomed to create culturally determined constructs, reflecting the operators own presuppositions, and flawed with circularity. This is illustrated for ex., in Borza, Shadow,cit., 78: this account of early Macedonian history is based on the most skeptical analysis of literary traditions. - a statement that reveals an absence of awareness of the dangers of
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65. 66. 67. 68. 69.
70. 71. 72. 73.
74. 75. 76.
cultural determination and circularity and of the complex modalities of mythopoea. This simplistic perception of mythopoea also underlies Borzas (Shadow, cit., 84) confident assertion: The fact that their fifth-century B.C. kings found it desirable to impose a southern Greek overlay through the adoption of Argive lineage in no way alters the picture, beyond suggesting that fifth-century Macedonians were less certain about their Hellenic origins than are some modern writers. The only rigorous way of correlating myth with history is to study each (on the one hand the historical data, including archaeological evidence, and on the other the myths and their sets of complex meanings) totally separately, on the basis of their own appropriate methodologies, and then compare the two bearing in mind that historica material I radically changed as it is deployed to serve mythological purposes. See supra n. 12. Conceptually; only a small proportion were actually there, but all, or almost all, were present symbolically, since individual cities sent official embassies to the Panhellenic Games. Sourvinou-Inwood, Polis, cit., 297-298 Cf. Aesch. Eum. 13. Badian, who expressed no opinion as to whether the Macedonians were Greek (see Badian, Herodotus on Alexander, cit., 119n.13) had pointed out (Badian, Greeks, cit., 36) that Macedonians do not appear in the surviving Olympic victor lists before the reign of Alexander the Great, and that Archelaos instituted counter-Olympics at Dion. He connects this (see Badian, Herodotus on Alexander, cit. 119n.13) with the Macedonian kings desire to avoid having Macedonian noblemen compete in the Olympic Games because it would not have suited them to have their subjects recognized as equals in Hellenic descent, which would have opened up the possibility of such noblemen winning an Olympic victory. I am arguing that it had not been possible for the Macedonian royal family to have been admitted to the Olympic Games without such participation becoming open to all Macedonians. But I am sure that Badian is right that the Macedonian kings would not have been keen on, and would have discouraged, participation by their people, because of the prestige involved in an Olympic victory, as well as the networking with aristocrats from other cities and ethne. [Editors note: Both Badian and the author ignore the participation, and victories, in the Olympics by Philip, and perhaps even by Archelaos, before the reign of Alexander the Great. See Moretti, Olympionikai, nos. 434, 439 and 445 for Philip and no. 349 for Archelaos.] 70 See C. Sourvinou-Inwood, The fourth stasimon of Sophocles Antigone, in BICS, 36, 1989, 154, 162. Thuc. 2.99-100.2; see Hornblower, op.cit., 374-376 ad loc. Thuc. 2.99.3. See the nuanced discussion in S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume II: Books IV-V.24, Oxford 1996, 390-392 ad loc., which summarized that position; Hornblowers own much more sophisticated opinion concerning all these passages in 4.124-126, is that Thucydides view was not rigid or consistent; that if he had to choose between saying whether the Macedonians were Greeks or barbarians he would say barbarians, hence 124.1, and also 126.3; but he thought there were degrees of barbarian-ness, and in the second passage from 124.1, he meant to suggest that the Macedonians were intermediate between Greeks and utter barbarians. I will be offering a different view. Hornblower, Thucydides II, cit., 391-392 ad loc. Hornblower, Thucydides II, cit., 394 ad 4.125.1 rightly rejects a suggested emendation for this passage, which had aimed at making Thucydides Macedonians fit into the category barbarians. Hornblower, Thucydides II, cit., 392 ad 126.3.
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77. On the Lynkestians see Hammond, op.cit., 102-105; map: 58 map 8. [Editors note: It might have 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.
86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.
92.
93. 94.
95.
been appropriate for the author to have cited Thucydides (2.99.2) identification of the Lyknestians as one of the Macedonian tribes of the upper country.] See Hornblower, Thucydides II,cit., 397 ad 4.126.1. On the history of the Macedonian kingdom and its expansion see supra n.48. I discuss some of these questions in Sourvinou-Inwood, Hylas, cit. chapter I.2. See also 5.76 (Philip a Herakleid). The third Philippic (Dem. 9.31; cf. also 30, 32). See also 4.10. On how far orators could go in manipulating history see C. Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historians, London 2000, 61-67. I am not interested in Demosthenes motivation, or real beliefs, only in his rhetorical constructs, agenda and consequent ideological desiderata. On Demosthenes as a politician and orator see now I. Worthington (ed.), Demosthenes: Statesmen and Orator, London 2000. In reality, the reading of the evidence through filters implicitly constructed through the deployment of such statements have shaped modern perceptions of Macedonian ethnicity, in the same was as, as Hatzopoulos (Institutions, cit., 49) pointed out, the rhetorically charged passage in Arr., Anab. 7.9.2, from a speech ascribed to Alexander, has shaped modern views of Macedonian civic institutions more than archaeological discoveries. hrasym. D-K 85 fr. 2. Gorgias 470c9-471d2. See E. R. Dodds (ed.), Plato, Gorgias, Oxford 1959, 241-243 ad 470c9471d2. On Archelaos see E.N. Badian, s.v. Archelaos, in DNP, I (1996), 984-985. Borza, Before Alexander, cit., 38. Borza, Before Alexander, cit., 30-31. These, in my opinion, had included various small population movements from the periphery of the Mycenaean world into southern Greece, which eventually became mythologized into the construct unified Dorian invasion in the construction of a discourse of Dorian ethnicity (see briefly on this, and on the construction of Dorian ethnicity in Herodotos (which, we saw, involved also the Macedonians) Sourvinou-Inwood, Herodotos, cit. and n. 109). L. Stefani N. Meroussis, Incised and Matt-painted Pottery from Late Bronze Age Settlements in Western Macedonia: Technique, Shapes and Decoration, in R. Laffineur P. P Betancourt (eds.), TEXNH: Craftsmen, Craftswomen and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age, Lige 1997, 357. See supra n. 15. Stefani Meroussis, art.cit., 357. some answers. Limitations of space prevent me from setting out what I think may be deduced on the basis of the present, extremely limited, evidence with regard to religion and way of life in Late Bronze Age Macedonia west of the Axios or indeed of attempting to define the modalities of penetration and deployment of Mycenaean material culture in the different parts of Late Bronze Age Macedonia. But if the inhabitants of the area that concerns us had spoken Greek and had a Greek religious system with local variations, like the other religious systems of Mycenaean Greece they would have perceived themselves, and the other Greeks would have perceived them, to be Greek.
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5. Persians
The Yaun takabara and the ancient Macedonians
by Demetrius E. Evangelides, Ethnologist
Recent research has provided unambiguous details concerning the ethnological classification of the ancient Macedonians, including from another source that lies outside the Greek world, which removes all doubt that had existed concerning the Hellenic nature of this nation. The unexpectedness of this source is certainly the fact that it comes from the Persian Empire the Persians, the relentless enemies of the Greeks during antiquity. North of the ruins of Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenian Dynasty of the Persian Empire, at a distance of about 5 kilometers lies the site Naqsh-I Rustam (i.e. the reliefs of the [mythical hero] Rustam) where are to be found the tombs of Darius I (521-486 B.C.), his son Xerxes (486-465) and two more kings (Artaxerxes I and Darius II) (see photograph) cut into the rock, as well as eight other reliefs from the period of the Sassanids (the dynasty that ruled the Iranian plateau - after the Parthians - between 224 and 651 A.D. and is known for its wars against the Byzantines.
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The faade of the tomb of Darius I has the shape of a cross (see the photograph) with the entrance to the tomb at the center, while above is a monumental relief showing Darius I who is praying at an altar of the supreme god of the Persians, Ohrmazd (Ahuramazda) on top of a base that is supported by 28 different subject peoples of the Persian Empire. An inscription at the upper right corner (see the photograph), known to archaeologists as DNa (i.e. Darius Naqsh [inscription] a), names those peoples, and presents Darius as a reverent and strong leader. Another inscription in the central part of the cross, which consists of a representation of the southern entrance of the palaces of Persepolis, known as DNb, comprises the famous Will of Darius I, a copy of which is also lightly adapted on the faade of the tomb of Xerxes, known as XPl. The text is written in the ancient Persian language (Old Persian) in a script inspired by the Sumerian-Akkadian cuneiform script, but with simpler characters. As it has been maintained (see especially D.T. Potts: The Archaeology of Elam, 1999, p. 317) this first Persian script was created on purpose by Darius I for the texts of the famous inscription of Behistun. This script is syllabic consisting of only 36 symbols and also preserved four ideograms representing the words King, Country, Province, and Ahuramazda (the supreme god in the Iranian Pantheon). The script was written from left to right, and is known as the Syllabic System of Persepolis (see image), and was used from the 6th to the 4th century B.C. for the monumental inscriptions of the Achaemenian Kings. After the kingship of Artaxerxes III (359/8-338 B.C.), inscriptions in the Persepolis script are completely lacking and after the dissolution of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great, this script was not used again, given its connections with the previous regime (see Charles Higounet, Athens 1964, pp. 37-38).
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In the aforementioned inscription DNa (see the photograph) that lists the subject peoples, we read the following: . . . King Darius says: By the favor of Ahuramazda these are the countries which I seized outside of Persia; I ruled over them; they bore tribute to me; they did what was said to them by me; they held my law firmly. (These countries are:) Media, Elam, Parthia, Areia, Baktria, Sogdia, Chorasmia, Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, Gandara, India, the Skythians who drink (the sacred drink) haoma, the Skythians with pointed caps, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, Kappodokia, Lydia, the Ionians (Greeks of Asia Minor), the Skythians across the sea (on the shores of the Black Sea), Thrace, the Greeks who wear shieldlike headcoverings, the Libyans, the Nubians, the people of Maka and the Carians . . .
In the above text, with the enumeration of the subject peoples we see that they include the Greek colonists of Asia Minor who are called in ancient Persian Yaun (i.e. Ionians), a name for the Greeks that will subsequently be spread to all the peoples of the East. These Yaun Ionians (=Greeks) are referred to for the first time in a catalogue of subject peoples in the famous monumental inscription of Darius I at Behistun which we mentioned earlier (for details of the inscriptions see D. E. Evangelides, , Thessaloniki 2006, under Persians.). But in the cited text in ancient Persian of Naqsh-I Rustam, some people described as Yaun takabara (i.e. Greeks with shieldlike headcoverings) are mentioned. Who are these Greeks? We should mention that the inscription of Behistun is to be dated around 520 B.C. when Darius I swallowed the wave of rebellions which broke out during his ascension to the Persian throne and thus stabilized his power. In 513/2 B.C. Darius I undertook the well-known (thanks to Herodotus) Skythian campaign with which he took over Thrace (Skudra), the northern Greek region (i.e. Macedonia) and the regions around the mouth of the Danube where certain Skythian tribes lived (i.e. the across the sea Skythians). It is thus determined that the mysterious Yaun takabara or Greeks with shieldlike headcoverings were none other than the ancient Macedonians and the relevant facts of the submission by Amyntas I, father of Alexander I, are recorded by Herodotus (5.18-21).
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Thus for the Persians the Macedonians were Greeks (same language, same customs and same habits) and were therefore included within the Yaun, but they separated from the other Greeks of Asia Minor, who were also subjects, because of the fact that they inhabited the European side of the Aegean and in order to distinguish them they were called after a characteristic, the type of head coverings they wore. We see that the same was done with the Skythians (Sakas in the Persian language) who are distinguished into those manufacturing / drinking the sacred drink haoma (Sak haumavarg), nomads to the north of Sogdia and the Iaxartes River (=Syr Darya), and into those other Sakas (i.e. Skythians in Greek) who wore pointy caps (Sak tigraxaud) and live between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and finally into the Skythians who lived across the sea (Sak tyaiy paradraya) whom the Persians encountered in the area at the mouth of the Danube. In addition, the Macedonians wore a characteristic headcovering called the kausia (Polybios 4.4-5, Arrian, Anabasis 7.22) that distinguished them from the rest of the Greeks. [The word kausia comes from the Greek root from which , =heat]. For that reason the Persians called them Yaun takabara; i.e. Greeks with shieldlike headcoverings. The Macedonian cap was very different form the headcovering that the Greeks of Asia Minor wore, and that detail was used by the Persians to distinguish between their Greek subjects.
Coin of Alexander I with a horseman wearing the Macedonian kausia.
The fact that completely proves the above analysis is that it comes also from a source foreign to the Greeks. In the inscription mentioned above from the Naqsh-I Rustam tomb of Xerxes, it is to be noted that in the catalogue of subject peoples there are missing the Yaun takabara which agrees with everything we know from historical sources. After their failure to conquer Greece and after the battle of Plateia (479 B.C.) the Persians withdrew from their European holdings, and therefore from Macedonia. It was thus impossible at the time of the death of Xerxes (465 B.C.) to include the Yaun takabara or Macedonians as subjects of the Persian Empire.
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6. Archaeology Magazine
Letter from Professor Miller to Archaeology Magazine
Editor, Archaeology Magazine 36-36 33rd Street Long Island City, NY 11106 U.S.A. Dear Sir, I opened the January/February issue of Archaeology today and eagerly turned to A Letter from Macedonia only to discover that it was actually a letter from ancient Paionia the land north of Mt. Barmous and Mt. Orbelos. Livys account of the creation of the Roman province of Macedonia (45.29.7 and 12) makes clear that the Paionians lived north of those mountains (which form today the geographically natural northern limits of Greece) and south of the Dardanians who were in todays Kosovo. Strabo (7. frag 4) is even more succinct in saying that Paionia was north of Macedonia and the only connection from one to the other was (and is today) through the narrow gorge of the Axios (or Vardar) River. In other words, the land which is described by Matthew Brunwasser in his Owning Alexander was Paionia in antiquity.
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While it is true that those people were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 359 B.C. (Diodorus Siculus 16.4.2), they were never Macedonians and never lived in Macedonia. Indeed, Demosthenes (Olynthian 1.23) tells us that they were enslaved by the Macedonian Philip and clearly, therefore, not Macedonians. Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point. Likewise, for example, the Egyptians who were subdued by Alexander may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia (and so far as I can tell does not seek that name today). Certainly, as Thucydides (2.99) tells us, the Macedonians had taken over a narrow strip of Paionia extending along the Axios river from the interior to Pella and the sea. One might therefore understand if the people in the modern republic centered at Skopje called themselves Paionians and claimed as theirs the land described by Thucydides. But why, instead, would the modern people of ancient Paionia try to call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia? Mr. Brunwasser (p. 55) touches on the Greek claims that it implies ambitions over Greek territory and he notes that the northern province of Greece is also called Macedonia. Leaving aside the fact that the area of that northern province of modern Greece has been called Macedonia for more than 2,500 years (see, inter alios, Herodotus 5.17; 7.128, et alibi), more recent history shows that the Greek concerns are legitimate. For example, a map produced in Skopje in 1992 shows clearly the claim that Macedonia extends from there to Mt. Olympus in the south; that is, combining the ancient regions of Paionia and Macedonia into a single entity.
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The same claim is explicit on a pseudo-bank note of the Republic of Macedonia which shows, as one of its monuments, the White Tower of Thessalonike, in Greece.
There are many more examples of calendars, Christmas cards, bumper-stickers, etc., that all make the same claim. Further, Mr. Brunwasser has reported with approval (International Herald Tribune 10/1/08) the work of the Macedonian Institute for Strategic Research 16:9, the name of which refers to Acts 16:9, a verse in the New Testament in which a Macedonian man appears to the Apostle Paul begging him: Come over into Macedonia, and help us. But where did Paul go in Macedonia? Neapolis (Kavala), Philippi, Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessaloniki, and Veroia (Acts 16:11-17:10) all of which are in the historic Macedonia, none in Paionia. What claim is being made by an Institute based in Skopje that names itself for a trip through what was Macedonia in antiquity and what is the northern province of Greece today? I wonder what we would conclude if a certain large island off the southeast coast of the United States started to call itself Florida, and emblazoned its currency with images of Disney World and distributed maps showing the Greater Florida. Certainly there was no doubt of the underlying point of Macedonia in the mind of U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius on December 26,1944, when he wrote: The Department [of State] has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. This government considers talk of Macedonian nation, Macedonian Fatherland, or Macedonian national consciousness to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece. [Source: U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations vol viii, Washington, D.C., Circular Airgram (868.014/26Dec1944)]
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Mr. Brunwasser (a resident of Bulgaria), however, goes on to state, with apparent distain, that Greece claims Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) . . . as Greek. This attitude mystifies me. What is there to claim? Alexanders great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, was certified as Greek at Olympia and, in the words of the father of history I happen to know that [the forefathers of Alexander] are Greek (Herodotus 5.22). Alexanders father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi (Plutarch, Alexander 4.9; Moralia 105A), the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete. If Philip was Greek, wasnt his son also Greek? When Euripides who died and was buried in Macedonia (Thucydides apud Pal. Anth. 7.45; Pausanias 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus 13.103) wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, did he write it in Slavic? When he wrote the Bacchai while at the court of Archelaos did he not write it in Greek even as it has survived to us? Or should we imagine that Euripides was a Macedonian who wrote in Slavic (at a date when that language is not attested) which was translated into Greek? What was the language of instruction when Aristotle taught Alexander? What language was carried by Alexander with him on his expedition to the East? Why do we have ancient inscriptions in Greek in settlements established by Alexander as far away as Afghanistan, and none in Slavic? Why did Greek become the lingua franca in Alexanders empire if he was actually a Macedonian? Why was the New Testament written in Greek rather than Slavic? On page 57 of the so-called Letter from Macedonia there is a photograph of the author standing before a bronze statue of Alexander the Great in the city of Prilep. The statue is patently modern, but the question is whether the real historic Alexander could have read the Slavic inscription beneath his feet. Given the known historic posterity of Slavic to Greek, the answer is obvious. While Mr. Brunwassers reporting of the archaeological work in Paionia is welcome, his adoption and promotion of the modern political stance of its people about the use of the name Macedonia is not only unwelcome, it is a disservice to the readers of Archaeology who are, I imagine, interested in historic fact. But then, the decision to propagate this historical nonsense by Archaeology a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America - is a disservice to its own reputation. Let it be said once more: the region of ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian empire. So were Ephesos and Tyre and Palestine and Memphis and Babylon and Taxila and dozens more. They may thus have become Macedonian temporarily, but none was ever Macedonia. Allow me to end this exegesis by making a suggestion to resolve the question of the modern use of the name Macedonia. Greece should annex Paionia that is what Philip II did
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in 359 B.C. And that would appear to be acceptable to the modern residents of that area since they claim to be Greek by appropriating the name Macedonia and its most famous man. Then the modern people of this new Greek province could work on learning to speak and read and write Greek, hopefully even as well as Alexander did. Sincerely, Stephen G. Miller Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley PS: For a more complete examination of the ancient evidence regarding Paionia, see I. L. Merker, The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia, Balkan Studies 6 (1965) 35-54
-----------------cc: C. Brian Rose, President, Archaeological Institute of America Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America Dora Bakoyiannis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Antonis Samaras, Minister of Culture of Greece Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Enlargement Erik Meijer, Member, European Parliament
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Letter from Professor Miller to Archaeology Magazine

Ancient Nemea GR-20500 September 22, 2009 Editor, Archaeology Magazine 36-36 33rd Street Long Island City, NY 11106 U.S.A. Sir, Brian Rose, From the President: Everyones Hero (Archaeology, Sept.-Oct. 2009) misses several critical points in his attempt to justify the abduction of Alexander the Great by FYROM. The use of heroes like the Roman Augustus by the Italian Mussolini, of the Athenian Theseus by the Athenian Kimon, of Aeneas by his Roman descendants, of the Armenian Hayk by his descendants, of Tamerlane by the modern inhabitants of his native land (now Uzbekistan), of Genghis Khan by Mongolia which he founded, is not the same as denying that Alexander was Greek and turning him into a Slav. Nor are such uses of heroes the same as transporting a hero from a neighboring state. The geographic fact that the area of FYROM coincides to a very great extent with the ancient Paionia and not with Macedonia shows the real distance between the ancient hero and the newly formed state centered at Skopje. But the most egregious of Roses misses, in the present context, is his statement that heroes . . . foster a shared identity and a sense of stability. Shared identity with Greece whose hero Alexander actually is? Sense of stability with a neighbor whose heritage is being misappropriated? I would respectfully suggest that Archaeology, the Archaeological Institute of America and its President have no business corrupting historic integrity for modern political purposes. The reputation of the AIA does not gain, nor does the stability of the Balkans, nor does the identity of FYROM. Sooner or later the world will understand the truth to the detriment of those who subverted it. Stephen G. Miller
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7. Classical journal
Response to Andreas Willi, Whose is Macedonia, Whose is Alexander?
Professor Andreas Willi has written a critique of the letter to President Obama signed by nearly 350 scholars concerning the attempt to convert Alexander into a Slav. There are many problems with AWs critique. Some of the more serious will be treated here. AW begins by quoting the body of the letter to Obama but not the documentation that justifies the statements made in the letter. He mentions in a footnote that the letter together with some additional documentation . . . is freely accessible at http:// macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html. In fact the documentation is fundamentally important and the reader of this note is asked to go to the web site and review the letter together with the documentation (http://macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html). That is the only way a student of antiquity can truly understand the reasons for the letter which is based on fundamental principles of historical scholarship; that is, the use of primary sources to explain ancient events. AW states that it is true that most of the factual observations of the letter are correct. He thereby implies that some are not correct, but does not list them or even give examples. We would be grateful to learn what factual observations in the letter are not correct. AW states that the text of the letter is one-sided, but he presents no ancient evidence for the other side except to suggest that Herodotus 5.22 does not prove that Alexander I was really Greek. In fact, Herodotus cites the decision of the Hellanodikai at Olympia that Alexander I was Greek, and it must be remembered that it would have been sacrilegious to allow a non-Greek to participate at games dedicated to Zeus. The evidence for the other side is, then, the accusation also recorded only by Herodotus made by some of Alexanders competitors in the Olympic Games that he was not Greek. The self-interest of those competitors in making such a claim so that a strong opponent might be disqualified is obvious. Furthermore, the failure to prove the accusation of non-Greekness invalidates such evidence. Some of us may be able to remember a time when we had to prove that we were of legal age. That we were challenged did not make us underage ipso facto, and when we were able to prove that we were in of legal age, that ended the story. Indeed, the current USA Presidents status as a real American is being questioned (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html).
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Those questions do not prove that he is not American but, by AWs standards, 2000 years from now scholars will question whether Barack Obama was American. AW states that the fact that Greek was the lingua franca of Alexanders empire cannot be answered by stating that Alexander was Greek, given that we have numerous examples of ancient empires in which the lingua franca was not the language of the ruler. Those numerous examples are not provided, but are we to suppose therefore that, because Greek was the lingua franca of his empire, Alexander was not Greek and did not speak Greek? In fact, the testimony of ancient sources, literary and epigraphic, is unanimous that he, like his ancestors, did speak and read and write Greek. AW shows an unacceptable disregard for primary sources which must be the fundamental starting point of historical scholarship. AW goes on to doubt that the Paionians retained a separate identity after Philip had subdued them. How many Paionians did we ask about it? AW queries rather superciliously. If he would accept what the Paionians might say about themselves, why should he not accept what the Macedonians starting with Alexander I actually did say about themselves? Moreover, from an evidentiary point of view, AW ignores the Paionian coins and dedications at Olympia and Delphi that go well down into the 3rd century (noted in the documentation to the Letter to Obama). He then refers to the incorporation of Paionia under Antigonos Gonatas (249 BCE) without reference to any primary or even secondary source for this event or its date. We can find no ancient source to substantiate his reference, although the appearance of a city named Antigoneia (known only from Pliny NH 4.34) south of Stobi in Paionia has been taken to be the result of an annexation of Paionia by some Antigonos, but modern scholars interested in this city differ about its which Antigonos and therefore its date.[1] AW does provide a primary source (Thucydides 2.99) to show that the term Macedonia also applied to lands not inhabited by ethnic Macedonians. But Thucydides actually says that the Macedonians include the Lynkestai and the Elimiotai and other ethne in the upper country who, although allied with them and subject to them, have each their own king. See also, e.g., Thucydides 4.83 where the Lynkestai are specifically called Macedonians. The Paionians, on the contrary, are always mentioned as a separate, distinct, non-Macedonian people (see, e.g., Thucydides 2.96 where he refers to the Paionians as independent). AW claims that to call Cleopatra a Macedonian shows that the letter regards only ancestry and blood-lines as defining elements in identity. But her full name, Cleopatra Philopater, is Greek as are the names she gave to her twin children by Antony, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and to her sons, Ptolemy Caesar and Ptolemy Philadelphos. This shows clearly and succinctly that ties to her Macedonian Greek ancestry were important to Cleopatra and not just to the authors of the letter. AW accuses the authors of the letter of forgetting everything that happened after Alexander by focusing almost exclusively on him. But if read carefully and completely, it will be seen that the letter was prompted by the antiquization program of the current
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government in Skopje. As this new country struggles for an identity, it has clearly decided to borrow that of ancient Greece. The logic seems to be: we are recognized by the USA and 120 other countries as the Republic of Macedonia; that is, we are Macedonians; that is, since Alexander was a Macedonian, he is ours; and it follows that since we are Slavic, Alexander was Slavic.[2] Some manifestations of this antiquization program, in addition to those noted at the beginning of the letter to Obama, are the copies of the Alexander Sarcophagus which are to be set up in cities and towns around FYROM, and a statue of Alexander which, it is reported, is to be seven stories tall and will sing Slavic folk songs. This program has stirred criticism from archaeology students at the University of Skopje who regard it as counter-productive and a disgrace to their country (see: http://vardaraxios.wordpress.com) but this voice of dissent has been stilled after the incarceration on July 4, 2009 of its leader, Vasko Gligorijevi, who did not regard our letter as asomewhat naveundergraduate essay. (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/110315). AW states that the territory of the modern Republic of Macedonia does have a shared past with the modern Greek province of Macedonia. The statement is, however, true only after the battle of Pydna in 168 B.C. and the subsequent creation of the Roman province of Macedonia. Livy, our source for the creation of that province (45.29.7-8), makes it very clear that until that time Paionia (the largest single ancient territory in the modern FYROM) was separate from Macedonia. Indeed, Livy (45.29.12) mentions that Paionia had belonged to the Dardanians (i.e. in modern Kosovo) at some point and, therefore, was not a part of Macedonia.[3] In other words, the shared past begins a century and a half after the death of Alexander. AW believes that there is . . . no reason why the modern Slavic Macedonians should not be allowed . . . to pride themselves in Alexander the Great. . . In other words a people who came to a place where Alexander spent, at the most, two or three days during his lifetime (Arrian 1.5.1) a millennium after his death and speak a language that did not exist in his time should pride themselves in him? Is this acceptable to guardians of the past? Finally, AW seems to think that no one is claiming that Alexander was not Greek. He might want to look, for example, at an English TV quiz show where two contestants were asked What Nationality was Alexander the Great? Their response,Greek was pronounced wrong, and the correct answer was supplied: Macedonian. (http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=2AdgCe0cf9g). By this reasoning, Plato was not Greek because he was Athenian. Silly? Yes, but the public is being inundated with such misinformation and the purpose is to disassociate Alexander from his Greek ethnicity. The infiltration of the publics communal memory with this historic lie has been going on for some time and with much passion. Consider, as just one example, the following advertisement in The Sun Herald of Sydney on May 3, 1962 (p. 60):
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Always remember: Philip II, Alexander the Great and Aristotle were Macedonians. Cyril and Methodie were Macedonians. The Macedonians are not Slavic. The Macedonians are not Greek. There are many, many similar statements. They are, we submit, a real threat to the fundamentals of our profession as classical scholars. If historical integrity is not important to our society, then neither are we. Stephen G. Miller
END NOTES: 1. E.g., Irwin L. Merker, The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia, Balkan Studies 6 (1965) 52, attributes
Antigoneia to Antigonos Doson, while N.G.L. Hammond and F.W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia III (Oxford 1988) 268 associate it with Antigonos Gonatas, but specifically at an unknown date. 2. To be sure, some involved in this program claim that they are not Slavic but Macedonian even though their language is a form of Bulgarian which is a member of the Slavic linguistic group. 3. Strabo (7 frag. 4) a contemporary of Livy, makes the geographic distinction between Paionia and Macedonia clear when he states that Paionia . . . lies above Macedonia to the north. Strabo, after a gap in the text, goes on to relate that the passage from Paionia to Macedonia is difficult. Polybius (4.29.2) referring to events in the winter of 218/7 B.C., uses a form of the same verb used by Strabo (hyperkeitai) in referring to the barbarians lying above Macedonia. In other words, the Paiones were at that time barbarians and, therefore, not Greeks.
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united nations
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Frequently Asked Questions
1) How can Alexander be Greek if he is called a Philhellene? Isnt that mutually exclusive? A philhellene () or Greek-lover is frequently used of non-Greeks, but it is also well known as descriptive of Greeks who sacrifice themselves for the common good. For example, in setting up his ideal state, Plato prescribes that the citizens are to be both Greek and Philhellenes (Republic 470E). But the word is also used to describe specific historical characters such as Agesilaus of Sparta who as a good Greek was a philhellene (Xenophon, Agesilaus 7.4). See further Liddell, Scott, Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon sv. ).
2) Wasnt there a Macedonian language distinct from Greek? No. The inscriptions from Macedonia are all written either in Attic (koine) Greek, or a Greek dialect showing affinities both with the north-western (Doric) dialects of Epirus and with the north-eastern (Aeolic) dialects of Thessaly. This is the Macedonian dialect of Greek. If the ancient documents preserved today on stone reveal only those two possibilities, there is clearly no basis for a separate language. It may be noted that Plato (Protagoras 341C), in referring to the Aeolic dialect of Lesbian authors, calls it barbaric by which he may intend crude or rough, but Greek all the same. It might be noted that when the Roman conqueror in 167 B.C., Aemilius Paulus, called together representatives of the defeated Macedonian communities, his Latin pronouncements were translated for the benefit of the assembled Macedonians into Greek (Livy 45.29).
3) But what about the stories told by Quintus Curtius and Plutarch? Quintus Curtius (6.9.34-36) has Alexander give the conspirator Philotas the chance to defend himself before his Macedonian troops, and asks if Philotas will speak to them in their native tongue (patrio sermone in the Latin). There is, however, no way to know if the reference is to a separate language, or to a dialect of Greek. The ancient text would allow either interpretation. The same is true when, in the middle of the Kleitos episode, Alexander calls out to his guards in Macedonian (Plutarch, Alexander 51.6), and when Macedonian soldiers hail Eumenes in Macedonian (Plutarch, Eumenes 14.5). In every case, Macedonian could be a
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Greek dialect rather than a different language. These stories cannot be used as proof of a Macedonian non-Greek language, but instead they refer to a Macedonian dialect of Greek. So, for example this passage we two will speak like the people of Parnassos - we will imitate the Phokian tongue (Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 563-564), mentions the Phokian dialect of Greek, not a non-Greek language, used by the people who lived on Mt. Parnassus. 4) Even if the kings of Macedonia became Hellenized, doesnt the language and culture of the common people show a non-Greek basis? This question is often asked of Macedonia, but not of the helots of Laconia or the penestai of Thessaly. In fact, there is no evidence that the commoners of Macedonia were not Greek, even if definitive proof of their ethnicity is not preserved. But the evidence grows both from archaeological artifacts and from linguistics that they were Greek. Note, for example, the curse-tablet of the 4th century B.C. which was discovered in a common grave in Pella and is written in what was a Macedonian dialect of Greek. See the article The speech of the ancient Macedonians, in the light of recent epigraphic discoveries. 5) Doesnt Demosthenes call Philip a barbarian; that is, a non-Greek? Yes, he does. But beyond the fact that Demosthenes harbored a personal grudge against Philip because of the humiliation he suffered when he lost his power of speech at the Macedonian court (Aischines, On the Embassy 35), Demosthenes could call anyone he did not like a barbarian, including fellow Athenians (e.g. 21.150). The word, at least in some uses by Demosthenes and others, should be understood as a generic insult. Thus, for example, in some parts of the USA people are dubious that people from other parts are real Americans.
6) Isnt there a distinction made in the sources between Greeks and Macedonians? Yes, but this is a political distinction, not an ethnic one. After the Battle of Chaironeia in 338 B.C. Philip formed a Hellenic League (frequently called the League of Corinth by modern scholars after the site of its first meeting). He was the leader () of the league, but he had been and still was the king () of the Macedonians. There was, in other words, a very marked difference in the relationship between Philip and his allies on the one hand, and his subjects on the other. The League was largely about preparations for and participation in the invasion of the Persian Empire, and the number of votes of the various Greek states or regions was assigned on the basis of the size of the military contribution of each. Membership in the League was, at least in
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theory, voluntary, and Sparta refused to join and was not forced to. But the Macedonian contingent was present as subjects to their king. In other words, the distinction was not that the Macedonians were not Greek, but that the allied Greeks were not Macedonians, and Alexander retained his fathers institutions. One consequence of this arrangement is to be recognized in the dedications made by Alexander and the Greeks (Arrian, Anabasis 1.16.7 and Plutarch, Alexander 16.18). This is the same distinction as the one between the Macedonians (=Alexander) and the Greeks. For the sources and good commentary on some of the more difficult evidence, see M.N. Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions II, no. 177. For more complete narrative accounts see J.R. Ellis, Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism 204-209 and I. Worthington, Philip II of Macedonia 158-163.
7) How could Philip fight against the Greeks at Chaironeia if he were a true Greek? In the same way that Greeks fought one another so many times including the most famous example of the Spartans vs. the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. But Philip was actually at Chaironeia on the invitation of the Delphic Amphiktyonic Council. Already in 346 B.C. he had settled the Third Sacred War in favor of the Council, and been awarded a seat on that council (where no non-Greek ever served). Now, in 338 B.C., the Amphikytonic Council called upon him again, and it is Demosthenes, the Philiphater, who records the actual decree of invitation from the Council (De Corona 18,155). The two sides in the battle were totally Greek. One side (the ultimate losers) was led by Athens and Thebes which together supplied more than 60% of the forces. They were joined by Corinth, Megara, Akarnania, Phokis, Achaia, Euboia, Leukas, and Kerkyra (Demosthenes, De Corona 18.237). Note the missing: Sparta, Elis, Aigina, Epidauros, and many more. The other side was dominated by the Macedonians, but there were substantial numbers of Thessalians as well as Argives and Arkadians (Demosthenes, Letters 4.8). In other words, as throughout so much of their history, the Battle of Chaironeia was Greek vs. Greek.
8) Since Aristotle states that barbarians are slaves by nature (e.g. Politics I.ii.18 [1255a29]) does it make sense that, if Philip were a barbarian and non-Greek, he would have hired Aristotle to teach his son? Excellent question.
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9) What do the names Philip and Alexander mean? Both are common Greek names used by hundreds, if not thousands of ancient Greeks. The name Philip comes from philippos or horse-lover; the fact that Philip IIs horses won so many victories at Olympia, Delphi, and elsewhere is probably a coincidence, but a happy one. The name Alexander derives from a combination of two Greek words: alexo (a verb meaning to defend or protect), and aner (man). Together the meaning is defending men or protecting men.
10) If the Macedonians were Greek, why did they call themselves Macedonians? For the same reason that the Athenians called themselves Athenians. When, for example, Demosthenes is speaking to his fellow citizens, he calls them Men of Athens (e.g. De Corona 18.251), not Men of Greece. Note that already in 479 B.C. on the eve of the Battle of Plateia, Alexander I, forced by circumstances to be in the Persian camp (as were other Greeks like the Boiotians and the Thessalians), secretly revealed to the Athenians the Persian battle plan. He justified this action by stating his care for all Greece because he, from ancient descent, is a Greek (Herodotus 9.45). Clearly Alexander has no doubt of his ethnicity.
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Text compiled by: Nikos Makrygiannis (RC of Halandri) Art Director: Kalliopi Xenopoulou (RC of Filothei) Source: http://macedonia-evidence.org
Macedonian coin, stating in Greek: (in English: ALEXANDERS)
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