Let
us see some of the available evidence:
1)
A
Persian inscription dating from 513 BCE records the European
peoples who were, at that date, subject to the Great King.
One of these people is described as Yauna Takabara,
meaning ‘Ionians whose head-dress is like a shield’.
The Persians, like other eastern peoples of
antiquity, are known to have applied the term ‘Ionians’
to all Greeks; on the other hand the head-dress resembling a
shield has been rightly recognized as that of depicted on
Macedonian coins.
2)
In
a fragment of Hellanikos (fifth century BCE), Makedon, the
mythical founder of the Macedonians, appears as the son of
Aiolos. This
genealogical relationship reflects the idea the Macedonians
were a section of the Aeolians, a sub-division of the Greek
race.
3)
After
the battle of Issos, Alexander the Great sent a letter to
Darius that read as follows: “Your ancestors came to
Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us much harm though
we had done them no prior injury; I have been appointed
commander-in-chief of the Greeks and invaded Asia in the
desire to take vengeance on Persia for your aggressions.”
From this extract it emerges clearly that Alexander
regarded
Macedonia
as a Greek country, identified the sufferings of
Macedonia
at the hands of the Persians with the destruction they had
wrought in southern
Greece
,
and represented himself as the avenger of all these wrongs.
4)
The
formulation ‘
Macedonia
and the rest of
Greece
’
also occurs in the treaty of alliance between Philip V of
Macedonia
and Hannibal. In
the same text the phrase ‘the Macedonians and the rest of
the Greeks’ occurs twice.
5)
Other
passages demonstrate that non-Macedonian Greeks also thought
of the Macedonians as their kindred, and of
Macedonia
as a Greek country. In
217 BCE Agelaos of Naupactos, speaking to a gathering at
which Philip V and representatives of his allies were
present, prayed that internecine wars between the Greeks
would cease. In
211 BCE, Lykiscos, representative of the Acarnanians,
described the Macedonians as kinsfolk of the Achaeans.
Macedonia
is accounted part of
Greece
by various authors.
6)
The
general sense of a passage in Thucydides gives the
impression that the historian considered the Macedonians
barbarians. Various
ancient geographers and historians of the classical and
post-classical periods, such as Ephoros, Pseudo-Scylax,
Dionysios son of Calliphon and Dionysios Periegetes, put the
northern borders of
Greece
at the line from
Ambracian
Gulf
to the Peneios. Isocrates
places
Macedonia
outside the boundaries of
Greece
and describes the Macedonians as ούχ ομόφυλον
γένος
(‘an unrelated race’).
Medeios of Larisa, who accompanied Alexander on his
campaign in
Asia
, calls the Thessalians ‘the most northernly of the Greeks’.
7)
When Alexander I, king of the Macedonians, wanted to
compete at
Olympia
(possibly in 496 BCE), his prospective opponents
attempted to exclude him by arguing that only Greeks, and
not barbarians, could take part in the Olympic Games.
Alexander proved that he was a Greek and was
therefore allowed to compete.
An evaluation of the evidence suggests the following:
1)
One
ancient tradition connects the Macedonians with the Dorians
and another traces the family to
Argos
in the
Peloponnese
.
From this it can be deduced that the Macedonians,
like the Dorians, were Greeks.
2)
In official documents of Alexander the Great and Philip
V, Macedonia is described as a Greek country; in the first
of them, Alexander represents himself as the avenger of the
evils wrought by the Persians both in Macedonia and in the
rest of Greece; and an ambassador of Philip V classifies the
Macedonians with the Greeks in contradistinction with
‘foreigners’ (αλλοεθνείς) and ‘barbarians’
(βάρβαροι). The
Macedonian kings, although they believed that they had a
different ancestry from their subjects, did not consider
themselves to be ruling outside
Greece
,
or over a people foreign to the Greeks.
In conclusion, the
hypothesis that the Macedonians were Greeks is supported by
all the reliable evidence: the ancient tradition that the
Dorians were descended from a section of the Macedonians;
the view the Macedonian kings held about themselves; and the
testimony of Hellanicos, who lived at the Macedonian court.
All the testimonia that contradict this view are
external and derive either from observers who might have
been mistaken, or from enemies of the Macedonians.
_______________________________
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