ANCIENT MACEDONIANS

''For the full range of meanings of ''Macedonia'', see Macedonia (terminology).
The 'Ancient Macedonians' were the inhabitants of Macedon in ancient times. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians, whether they originally spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language, belonged to the Koine Greek speaking population in Hellenistic times. Whether the ancient Macedonians were an ethnically Greek people themselves continues to be debated by historians, linguists, and lay people. However, the Macedonian Royal family known as the Argead dynasty claimed Greek descent, and Macedonians were admitted to the Olympic games, an athletic event that only people of Greek origin were allowed to participate. After the 4th century BCE, the ancient Macedonians were universally considered to be Greek by their contemporaries.

Contents

Origins

Language and writing

Ancient Olympics

References

External links

See also

Origins

Herodotus provides the chief traditions on the origins of the Macedonians: He writes in his first book that the Macedonians were a Greek tribe left behind during the great Dorian invasion:On the origins of the Macedonian Royalty, Herodotus holds a record (8.137) about the youngest of three brothers from Argos, and how he, through his skill in accepting omens, tricked an oppressive monarch out of his kingdom. The story apparently describes the genealogical connection between the Macedonian royal house (or Macedonians in general) and legendary Greek heroes. This theory was widely accepted among the scholars of antiquity.
It is widely suggested today, that Macedonians were originally a Greek tribe that was until the 5th century BC relatively isolated from the bulk of Greek civilization. This is derived from studies on early Macedonian religious, political and cultural traditions which could be safely recognisable as Greek and traced back to Homeric times. During their isolation Macedonians inevitably received Thraco-Illyrian influences and, as in the case of the Aetolians, they were regarded by many Greeks as "foreigners" or even "barbarians". (Britannica, Wilcken, Friedell, Abel, Hammond). That assumption seems to be in agreement with Herodotus' theories regarding the Doric origin of ''Macednoi'', as well as the 5th century Persian characterisation "''Yauna Takabara''" (Greeks wearing hats).
Besides the theory which regards Macedonians as a Greek-speaking tribe (Masson, Hammond), the Macedonians were sometimes spoken of as a tribe of Thrace, the land north-east of Greece, akin to the Thracians (Sir William M. Ramsey). Rather than a Greek origin, some scholars argue that the ancient Macedonians had an Illyrian or Thracian origin. One such scholar is Professor George Rawlinson who states
It is also possible that the ancient Macedonians underwent ethnogenesis syncretizing Greek as well as Illyrian, and Thracian elements (cf. Borza, et al.)
This controversy concerns the early kingdom before the time of Philip II exclusively. It is undisputed that Macedon was heavily Atticized from the time of Alexander the Great (see Hellenism). However there are indications that even during the early kingdom, before the time of King Philip II, there were pan-Hellenic influences in the Macedonian kingdom. King Archelaus established the new capital at Pella, a festival in honor of Zeus at Dion (a city right next to Mt. Olympus), and welcomed Southern Greek intellectuals into the kingdom. Athenian playwriters such as Euripides and Agathon and the famous painter Zeuxis all were influential in the early Kingdom. Euripides wrote his last two tragedies at Archelaus' court. ^[1]
In book eight(8.43.1), Herodotus counts the allied Macedonians as part of the Greek fleet.[2]. Titus Livius (lived 59 BC-14 AD) in his ''Ab urbe condita'' (31.29) is quoting a Macedonian ambassador from the late 3rd century BC, implying that Macedonians had been a Greek-speaking tribe:

Language and writing

Main articles: Ancient Macedonian language

The tongue of the area's inhabitants prior to the 5th century BC is attested in some hundred words from various glosses (mainly those of Hesychius of Alexandria, 5th century AD), as well as placenames (toponyms) and personal names (anthroponyms). The Koine Greek dialect was standardised as the language of formal discourse and official communication by the 4rth century BC.^[2]
Although the vast majority of the attested words can be confidently identified as Greek, there are few words that are not easily identifiable as Greek. Most notably, many words systematically show voiced stops where voiceless aspirates would normally be expected in a Greek dialect, e.g. in Macedonian ''Berenikē'' vs. mainstream Greek ''Pherenikē''. If these words are representative of the Macedonian language, then it had not participated in at least one sound change that is common to every other known Greek dialect and is often regarded by linguists as in fact a defining constitutive criterion of Greek speech. (However, in isolated instances, deviant voiced stops in the place of voiceless aspirates are not unknown in Greek dialects; an example is the contraction '' ''kéblē'' or '' ''keblē'' for the standard '' ''kephalē'', 'head'.)
There is some disagreement about the role of Doric Greek dialect in Macedonia. A number of Doric inscriptions from classical Macedon are known, such as the Pella curse tablet, and it must be remembered that some Greek writers considered the Macedonians akin to Dorians. However, these inscriptions do not display the same phonological features that are thought to have been typical of the "Macedonian" as reconstructed from the lexical evidence. No inscriptions in a non-Greek language with these features have been found. A fragment of a 5th century BC Athenian comedy by the poet Strattis, ''"Macedonians"'', also contains a sentence of apparently dialectal Greek speech that may be meant to represent the speech of a Macedonian. It is therefore disputed whether Doric Greek was just a second language spoken side by side with Macedonian proper by some parts of the population (Borza 1999), or whether Macedonian was itself a variety of Doric Greek, in which the lexical elements with the non-Greek phonological features represented only a layer of alien admixture or a secondary local development (Masson 1996).^[3] Beginning from the 5th century BC, Macedonia became more and more closely associated with southern Greek cultural and political development, resulting in the adoption of the Attic dialect (see Koine Greek).
Historian Nicholas G. L. Hammond also supports that Macedonian was a Greek dialect:
However, historian E Baidan suggests that doubt exists regarding conlusions such as those of Hammmond. Analysis based merely on proper names and nouns numbering no more than a few hundred is not an entirely adequate basis on which to judge comparitive linguistics. It is commonplace for the culturally dominant language to influence nearby languages and be dominant in archeological finds, in this case, the discovered Macedonian words which appear to be related to Greek may represent Hellenized versions of the original. Another possible explanation offered by Arnold Toynbee is that the apparent Greekness of words such as 'Makedonos' may stem from common pre-Indo-European nouns that were later adopted by both the Greek and Macedonian settlers.
Whatever the nature of "Macedonian" proper, Attic (Koiné) Greek was the language of official discourse and public inscriptions used in Macedonia in classical times. All of the over 6000 inscriptions found in Macedonia until now are in Greek.^[4]
As N.G.L. Hammond remarked, in the memorable closing words of volume I of his History of Macedonia, "a means of communications is very far from assuring peaceful relations between two peoples, as we know from our experience of the modern world." It is equally far from betokening any consciousness of a common interest.

Ancient Olympics

A series of passages in book five of Herodotus' ''Histories'' (5:22) are seen by some classical scholars that the Macedonians were customarily excluded from panhellenic events such as the Olympic Games, entry to which apparently was confined to Greeks. In 480 BC, the Macedonian king Alexander I attempted to participate in the Olympic Games, and met with resistance by competitors, who regarded him as a non-Greek. According to Herodotus, Alexander argued that his family was of ultimately Greek ("Argive") descent, and he was finally admitted on these grounds. Some scholars regard this episode as evidence that in fact Macedonians could be regarded as Greeks, while others contend that probably the decision was politically motivated and based more on the alleged mythical ancestry claimed by the king than on a genuine perception as Greeks of the Macedonians as a whole. Alexander apparently remained the only Macedonian participant for a long time. Within the next century, the only others were king Archelaos Perdikas (408 BC) and, another 50 years later, Philip II (356 BC, 352 BC and 348 BC). From the age of Alexander the Great onwards, Macedonian participation in the Olympic Games became common.

References

1. [1]
2. In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon - Eugene N. Borza
3. [3]
4. ''Inscriptiones Graecae, Part X: Inscriptiones Epiri, Macedoniae, Thraciae, Scythiae.'' Multiple vols., Berlin. See Online Epigraphical Database

External links

★ [4] Encyclopedia Britannica: 'Video': Ancient Macedonia: Hellenism in Upper Macedonia

See also

★ Ancient Macedonian language

★ Dorian

★ Lynkestis

★ Ancient Greece

★ List of ancient Macedonians

★ Molossians

★ Chaonians

★ Thesprotians

★ Paionians