Some facts on Macedonians being exclusively Greek: 

 misappropriation . . . .  of Alexander the Great:  More recently even Alexander’s 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 conqueror’s legacy.” 
 
 called Paionia in antiquity:  The geographic situation is made clear by Livy’s 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. 
 

 
 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 580’s, see Anna Avramea, Le Péloponnèse du IVe au VIIIe siècle, 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 Olympian Zeus on the front and Philip’s 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 Philip’s 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 Aristotle’s 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