From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.europe
Subject: Re: Scopjian Flag
Date: 22 Nov 92 16:32:23 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <By1C3v.M5A@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, by varnavas@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (varnavas constantine):
> 
> 1) Thucidedes called the Macedonians barbarians, when he was arguing
> AGAINST Philip.

I think Demosthenes, but this is unimportant. Why would a skilled orator
use an argument which if we take the Greek revisionist line in history
would be ridiculous and lay him widw open to attack by PhiloMacedonians?
Demosthenes was cleverer than that.

> 2) Isocrates did not call them Greeks (but he did not call them
> barbarians either).

Read the speech to Philip carefully. We are told that Macedonia lies
outside the land of Greece, natural implication it's barbarian. We are
told that Perdiccas seeks a kingdom there because he knows that while
Greeks can't tolerate kings, all the other races need a king.
Isocrates wants to portray Perdiccas as a successful king. Being wise he
goes to the area where he will be a successful king, Macedonia. It
follows this must be inhabited by non-Greeks. Hence unlike other Greek
kings, through his insight (namely about Greeks disliking kings and
non-Greeks needing them) he alone of Greek kings didn't rule over a
related/kindred/ what word you want to use for omophulos race - namely
Greeks. The implication of the passage is crystal-clear. Isocrates
portrays Perdiccas and his successors as Greeks ruling over barbarians -
these barbarians are the Macedonians.


> 3) Alexander claimed Greekness for himself but not for his people
> as a whole.
True
> 4) The tombs of the Macedonians were different from Greek ones.
True
> 5) The social structure of the Macedonian kingdom was different than
> most Greek states.
True
> 6) ? (Am I missing anything else?)

Think this is enough. 


> Sorry, but none of these facts is proof that Macedonians were not Greeks.
> At best, they are INDICATIONS.

Indeed as I've said I doubt if there's 100% proof on anything in ancient
history. But the Greek revisionist position has even weaker indications
to go on. Hence the balaence of evidence when looked out with
preconceptions leads us to the view the Macedonians weren't Greek.



  Instead of trying to refute your interpretation of these facts I
will raise some questions which (I think)  indicate that the
Macedonians were Greeks.  After all, like a detective, you have to
look at the WHOLE picture if you want to make a good case. 

It would be nice to have it, but we always see through a glass darkly
when looking at antiquity.

 > To grab on
some reference from a historian as a proof for your theory is, at the
least, naive.

>1) If the Macedonian language was not Greek, why was
>that there are no  written documents in this language?

This isn't difficult. Macedonian may not have been a literary language.
Think about Celtic in the Western Roman Empire. We know the majority of
inhabitants spoke it, but not one celtic inscription has been found in
Roman Britain. Red Indian languages in America are the same I think. So
the lack of records isn't good proof, arguments from silence rarely are.

> On the other
hand, there are numerous samples of Greek writings in coins etc.  in
Macedonia.

Think of the Western Roman Empire again. Latin is used here for
prestige. Greek was so used in Macedonia. Perhaps the diversity of
dialects on inscriptions there is evidence of it not being the native
tongue. If it was we might expect a homogenous dialect here. BTW Latin
is still used for prestige purposes on British coins. I reckon less than
0.00001% of our population can speak it.

  > 2) How come the names of all Macedonian men (at least the
ones that I  know) have Greek origin? The same with the word Macedon
itself.   Fil-ippos  Alex-andros  Aristo-telhs > etc.   Isn't it
weird for some people to call themselves in another language? 

Not really as I've said my names are Greek, Hebrew, and French and I'm
English. The Jewish diaspora went in for this a lot in antquity too. The
West Roman Empire provides stacks of examples of nonRomans wanting to
take Roman names - the emperor Claudius was so worried about this he
made the practice illegal, but sadly this didn't stop it. One
big problem of course is that our sample is inevitably skewed towards
the rich who would be most susceptible to the adoption of foreign names
for reasons of prestige. It would be very interesting to know about the
nomenclature of a good sample of Macedonian peasants

> 3) Since Alexander was Greek, isn't it strange that his people weren't? 

Plenty of modern monarchies are racially different from their subjects.
The House of Windsor (alas for the castle, I hope you had a chance to
see it before it burnt down).

> Afterall wouldn't they revolt against the oppressing Greek dynasty?
> Is there any evidence to show that the Argeads conquered the
Macedonians?

You're right the phenomenon is odd in the ancient context, though
various Hellenistic monarchs pulled it off of course.  The oddity ought
to make us look at the Argead claim.  We find it's just the same as many
other false geneaological claims to Greekness. In other words the
balence of our available evidence should lead us to reject it just as
emosthenes and Appian did.

 >
>And why did Alexander wanted to participate in the Olympic games in the
> first place? 

Because being a Greek comanded prestige, no doubt about that. The
problem is of course that many people who aren't qualified then
naturally want to join the club. The king of the Lyncestae was another.

> 4) How come there are so many Greek educated
>Macedonians (Aristotel comes to mind) with so many significant
>contributions to the Greek civilization? 

As Dick Wallace has pointed out Aristotle was a Stagiran and Stagira did
not regard itself as part of Macedonia. Can't think of any Macedonians
who fit into this category, though I'm always open to suggestions.



> 5) How come the Macedonians had the same religion as the Greeks? 

Well not all the Gods are the same as Tarn in his book on Antigonas
Gonatas points out. The big problem here is that our sources are Greek.
Classical writers often syncretise native gods to make them
comprehensible to their readership and omitt the native names
altogether. Tacitus is a good example, in the Germania he says that the
Germans worship Mercury and Hercules with no gloss. Of course these gods
are Odin and Thor, but Tacitus presents them purely as classical gods,
this leaves us with a massive proplem of interpretation over Macedonian religion.

> 6) Where did the Macedonians come from if they were not Greeks?

Search me! Same place as Illyrians, Thracians and proto-Greeks or
Indo-Eurpoeans in general I suppose.


>before you make (or adopt) a theory > for the non-Greekness of
>Macedonia, look at the whole picture first. 

Always happy to look at evidence, that's how I reached my position which
has no political axe to grind, after all I'm neither Greek nor a citizen
of the Republic of Macedonia. However I still feel on the evidence we
have we must conclude that the ancient Macedonians were not Greek. Does it
really matter? They've been gone 2 milennia. There are more interesting
things to say about them than dispute their ancestry. What a tragedy
modern politics has stuck its nose in here.


Andy