From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Confusions...
Date: 15 Sep 92 17:07:14 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <15SEP199210192290@scsuc.ctstateu.edu>, by karageorgiou@scsuc.ctstateu.edu (Voodoo Man : member XMAK):
> 	Also all members of the foreign legion are NOT french.

True, and all members of Philip's Army were not Greek

> So you want more to chew upon. When Philip II conquered (united:-))

I hope the smiley is a cynical one. I doubt if Demosthenes, amongst
others, would have been too impressed by the notion that Philip 'united' the
Greeks, unless it is meant that he did so at the point of a sarissa.
Macedonian kings always had trouble with the Greeks. Remember in 196 BC
Flaminius declared the freedom of Greece at the Isthmian Games and was
mobbed by an overjoyed crowd. Who had they been liberated from? Philip V
of Macedon. Of course it didn't last. The Romans were never very good at
understanding freedom, libertas in Latin doesn't mean liberty as we
understand it, and the end of it all was the razing of Corinth in 146 and
Greece being turned into a Roman province.

> Greece was there any record of his soldiers speaking a different Language ?
> 
I don't think we know a great deal about his troops at all, except they
were stationed at strategic points in Greece such as the Cadmeia of Thebes as a
true army of occupation would be. Thebes is a prime example of a
violently 'unified' Greek town. It was razed to the ground in 335 BC
after the wholesale butchery of its population. It had tried to escape
the Macedonian yoke just after Philip's death - the perpetrator of this
act was Philip's somewhat bloodthirsty son, Alexander. 
> 
> 	The modern Greeks Still call themselves RWMIOI (romans)

Interesting, can any one tell me how common this is? The Vlachs are said to
have a Roman heritage do they use similar terms of themselves?

> [Byzantine] language was Greek and the culture also.

Very true but this culture had changed substantially from the classical
period some 1,000 years in the past. One of the points I keep trying to
make is that times *change*, which is why I still don't think any of
this interesting though it is, has any relevance to the right of present day Macedonians to be called
Macedonians

> Yes the Arabs 
> after they burned the Library of Alexandria

Possibly the biggest act of cultural vandalism the world has ever seen.
Nevertheless we have to admit that the most civilised state in Western
(all?) of Europe in the early middle ages was Al-Andalus in the South of Spain.

> 	Another point. True Macedonians wear black, so do 
> Cretans,Cypriots,Pontians that are definitely Greek. Something to say on that?

So do many 'true' Andalusians, Italians et al. This is a common feature
of Mediterranean life. You seem to imply all these people are Greek.
Goff and Fawcett in their *Macedonia: a plea for the primitive* (sic)
publ. 1921 have a whole chapter on native dress which they describe as
'bright' and 'multi-coloured' and go on to describe white shirts and blouses as
the 
order of the day. Their only illustration shows a woman wearing a white
blouse with a richly embroidered edge. I suspect the wearing of black is
common in Greek Macedonia and that really what you are saying in an
oblique way is that only Greeks can be Macedonians. This isn't true of
course, but at least say it openly.


> One more time ,You are biased.
>
I think you mean "you disagree with me"

Andy