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 P loponn se du IVe au VIIIe si cle 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 can not 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