Ancient Macedonians

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For the full range of meanings of Macedonia'', see Macedonia (terminology).

The Ancient Macedonians (Μακεδόνες, Makedónes) were an ancient tribe who inhabited the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axius, north of the mountain Olympus in Greece. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians, whether they originally spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language, came to belong 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. Macedonians were originally allowed to the Olympic Games, an athletic event that people only of Greek origin participated. After the 4th century BC, the ancient Macedonians were heavily Atticised.

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:

…for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedonians, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopia having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians.|(Histories, 1.53.1)

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.

During the early kingdom, as in the case of the Aetolians, Macedonians were often regarded by the Greeks to the south as "foreigners" or even "barbarians" - (Britannica, Wilcken, Friedell, Abel, Hammond). That assumption seems to be in disagreement with Herodotus' theories regarding the kinship between the Dorians and the Makednoi, as well as the 5th century Persian characterisation of the Macedonians as "Yauna Takabara" (Greeks wearing hats).

Rather than a Greek origin, some scholars argue that the ancient Macedonians had an Illyrian or Thracian origin. Professor William M. Ramsey considered the Macedonians as a tribe of Thrace, the land north-east of Greece, akin to the Thracians. Another Professor, George Rawlinson, stated that the Macedonians were a mixed race, not Paeonian, Illyrian or Thracian, but of the three, closest with the Illyrians. It is also possible that the ancient Macedonians underwent ethnogenesis syncretizing Greek as well as Thraco-Illyrian elements (cf. Borza, et al.). Though Borza considers them at the same time to have been perhaps proto-Greek.

Atticisation in the 5th to 4th centuries

Macedon was heavily Atticised from the time of Alexander the Great (see Hellenistic Greece). Moreover, there are indications that there were pan-Hellenic influences in the Macedonian kingdom as early as the 5th century BC. 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.

A passage in book five of Herodotus' Histories(5:22) concerns the exclusion of Macedonians from panhellenic events such as the Olympic Games. In 504 or 500 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-Hellene. According to Herodotus, Alexander argued that his family was of ultimately Greek (Argive) descent, and Elean Hellanodikai determined that it is so. Additionally a 5th century BC inscription found in Royal tomb at Vergina shows evidence that Macedonian Kings competed in Argive Heraean games.Other early Macedonian participants are Archelaus (Olympics, Pythians 408 BC) and Philip II (Olympics 356 BC, 352 BC and 348 BC).Amyntas III in 371 BC took also part in a Panhellenic congress ,concerning Amphipolis. From the age of Perdiccas III 365 BC onwards, who served as Theorodokos, Macedonian participation in Panhellenic Games and Festivals became common.(See List of ancient Macedonians#Athletes)

Language

Due to the fragmentary attestation various interpretations are possible. 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 4th century BC.

Ancient Macedonians

Origins

Atticisation in the 5th to 4th centuries

Language

References

See also