ancient Macedonians
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For the full range of meanings of Macedonia, see Macedonia (terminology).
The Ancient Macedonians (Greek: Μακεδόνες, Makedónes) were the inhabitants of Macedon in ancient times. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians, whether they originally spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language, belonged 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, and Macedonians were admitted to the Olympic games, an athletic event that only people of Greek origin were allowed to participate. After the 4th century BCE, the ancient Macedonians were universally considered to be Greek by their contemporaries.
Origins
- Further information: Paleo-Balkans languages
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 regarded by the Greeks as "foreigners" or even "barbarians" - (Britannica, Wilcken, Friedell, Abel, Hammond). That assumption seems to be in agreement with Herodotus' theories regarding the Doric origin of Macednoi, as well as the 5th century Persian characterisation "Yauna Takabara" (Greeks wearing hats).
Rather than a Greek origin, some scholars argue that the ancient Macedonians had an Illyrian or Thracian origin. William M. Ramsey considered the Macedonians as a tribe of Thrace, the land north-east of Greece, akin to the Thracians. One such scholar is Professor George Rawlinson, who stated that the Macedonians were a distinct race, not Paeonian, Illyrian or Thracian, but of the three. According to him their connection was closest with the Illyrians. It is also possible that the ancient Macedonians underwent ethnogenesis syncretizing Greek as well as Illyrian, and Thracian elements (cf. Borza, et al.)
Hellenization in the 5th to 4th centuries
Macedon was heavily Atticized from the time of Alexander the Great (see Hellenism). Moreover, there are indications that there were pan-Hellenic influences in the Macedonian kingdom, and that Macedonians began to be considered as Hellenized from 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. [1]
A series of passages in book five of Herodotus' Histories (5:22) concern the exclusion of Macedonians from panhellenic events such as the Olympic Games. In 480 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 he was finally admitted on these grounds. Alexander apparently remained the only Macedonian participant for a long time. Within the next century, the only others were king Archelaos Perdikas (408 BC) and, another 50 years later, Philip II (356 BC, 352 BC and 348 BC). From the age of Alexander the Great onwards, Macedonian participation in the Olympic Games became common.
Language
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.[2]
References
See also
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