Ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians and Megas Alexandros.

[NapoleonMaster]

I would like to ask the EB team about their standing in the matter wether the Macedonians were Greeks or not. I´m very interested in this matter because many historians have various diferent opinions about the true ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians and Megas Alexadros himself so, i would like to know what is the opinion of the EB team and everyone who is interested about this matter.

[Rad]

THEY WERE SLAVS! ALEXANDER THE CONQUEROR WAS A SLAV! Everything you ever did was SLAV!
At least that is what they teach kids in FYRM kek

[wermez]

I remember that in ancient texts there was always distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. I think that they were something between greeks and native 'balkaneros'. But I do not think they are 'Slavs'.

[QuintusSertorius]

Irrespective of what ethnicity Philip I was, Alexandros was half-Illyrian.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Irrespective of what ethnicity Philip I was, Alexandros was half-Illyrian.

Well, only if you deem Epirots to be Illyrians. I think it's rather more common to consider them to be related to the Greeks as far as language is concerned. Olympias wouldn't be then Illyrian (her father was a Molossian) and Alexander wouldn't be half-Illyrian ;-)
Anyway, I think starting a discussion about ethnicities carries many risks, as the readers of Tsardoms Total War threads may witness. Most of us see ethnicities through the lenses of the 19-century nationalisms what is very, very anachnistic. So it's better to abstain from this discussion, I think.

[Brihentin13]

Well, only if you deem Epirots to be Illyrians. I think it's rather more common to consider them to be related to the Greeks as far as language is concerned. Olympias wouldn't be then Illyrian (her father was a Molossian) and Alexander wouldn't be half-Illyrian ;-)
Anyway, I think starting a discussion about ethnicities carries many risks, as the readers of Tsardoms Total War threads may witness. Most of us see ethnicities through the lenses of the 19-century nationalisms what is very, very anachnistic. So it's better to abstain from this discussion, I think.

Avoiding the discussion of ethnicity in order to avoid conflict, to me, seems to let the SJW's win. It is perfectly possible to have a reasonable discussion regarding ethnicity without doing anything wrong to any parties contributing to or reading said discussion. You are however, absolutely correct in your statement that looking at these ethnicities through a lens that is 2000 years separate from the time period we are discussing can produce odd results. To wit, as our main question seems to have been somewhat answered by Quintus's comment, let us try a new one. Gauls! Seeing as there's no such thing as a continental Celt anymore, what would the EB team say is the group closest descended from this bygone people? Would it be the "Celts" as we know them of the British Isles, or do the French have a better claim to this ancestry? Is the use of imagery of Vercingetorix in French nationalism quite a bit of a stretch? Things have changed considerably from the EB timeframe, what with the influx of Romans then Germanic peoples, so I'm curious as to what people more informed on the issue than I would have to say about it.

[phylosopher stoned]

I think I remember reading that the Argeads were possibly originally from Argos, and if the family did manage to keep the bloodline "pure", which is probably unlikely, then Philip could have been a "full-blooded Greek" as well as Alexander. The Macedonians were probably the indigenous people of the area before they were conquered in the Dorian Invasion by the Heracleidae, who probably conquered Argos then some of them probably moved on to conquer other areas, including Macedonia. Notice the use of excessive use of the word "probably". This is all speculation and conjecture, we really can't "know". The indigenous Macedonians were probably one of the Thracian, Illyrian, Phrygian, or maybe even the Pelasgians, or maybe an admixture of all or some other combination of these tribes. There are many theories and some are more accepted now than others have been in the past, and the theories accepted now will probably be debunked or become less accepted as new evidence is found as time goes on. In all reality all of these people are the "Aryan" people, they just speak different languages. We aren't even sure what "Greek" even means. Well, "Greek" is just a name for the language that they speak. So technically Philip and Alexander were "Greek: in the sense that the spoke Greek and worshiped Greek gods.

[QuintusSertorius]

The question is rather moot anyway; in antiquity being Greek wasn't about where you were born or to whom. It was about where you were a citizen of, the language you spoke, the gods you honoured and so on.

One of the earliest heroes mentioned in Homer was Memnon, a Greek from "Aethiopia", south of Egypt. He was black, yet that didn't make him any less Greek.

[gerfand]

WE WUZ...

OK, no kidding anymore, they were Greek, but, its like a Texan compared to someone from New York, they are equal in the racial case, but there some differences in culture

Quisque Est Barbarus Alio. is a good way to look in the pass, the "Eugenics" were actually for nationality... the Persian were barbarians for the greeks, and after the Empire fell and Seleucids rised, they were treated like Barbarians, not because of the way they looked, but bc of Culture and Nationality...

eugenics, in a genetic sense just became a thing at the modern age...

[QuintusSertorius]

Quisque Est Barbarus Alio. is a good way to look in the pass, the "Eugenics" were actually for nationality... the Persian were barbarians for the greeks, and after the Empire fell and Seleucids rised, they were treated like Barbarians, not because of the way they looked, but bc of Culture and Nationality...

Uh, no, everyone who didn't speak Greek was a barbarian - that's the origin of the word. It refers to the way non-fluent speakers made "bar" "bar" sounds.

[paleologos]

The linguistics of the names suggest a very strong relation -to say the least- to the rest of the Greeks.

Olympias is a Greek name -that is to say it has a meaning in the Greek language- and so does Philippos and Alexandros.
Olympias' father was Neoptolemus I of Epirus, Neoptolemus being another name with a meaning in the Greek language and so is their surname Aeacidae.
Other names by which Olympias was known were Polyxena, Myrtale and Stratonike, all of them with a Greek meaning.

The Philippos' surname was Argeiades, indicating the origin of the family from Argos.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If the Peloponnese peninsula at the south of Greece is shaped like a four finger hand, Argos would be the thumb.

The name Makedones is derived from the tribal name Makednoi which would mean something along the lines "the tall ones" or "those who live in the highlands".
The linguistics of ancient Macedonian dialect suggests a relation to the Dorian dialect as do attestations of the history of the Argeiad royal family.
As the Dorians were the last of the Greek tribes to descend into the Aemos peninsula -what is today known as Greece- and the Makednoi the last branch of the Dorian tribe to follow suit when they arrived they found that all the good places were already taken by stronger clans.
So they moved back up north to the area that is today known as Makedonia.

Philippos and Olympias met for the first time in the island of Samothrace during the Kabeirean Mysteria (see Cabeiri) festivities where -according to some sources- she served as a priestess.
With the ancient Greeks being quite elitist -to the point of racism- it is quite unlikely that non Greeks would have been allowed to participate in this very religious mystery cult.


Now, about the dispute I have this to say:

If knowledge is power and politics is about the distribution of power then the power to decide for the people -without the people- which knowledge to teach them and which knowledge to obscure from them is a game changer.
So, no matter how many years pass after the historical event, teaching of it will always be of political significance.
Then we need to decide if we will put more trust in the words and decisions of politicians than the peer review of scholarly works.

Please, do look up the wikipedia article on peer review.

[NosPortatArma]

As far as I know, part of the concept of "being greek" included to live as a citizen in a polis, but the northern part of hellas, makedonia and epiros, lagged behind in this regard, and were still organised in a more archaic manner, with kings and clans, as back in homer's time. To the "more civilized" southern greeks, the northern greeks were clearly more "barbaric", but they were still mostly considered greeks since they fulfilled the other criteria of language, religion and were allowed into the olympic games. Of course the northern greeks always thought of themselves as greek.

[Cohors_Evocata]

Avoiding the discussion of ethnicity in order to avoid conflict, to me, seems to let the SJW's win. It is perfectly possible to have a reasonable discussion regarding ethnicity without doing anything wrong to any parties contributing to or reading said discussion. You are however, absolutely correct in your statement that looking at these ethnicities through a lens that is 2000 years separate from the time period we are discussing can produce odd results. To wit, as our main question seems to have been somewhat answered by Quintus's comment, let us try a new one. Gauls! Seeing as there's no such thing as a continental Celt anymore, what would the EB team say is the group closest descended from this bygone people? Would it be the "Celts" as we know them of the British Isles, or do the French have a better claim to this ancestry? Is the use of imagery of Vercingetorix in French nationalism quite a bit of a stretch? Things have changed considerably from the EB timeframe, what with the influx of Romans then Germanic peoples, so I'm curious as to what people more informed on the issue than I would have to say about it.

Eh? How do SJW's factor in this discussion?

As for the closest descendants of the Gauls, I'd assume the people of modern-day France in terms of genetics? My issue with this viewpoint is that "Celts" and "Germanics" are linguistic markers, at times associated with certain archaeological cultures. Genetics can offer an insight in how populations developed, but are, in terms of ethnicity, largely meaningless (at least IMO). The Gauls aren't gone because they left no descendants, but because their language died out in late Antiquity and their culture gradually changed beyond being recognisably Gaulish. Most importantly, at some point people stopped seeing themselves as Gauls. And that's not even touching on whether those people even would have identified themselves as Gauls, with a sense of kinship with peoples of other tribes.

Using Vercingetorix as a French national symbol runs into the same issue as using e.g. Arminius as a German one. Neither fought to liberate a political entity that can be identified with the modern-day nations they have become attached with. Both led a coalition of allied tribes, not a monolithic ethnic state and both came from tribal entities that had basically disappeared as groups to be identified with before either country got its taste of nationalism. Tracing a direct line between them and the modern day dangerously ignores a lot of developments that have taken place in the past 2000 years.

Anyhow, here's an article on the matter of post-Roman British genetics, with the original study linked below.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35344663
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160...8.html#results

[Roma_Victrix]

I remember that in ancient texts there was always distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. I think that they were something between greeks and native 'balkaneros'. But I do not think they are 'Slavs'.

Well yeah, of course they weren't Slavs. Early Slavs didn't arrive into the southern Balkans until centuries later, during the late Roman Empire and the Migration Period (c. 5th century AD). And for that matter the original inhabitants of what is now the "Republic of Macedonia" were the Dardani, a people who modern scholarship is still uncertain about in terms of speaking either a native Illyrian or Thracian language. It's certainly one of the two, not a Slavic one.

Well, only if you deem Epirots to be Illyrians. I think it's rather more common to consider them to be related to the Greeks as far as language is concerned. Olympias wouldn't be then Illyrian (her father was a Molossian) and Alexander wouldn't be half-Illyrian ;-)

The Illyrians were within the Epirote orbit of influence, but that hardly means these were the same peoples speaking the same languages. We shouldn't be relying on the rhetoric of polemic Athenians like Demosthenes for determining the ethnicity of his detractors such as Philip II, who was conveniently a "barbarian" despite him speaking Greek, worshiping Greek gods, engaging in Pan-Hellenic events like the Olympic Games and religious cult festivals of the Heraion sanctuary at Samos, etc. We should instead rely more on archaeological data for piecing together an identity suitable for the standards of modern cultural anthropology. Basically, the Macedonians were Greek hicks/hillbillies who still performed outdated Homeric rituals and burial practices, yet they were as Greek as any Epirote, Cypriot, Cretan, Ionian, etc. With archaeological finds such as the Pella Curse Tablet, we now know that, in addition to adopting Attic and then Koine Greek as their universal language, they also had a regional native language that was arguably just a Doric dialect of Greek.

On a closing note, I find it funny that this debate continues despite the fact that virtually all of our ancient sources claiming that the contemporaneous Macedonians were non-Greek barbarians are exclusively Athenian and hail from a very specific time frame. No one in the Roman period, for instance, differentiated between Macedonians and other Greeks.

[Rad]

I remember that in ancient texts there was always distinction between Macedonians and Greeks. I think that they were something between greeks and native 'balkaneros'. But I do not think they are 'Slavs'.

Of course they weren't Slavs lol. That doesn't stop some idiots in FYRM from saying that they were, lol.

[alex33]

Avoiding the discussion of ethnicity in order to avoid conflict, to me, seems to let the SJW's win. It is perfectly possible to have a reasonable discussion regarding ethnicity without doing anything wrong to any parties contributing to or reading said discussion. You are however, absolutely correct in your statement that looking at these ethnicities through a lens that is 2000 years separate from the time period we are discussing can produce odd results. To wit, as our main question seems to have been somewhat answered by Quintus's comment, let us try a new one. Gauls! Seeing as there's no such thing as a continental Celt anymore, what would the EB team say is the group closest descended from this bygone people? Would it be the "Celts" as we know them of the British Isles, or do the French have a better claim to this ancestry? Is the use of imagery of Vercingetorix in French nationalism quite a bit of a stretch? Things have changed considerably from the EB timeframe, what with the influx of Romans then Germanic peoples, so I'm curious as to what people more informed on the issue than I would have to say about it.

SJW is the worst modern "term" i've ever heard. I cringe everytime i read it.

I think it won't really matter to the greeks. all other people were non-greeks even if the macedonians were greeks with a funny accent.
(the same way we austrians see germans even tho we central-europeans look pretty much all the same)

[Brihentin13]

Eh? How do SJW's factor in this discussion?

As for the closest descendants of the Gauls, I'd assume the people of modern-day France in terms of genetics? My issue with this viewpoint is that "Celts" and "Germanics" are linguistic markers, at times associated with certain archaeological cultures. Genetics can offer an insight in how populations developed, but are, in terms of ethnicity, largely meaningless (at least IMO). The Gauls aren't gone because they left no descendants, but because their language died out in late Antiquity and their culture gradually changed beyond being recognisably Gaulish. Most importantly, at some point people stopped seeing themselves as Gauls. And that's not even touching on whether those people even would have identified themselves as Gauls, with a sense of kinship with peoples of other tribes.

Using Vercingetorix as a French national symbol runs into the same issue as using e.g. Arminius as a German one. Neither fought to liberate a political entity that can be identified with the modern-day nations they have become attached with. Both led a coalition of allied tribes, not a monolithic ethnic state and both came from tribal entities that had basically disappeared as groups to be identified with before either country got its taste of nationalism. Tracing a direct line between them and the modern day dangerously ignores a lot of developments that have taken place in the past 2000 years.

Anyhow, here's an article on the matter of post-Roman British genetics, with the original study linked below.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35344663
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160...8.html#results

I made my comments regarding SJW's meaning that the urge to shy away from discussions of ethnicity because it might lead to some uncomfortable discussion is a very "social justice" thing to. I think we're all better than that here. As mature adults, we can have reasonable discourse without people instantly getting butthurt. Back on topic, thank you for your links and insight. Should make for some interesting reading!

[Abdülmecid I]

On a closing note, I find it funny that this debate continues despite the fact that virtually all of our ancient sources claiming that the contemporaneous Macedonians were non-Greek barbarians are exclusively Athenian and hail from a very specific time frame. No one in the Roman period, for instance, differentiated between Macedonians and other Greeks.

I disagree, because I think, when it comes to studying how ancient Greeks viewed the Macedonians, it is very important to make the distinction between the royal dynasty and the rest of the Macedonian population. As it has been mentioned, the Argeads claimed that they originated from Argos, a story of really doubtful credibility, as it looks like the classical example of Hellenic nobility inventing a largely fictious lineage linking them with an illustrious hero of the Golden Age, but that hardly matters. However, based on that pedigree, they successfully argued that they could be identified as Greeks, in contrast to the rest of the Macedonians. The most typical example of that attitude is Herodotus' famous passage about Alexander I participating in the Olympic games, towards which many nationalists, inspired from the name dispute, point, without realizing that it actually undermines their position.

Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know and will prove it in the later part of my history. Furthermore, the Hellenodicae who manage the contest at Olympia determined that it is so, for when Alexander chose to contend and entered the lists for that purpose, the Greeks who were to run against him wanted to bar him from the race, saying that the contest should be for Greeks and not for foreigners. Alexander, however, proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek. He accordingly competed in the furlong race and tied step for first place. This, then, is approximately what happened.

Here, both Herodotus and the Hellanodicae, neither of whom were Athenians or had an axe to grind against Philip's II foreign policy, clearly state that the king gained the privilege to become an Olympic athlete, by persuading the judges of being descended from Argos, essentially unlike his countrymen. Even Isocrates, the famous Athenian orator and the greatest fan of Philip, clearly differentiates between the royal dynasty and the Macedonians, whom he locates somewhere between the Greeks and the barbarians. Given that ethnicity, in the Antiquity, was determined by culture and not genetics, Isocrates' description probably reflects the popular perception among the Greeks. Apparently, even the lower strata of the Macedonian society spoke a Doric dialect, but continuous contact with the Thracians, Illyrians and, even slightly the Achaemenids, had influenced their everyday life and artistic production. The trend was probably reversed, due to the increasing prosperity of the Greek city-states, which, as usual, led initially the aristocracy to be gradually hellenized. The Roman conquest probably facilitated this slow transformation, instead of obstructing it, until the Macedonians and the Greeks became indistinguishable.

[Roma_Victrix]

I disagree, because I think, when it comes to studying how ancient Greeks viewed the Macedonians, it is very important to make the distinction between the royal dynasty and the rest of the Macedonian population. As it has been mentioned, the Argeads claimed that they originated from Argos, a story of really doubtful credibility, as it looks like the classical example of Hellenic nobility inventing a largely fictious lineage linking them with an illustrious hero of the Golden Age, but that hardly matters. However, based on that pedigree, they successfully argued that they could be identified as Greeks, in contrast to the rest of the Macedonians. The most typical example of that attitude is Herodotus' famous passage about Alexander I participating in the Olympic games, towards which many nationalists, inspired from the name dispute, point, without realizing that it actually undermines their position.

Here, both Herodotus and the Hellanodicae, neither of whom were Athenians or had an axe to grind against Philip's II foreign policy, clearly state that the king gained the privilege to become an Olympic athlete, by persuading the judges of being descended from Argos, essentially unlike his countrymen.

Okay, so maybe it's not an exclusively Athenian claim, yet Herodotus doesn't make a strong confirmation here that the Macedonians weren't considered Greeks. This seems more like a subtle suggestion from an anecdotal example. For that matter, this is the very same Herodotus who included Macedonia in the Dorian homeland and claimed that the Dorians were also referred to as Makednon, after the alleged eponymous progenitor of the ancient Macedonian people. He also grouped several major Greek tribes under the Macedonians.

Even Isocrates, the famous Athenian orator and the greatest fan of Philip, clearly differentiates between the royal dynasty and the Macedonians, whom he locates somewhere between the Greeks and the barbarians.

A fan of Philip, yes, but yet another Athenian, so his example at least does not contradict my point about Athenians having the sole view about Macedonians' non-Greek identity. In fact, it's not even my point, it's an assertion made by Malcolm Errington (1990), who knows a bit more about the subject than you or I.

Given that ethnicity, in the Antiquity, was determined by culture and not genetics, Isocrates' description probably reflects the popular perception among the Greeks. Apparently, even the lower strata of the Macedonian society spoke a Doric dialect, but continuous contact with the Thracians, Illyrians and, even slightly the Achaemenids, had influenced their everyday life and artistic production. The trend was probably reversed, due to the increasing prosperity of the Greek city-states, which, as usual, led initially the aristocracy to be gradually hellenized. The Roman conquest probably facilitated this slow transformation, instead of obstructing it, until the Macedonians and the Greeks became indistinguishable.

Interesting argument, and somewhat backed by research into ancient Macedonian linguistic studies where even strong supporters of the Doric tongue theory, like Hatzopoulos, admit that there was a clear influence from Thracian, Illyrian, and even the Phrygian language on Macedonian Greek. The extent of this influence is debatable, though. It is also undeniable that the Macedonian people partook in the same dining habits (symposia) as the Greeks, the same religious festivals, holidays, and games as the Greeks, worshiped the same gods as the Greeks, followed similar standards of warfare as other Greeks (with the addition of the phalanx innovation), built cities and temples in the Greek fashion and without any divergence from Greek trends in architecture, and to my knowledge produced artwork in the same vein as other Greeks, especially in regards to ceramics. The tradition of painted murals and frescoes seems to be even richer in Macedonia than in other parts of Greece, or perhaps this is just a consequence of better preservation.

As far as cultural anthropology is concerned, the ancient Macedonians were Greeks, but according to convenient contemporaneous politics of Demosthenes who wished to rally his fellow Athenians against the Kingdom of Macedonia, the Macedonians were non-Greeks. How convenient! The argument that they were non-Greeks because at one time they were under the sway of the Achaemenid Empire is also a dubious one, considering how no one questions the Greek identity of the Ionians who revolted against Achaemenid rule. Again, this strikes me as being a purely political argument, not a cultural one at all. If this was based on culture, then the hypothesis that they were Greeks would win resoundingly simply by observing the tombs of the Macedonians.

[clone]

The question is rather moot anyway; in antiquity being Greek wasn't about where you were born or to whom. It was about where you were a citizen of, the language you spoke, the gods you honoured and so on.

One of the earliest heroes mentioned in Homer was Memnon, a Greek from "Aethiopia", south of Egypt. He was black, yet that didn't make him any less Greek.

the point point is that he wasnt greek . how an ethiopian can be greek? the fact that he is the hero in a greek epic doest make him greek specialy in one names ethiopis