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Before Alexander: Constructing early Macedonia (Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians)

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This paper seeks to illuminate the problems associated with determining the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians (were
they Greek?), and to discuss the "reverberations" (to use the organizers' term) of that issue in modem times. While the
1971 OED may regard the use of the word "ethnicity" as obsolete, no adequate substitute for the word exists. Indeed,
part of the discussion in my paper will, following the lead of Loring Danforth in his recent The Macedonian Conflict.-
Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton 1995), attempt to illustrate some principles by which the "ethnicity"
of the ancient Macedonians--and, perhaps, other ancient peoples--can be discussed in a coherent manner.

Among the questions asked as appropriate to a methodological model of determining ethnicity are:

I. What were a people's origins and what language did they speak? From the surviving literary sources(Hesiod, Herodotus, and Thucydides) there is little information about Macedonian origins, and the archaeological data from the early period is sparse and inconclusive. On the matter of language, and despite attempts to make Macedonian a dialect of Greek, one must accept the conclusion of the linguist R. A. Crossland in the recent CAH, that an insufficient amount of Macedonian has survived to know what language it was. But it is clear from later sources that Macedonian and Greek were mutually unintelligible in the court of Alexander the Great. Moreover, the presence in Macedonia of inscriptions written in Greek is no more proof that the Macedonians were Greek than, e.g., the existence of Greek inscriptions on Thracian vessels and coins proves that the Thracians were Greeks.

II. Self-identity: what did the Macedonians say or think about themselves? Virtually nothing has survived from the Macedonians themselves (they are among the silent peoples of antiquity), and very little remains in the Classical and Hellenistic non-Macedonian sources about Macedonian attitudes.

III. What did others say about the Macedonians? Here there is a relative abundance of information from Arrian, Plutarch (Alexander, Eumenes), Diodorus 17-20, Justin, Curtius Rufus, and Nepos (Eumenes), based upon Greek and Greek-derived Latin sources. It is clear that over a five-century span of writing in two languages representing a variety of historiographical and philosophical positions the ancient writers regarded the Greeks and Macedonians as two separate and distinct peoples whose relationship was marked by considerable antipathy, if not outright hostility.

IV. What is the nature of cultural expressions as revealed by archaeology? As above we are blessed with an increasing amount of physical evidence revealing information about Macedonian tastes in art and decoration, religion, political and economic institutions, architecture and settlement patterns. Clearly the Macedonians were in many respects Hellenized, especially on the upper levels of their society, as demonstrated by the excavations of Greek archaeologists over the past two decades. Yet there is much that is different, e. g., their political institutions, burial practices, and religious monuments.

I will argue that, whoever the Macedonians were, they emerged as a people distinct from the Greeks who lived to the
south and east. In time their royal court--which probably did not have Greek origins (the tradition in Herodotus that the
Macedonian kings were descended from Argos is probably a piece of Macedonian royal propaganda)--became Hellenized in many respects, and I shall review the influence of mainstream Greek culture on architecture, art, and literary preferences.

Finally, a took at contemporary Balkan politics. The Greek government firmly maintains that the ancient Macedonians
were ethnic Greeks, and that any claim by the new Republic of Macedonia (The Former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia) to the name "Macedonia" and the symbols of ancient Macedonia is tantamount to an expropriation of Greek history. Moreover, it is claimed that there is no such thing as a distinct Slavic Macedonian identity and language separate
from Bulgaria and Serbia.

I shall review the evidence for the existence of a modern Macedonian ethnicity with reference to my recent work in a
Macedonian ethnic community in Steelton, Pennsylvania. Both the gravestones in a local cemetery and U.S. census reports from the early twentieth century provide evidence that emigres from Macedonia who lived and died in Steelton in the early
twentieth century considered themselves to be distinct from their Serbian and Bulgarian neighbors.

First of all the review "written by Mr Borza" below is fake . Mr Borza hasent got an acount in Amazon.
It is true that Eugene Borza was skeptic about the origin of the ancient macedonians. He never ofcourse linked the anceint macedonains with the modern Slav-macedonains!
"Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions--mostly émi-grés in the United States, Canada, and Australia--even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity."
"Macedonia Redux", Eugene N. Borza, The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Frances B. Titchener and Richard F. Moorton, Jr., editors
But in his "Makedonika" Mr Borza clearly states:
Eugene N. Borza, `Makedonika'
Regina Books, Claremont CA
"Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "HIGHLANDERS" or "MAKEDONES" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia ARE DERIVED FROM NORTHWEST GREEK STOCK; THEY WERE AKIN BOTH TO THOSE WHO AT AN EARLIER TIME MAY HAVE MIGRATED SOUTH TO BECOME THE HISTORICAL "DORIANS", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that NORTHWEST GREECE PROVIDED A POOL OF INDO-EUROPEAN SPEAKERS OF PROTO-GREEK from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country."
"First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments)that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable."
I belive that all the above are enough to stop the propagandists from Slavic/Macedonia

No matter how much understanding we have for the members of the Greek ethnicity, Mr. Borza's views of the Ancient Macedonia and Macedonians are true! Revolutions change the course of things, Mr. Borza's works are a revolution in the studies, especially about the history of Ancient Macedonia, which, before Mr. Borza's emergence, were tendenciously included in the Hellenism. And, for the invention of Hellenism and the "fact" that the Ancient Macedonians were Greeks, the inhabitants of present-day Greece, who think this way, should errect a monument (statue) to the German historian Dreusen. Without him, the truth about the Ancient Macedonians would have been very different than it is. Mr. Borza knows that the best. It remains for the others to accept that themselves.

Mr. Borza, I think the questions that Puffy posed were excellent, and I don't think they can be answered if one is trying to put forth the notion that Macedonians were not ethnically Greek. The Ancient Macedonians were a Greek people, with Greek names, Greek writings, worshipped the Greek pantheon, took part in the Olympic Games (which were not open to non-Greeks in ancient times). The claim of the peoples of the Former Yugoslavian Republic historically crumbles. In Alexander's time, the slavic people were not in the Balkans--all historians with any sense of neutrality and scholastic aptitude place their migration and push into the peninsula no earlier than the fifth century AD, with groups like the Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Pechenegs, and others coming into lands that had for thousands of years carried and maintained a distinctly Hellenic identity. The Ancient Macedonians, like Alexandros, would have had no problem understanding Aristotle and the great teachers of city-state Greece, he would not have been able to understand the slavic language of the Former Yugoslavian Republic. The Slavic tongue didn't even have a written alphabet until two Byzantine Greek saints, Kyrillos and Methodios, the Apostles to the Slavs, created an alphabet based on the Greek alphabet. It is historically illustrated that he did not write like them, he didn't even say his OWN NAME the way they call him today. One can sympathize with a migratory people, who, having settled in the valley that many today call the "Vardar", (infact, Tito had initially wanted to call his country Vardar, and did if I'm not mistaken until he sought to lay claims to the cities of Thessalonike and others, wishing to get to the Aegean), sought to make a history by usurping the history of the lands which they had invaded, and that's the simple truth. They came to these lands almost A THOUSAND YEARS, ALMOST ONE THOUSAND YEARS AFTER ALEXANDROS' DEATH. This is an incredulous claim, one that any honest student of history and historiography, cannot BUT REJECT. A Chinese people migrating to France cannot pluck out that corner of France a few hundred years later and say that Lyons was always Chinese!!! It's ridiculous!

Mr Borza, If Macedonians weren't Greek as you state over and over again, Why did they all have Greek names? Why did they worship Greek gods? Why did Alexandros promote hellenistic culture around the world? Why are Greek inscriptions on ancient Macedonian artifacts? Mr Borza, can you answer my questions?

To Puffy - While I am not Dr. Borza and can only hope to someday attain even a portion of his knowledge on Macedonian and Greek history, I think I can answer your questions in one phrase or two.

First of all, Macedonians did not have 'Greek' names, they had Macedonian names. There are, as always, exceptions to this rule, which doesn't need to be debated to death here. Alexandros, Philippos, Ptolemy, etc. are Macedonian, not Attic, not Spartan, not Theban. Macedonian.

And to finish the other questions, because Hellenism of either the Attic or Spartan systems of government and culture had become the 'ideal', much as Rome would become centuries later. Macedonians wished to be *thought* of as equal to their southern neighbors, therefore, adapt to their rather hoity-toity neighbors ideals. Easier to make friends and conquer if needs be if you understand your enemy or neighbor (whichever you prefer them to be). Philip understood this VERY well, as did the Romans. Macedonians were not Greek. In fact, they probably would have been highly offended, for the most part, at being referred to as Greek.