Ancient writers about Macedonia – Herodotus

 

 

•   “Now that the men of this family are Hellenes, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm, is a thing which I can declare on my own knowledge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evident. That they are so has been already adjudged by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at Olympia”

 

Herodotus, The Histories 8.43

 

• “Tell your king who sent you how his Hellenic viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably… ”

 

  Herodotus V, 20, 4

 

• “Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Hellenes, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know”.

 

  Herodotus V, 22, 1

 

• “Xerxes, having so spoken, held his peace. (SS 1.) Whereupon Mardonius took the word, and said: ….I myself have had experience of these men when I marched against them by the orders of thy father; and though I went as far as Macedonia, and came but a little short of reaching Athens itself, yet not a soul ventured to come out against me to battle. … But, notwithstanding that they have so foolish a manner of warfare, yet these Greeks, when I led my army against them to the very borders of Macedonia, did not so much as think of offering me battle.”

 

  Herodotus Book VII

 

• “…but the Dorians on the contrary have been constantly on the move; their home in Deucalion’s reign was Phthiotis and in the reign of Dorus son of Hellen the country known as Histiaeotis in the neighbourhood of Ossa and Olympus; driven from there by the Cadmeians they settled in Pindus and were known as Macedons; thence they migrated to Dryopis, and finally to the Peloponnese, where they got their present name of Dorians.”

 

Herodotus, Book I, 56

 

• “…Three brothers of the lineage of Temenos came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gavganis and Aeropos and Perdikkas, and worked for the king that was there.

When the king learned that when the queen baked the bread of Perdikkas, it doubled its size, than of the the other breads, he considered that as a miracle and ordered the 3 brothers to leave his kingdom. The brothers required their payment. Then the king told them to take the sun as a payment. Gavganis and Aeropos where taken by surprise and the youngest brother, Perdikkas, accepted the offer. He took out his sword, circled it 3 times and took the sun, which he placed in his underarm and left with his brothers…”

 Herodotus VIII,137

 

 “…and that you may tell your king, who sent you, that a Greek, the lord of Macedonia, entertained you royally both with bed and board.”

Herodotus, Book V, 20

 

• “The composition of the fleet was as follows: 16 ships from Lacedaemon, the same number from Corinth as at Artemisium, 15 from Sicyon, 10 from Epidaurus, 5 form Troezen, 3 from Hermione. The people of all these places except Hermione are of Dorian and Macedonian blood, and had last emigrated from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis.”

 

  Herodotus, Book VIII ,43