Modern historians about Macedonia – Thomas R. Martin

 

Philip never achieved his goal of conquering Persia, because he was murdered in 336, before he could begin that quest. It was his son, Alexander the Great (ruled 336–323 b.c.), who astonished the world by making Philip’s dream come true. 

 

 

Alexander’s awe-inspiring conquests reached from Greece to the western border of India and convinced him that he had achieved the status of a god. 

 

 

Alexander died unexpectedly in 323, before he had a mature heir to succeed him as king of Macedonia and without having put into place a permanent restructuring of governance in Greece to suit the new political conditions of the world in the late fourth century b.c.

 

 Thomas R.Martin,“Ancient Greece From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times”  (1996) ,pages 221-223

Modern Historians about Macedonia - John Morris Roberts

 

“The Macedonians spoke Greek and attended Hellenic festivals; their kings claimed to be descented from Greek families- from Achilles, the great Achaean hero of the Iliad, no less.” 

 John.M. Roberts, “A Short History of the World”,Oxford University Press, New York, 1993 ,page 124

 

“Alexander was a passionate Hellene.

He revered the memory of Achilles his supposed ancestor,and carried with him on his campaigns a treasured copy Homer.He had been tutored by Aristotle.”

John.M.Roberts,“A Short History of the World”,Oxford University Press, New York, 1993 ,page 125

Modern Historians about Macedonia - Charles Gates

 

 

 

 Alexander, son of Philip the Macedonian

 

 

 

“Philip II came to power in Macedonia in 359 BC. Althought speaking a dialect of Greek, the Macedonians lay on the fringes of Greek culture and had contributed little to Greek political, socio-economic and artistic life.”

 

 Charles Gates,Ancient Cities:The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome,page 269

“With Alexander’s conquests, West Asia and Egypt were brought into the fold of Greek culture. The newly formed Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic period would be much influenced, however, by the Near Eastern and Egyptian cultures they were now controlling. ”

 

Charles Gates,Ancient Cities:The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome,page 270
 

 

 

 

Bilkent University:Charles Gates received his Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania (1979) and taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining the faculty at Bilkent in 1990. 

His teaching and research interests include Greek archaeology; Cilicia, Cyprus, and the Levant in the first millennium BC; and Byzantine art and archaeology. 

He is the author of Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 2nd edn (London & New York: Routledge, 2011). 

A member of the Kinet Höyük excavation project since 1993, he works primarily on the site's Iron Age and Persian and Hellenistic levels.

 

 

 

 

 

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Alan Fildes

 

Alexander the Great is one of the most celebrated figures of classical  antiquity. 

 

Born in a remote kingdom in northern Greece, as one of several royal sons,Alexander displayed leadership abilities at an early age and carved out a role for himself as heir to the Macedonian throne.Following the death of his father,Philip II,Alexander III secured the whole of Greece and prepared to lead its allied states against the massive Persian empire.

Alan Fildes and Joann Fletcher, Alexander the Great, Son of the Gods, page 6

 

 

Everywhere he went, Alexander founded Greek cities. By the time he died he ruled over the greatest empire the world has ever seen-an empire composed of millions of ethnically diverse peoples were united by a common Greek tongue.

 

 Alan Fildes and Joann Fletcher, Alexander the Great,Son of the Gods,page 7

 

 

Located in the northern extremity of Greece, and cut off from its neighbours by its mountainous terrain, ancient Macedonia’s relative isolation produced a distinctly seperate culture. Although the Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect, worshipped Greek gods and traced their nation’s origins from Olympian gods, their customes and northern Doric accent were markedly different from those of the people of the rest of Greece, who saw the Macedonia as a largely insignificant, backward monarchy, to be looked upon with suspicion, Yet this was the kingdom that produced Alexander the Great, the most powerful ruler Greece would ever know.

 

Alan Fildes and Joann Fletcher, Alexander the Great, Son of the Gods, page 12