Modern historians about Macedonia – Adrian Goldsworthy

 

Philip and Alexander of Macedon transformed a weak kingdom in northern Greece into a globe-spanning empire. In so doing, they changed the course of history.

By the end of his short life, Alexander the Great had eclipsed the power of Persia, crossed the Hindu Kush and marched into what is now Pakistan, redrawing the map of the ancient world to create an empire that stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indian subcontinent.

But his success was not just the product of his own genius and restless energy, it was built on decades of effort by his father. History has portrayed Philip II of Macedon as an old man, one-eyed and limping, whose convenient assassination allowed Alexander the Great to come to power.

However, there was far more to him than this. Through decades of hard fighting and clever diplomacy, Philip unified his country and conquered Greece. His son inherited all of this at the perfect moment and age for him to chance his luck and win greater glory.

Between them, Philip and Alexander played a key role in spreading Greek language and culture over a vast area, the consequences of which were many and profound, for it led to the New Testament being written in Greek, and a Greek-speaking 'Roman' empire surviving in the eastern Mediterranean for a thousand years after the last emperor to rule from Italy.

As authoritative as it is accessible, Philip and Alexander is the latest in a much-praised sequence of essential ancient histories from Adrian Goldsworthy; it is the work of a master historian at the peak of his powers.

Adrian Goldsworthy,Philip and Alexander - Kings and Conquerors

Ancient writers about Macedonia - Pausanias

✍️ Ἀμφι­κτύ­ο­νες οἱ ἐπ᾽ ἐμοῦ τριά­κον­τα ἀριθ­μῷ ἦσαν

ἐκ Νικο­πό­λε­ως μέν καί Μακε­δο­νί­ας τε καί Θεσ­σα­λῶν, ἀπό ἑκά­στων ἀριθ­μῷ ἦσαν ἐκ δέ Βοιω­τῶν,Θεσ­σα­λί­αν γάρ καί οὗ­τοι τά ἀρ­χαιό­τε­ρα ᾤκη­σαν καί Αἰο­λεῖς τη­νι­καῦ­τα ἐκα­λοῦν­το καί ἐκ Φωκέ­ων τε καί Δελ­φῶν, παρά τού­των δύο ἑκά­στων: εἷς δ’ ἐκ Δωρί­δος τῆς ἀρ­χαί­ας.

Παυσανίας,Ελλάδος Περιήγησις,10.8.4

✍️The Amphictyons to-day number thirty.

Nicopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly each send six deputies; the Boeotians, who in more ancient days inhabited Thessaly and were then called Aeolians, the Phocians and the Delphians, each send two; ancient Doris sends one.

Pausanias,Description of Greece,10.8.4

✍️ προσέθεσαν δέ ὕστερον καί συνωρίδα πώλων καί πῶλον κέλητα: ἐπί μέν δὴ τῇ συνωρίδι Βελιστίχην ἐκ Μακεδονίας τῆς ἐπί θαλάσσῃ γυναῖκα, Τληπόλεμον δέ Λύκιον ἀναγορευθῆναι λέγουσιν ἐπί τῷ κέλητι, τοῦτον μέν ἐπί τῆς πρώτης καί τριακοστῆς τε καί ἑκατοστῆς Ὀλυμπιάδος, τῆς δέ Βελιστίχης τήν συνωρίδα Ὀλυμπιάδι πρό ταύτης τρίτῃ. πέμπτῃ δέ ἐπί ταῖς τεσσαράκοντα καί ἑκατόν ἆθλα ἐτέθη παγκρατίου παισί, καί ἐνίκα Φαίδιμος Αἰολεύς ἐκ πόλεως Τρῳάδος.

 

Παυσανίας, Ελλάδος Περιήγησις, 5.8.11

 

✍️Afterwards they added races for chariots and pairs of foals, and for single foals with rider. It is said that the victors proclaimed were: for the chariot and pair, Belistiche, a woman from the seaboard of Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemus of Lycia.

 

Tlepolemus, they say, won at the hundred and thirty-first Festival, and Belistiche at the third before this. At the hundred and forty-fifth Festival prizes were offered for boys in the pancratium, the victory falling to Phaedimus, an Aeolian from the city Troas.

 

Pausanias, Description of Greece,5.8.11

Ancient writers about Macedonia -Thucydides

 

✍️τήν δέ παρά θάλασσαν νῦν Μακεδονίαν Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Περδίκκου πατήρ καί οἱ πρόγονοι αὐτοῦ, Τημενίδαι τό ἀρχαῖον ὄντες ἐξ Ἄργους, πρῶτοι ἐκτήσαντο καί ἐβασίλευσαν.

Θουκυδίδου Ιστορίαι Β΄, 99.3

✍️ The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos.

Thucydides,Histories,Book 2, Chapter 99.3

📌 Significance of the passage

This passage is absolutely clear and historically crucial because:

•Thucydides explicitly states that Macedonia was already known by this name.

•It documents the Greek origin of the Macedonian royal dynasty, identifying it as Temenid, originating from Argos.

•It directly links Alexander I, Perdiccas, and their ancestors with the Greek world.

Thucydides,History of the Peloponnesian War

Modern historians about Macedonia – Ernst Badian

 

“Philip II, at least from the time of his victory over Phocis,Athens, and their allies in 346, prepared to proclaim himself the champion of a United Greece against the barbarians”

Ernst Badian,“The Cambringe history of Iran”,Volume 2,page 421 

In autumn 338 Philip won the battle of Chaeronea against Thebes and Athens, With no one left who could hopeto resist him, he settled matters throughout Greece and the next year united the Greeks ( except for Sparta) in a common peace and alliance, leaving him (as commander – in – chief) in effective control.

Ernst Badian,“The Cambringe history of Iran”,Volume 2,page 422

Νίκολας Χάμοντ:Μέγας Αλέξανδρος,Ένας Ιδιοφυής

 

Σύμφωνα με τον Αριστοτέλη,μοναρχία ήταν το πολίτευμα ανθρώπων τόσο ηλίθιων που δεν μπορούσαν να κυβερνηθούν μόνοι τους.

Οι  πόλεις κράτη από την άλλη ,με την εξαίρεση της Σπάρτης είχαν απαλλαγεί αιώνες τώρα από την μοναρχία,κυβερνιόταν από δημοκρατικές ή ολιγαρχικές κυβερνήσεις και οι πολίτες τους ήταν εξαιρετικά αυτοδύναμες προσωπικότητες.

Νίκολας Χάμοντ,Μέγας Αλέξανδρος,Ένας Ιδιοφυής,Μαλλιάρης παιδεία,σελ.29

Η κατάσταση στα Βαλκάνια δεν ήταν και πολύ ασφαλής.Οδρύσες και Σκύθες είχαν ηττηθεί πρόσφατα,ενώ οι Τριβαλλοί ήταν ανίκητοι ακόμη.Παρ' όλα αυτά ο Φίλιππος ήταν βέβαιος για την επιτυχία του εγχειρήματος για το καλό του ελληνόφωνου κόσμου και ειδικότερα της Μακεδονίας.

Νίκολας Χάμοντ,Μέγας Αλέξανδρος,Ένας Ιδιοφυής,Μαλλιάρης παιδεία,σελ.41

Η παρατήρηση του "Αν δεν ήμουν ο Αλέξανδρος,θα ήθελα να ήμουν ο Διογένης", έκρυβε την σημασία "αν δεν ήμουν ήδη βασιλιάς των Μακεδόνων,πρόεδρος της Θεσσαλίας,ο πρώτος των Αμφικτυόνων και ηγεμόνας του Κοινού των Ελλήνων..."

Νίκολας Χάμοντ,Μέγας Αλέξανδρος,Ένας Ιδιοφυής,Μαλλιάρης παιδεία,σελ.52 

Τέλος του θέρους ο Αλέξανδρος οδήγησε τον στρατό του νότια προς την χώρα των Αγριάνων ( γύρω από την σημερινή Σόφια) και προς τους Παίονες (γύρω από τα σημερινά Σκόπια).

Νίκολας Χάμοντ,Μέγας Αλέξανδρος,Ένας Ιδιοφυής,Μαλλιάρης παιδεία,σελ.58

Ιστορία της Μακεδονίας - Νίκολας Χάμοντ

 

Οι αντιπρόσωποι των κρατών –μελών της κοινής ειρήνης,που είχαν δράσει εναντίον του Φιλίππου,είχαν συγκεντρωθεί στην Κόρινθο.Απαντώντας στην ευγλωτία και στην πειθώ ενός εικοσάχρονου νέου αλλά και πιεζόμενοι από τον Μακεδονικό στρατό και τις δυνάμεις των βορείων Ελλήνων, οι εκπρόσωποι ψήφισαν ομόφωνα να ανακηρυχτεί ηγεμόνας ο Αλέξανδρος και να προωθήσουν την εκστρατεία όλων εναντίον της Περσίας (Δ.Σ. 17.4.9 και Πολύβιος 9.33.7).

Οι ως τότε διαφωνούντες στην Πελοπόννησο δικαιολογήθηκαν.Μόνο η Σπάρτη έμεινε,όπως και πριν έξω από την συμμαχία των Ελλήνων και διακήρυξε με περηφάνια ότι δεν ήταν φτιαγμένη για να ηγεμονεύεται,αλλά για να ηγεμονεύει.

 

Καθώς κανείς δεν έδειξε διάθεση να ηγεμονευθεί από τη Σπάρτη,ο Αλέξανδρος,σοφά ποιών,την άφησε στην ησυχία της.

Η ηγεμονία που είχε εκείνη κάποτε ασκούνταν τώρα από την Μακεδονία.

Νίκολας Χάμοντ,Ιστορία της Μακεδονίας,γ' τόμος:Περίοδος από το 336 έως το 167 π.Χ,σελ.24

Modern historians about Macedonia – N.G.L Hammond & F.W.Walbank

The members of the Council of the Greek League whoo had acted in Philip’s time were assembled at Corinth; in response to an eloquent and peruasive speech by Alexander a young man of twenty,but backed by the Macedonian army and force of northern Greeks, the Councillors all voted to appoint him hegemon and proceed with the joint campaign against Persia( D.S. 17.4.9 and Plb 9.33.7).

Dissidedents in the Peloponnese apologized.Only Sparta stayed,as before out of the Greek League.She declared proudly that it was her way not to be led,but lead.As no one showed any desire to be led by Sparta,Alexander wisely let her be.

The hegemony she had once had was exercised now by Macedonia.

N.G.L.Hammond & F.W.Walbank,A History of Macedonia:Volume III: 336-167 B.C.,page 16  

Modern historians about Macedonia –John Bagnell Bury

 

“In their fortress of Aegae the macedonian kings had ruled for ages with absolute sway over the lands on the northern and north-western coasts of the Thermaic - Gulf,which formed Macedonia in the strictest sense.

The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify.”

John Bagnell Bury,A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1900),page 683

A History of Greece To the Death of Alexander the Great

Cambridge Library Collection Classics

 

This book, originally published in 1900, was the major work of the classical historian J. B. Bury. It became a standard textbook on the topic of ancient Greek history to the death of Alexander the Great for almost a century, and in its updated form is still studied today.

 Bury had studied philosophy as well as classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and had travelled widely in Greece, but until the publication of this work was better known for his two-volume History of the Later Roman Empire (also reissued in this series), and many of his other works also deal with the Byzantine period. He describes in the preface his decision to limit the extent of his history: 'compression into a single volume often produces a more useful book'. This magisterial and very readable synthesis of political and military history encompasses nearly three millennia and the whole of the Mediterranean and Near East.

 

Modern historians about Macedonia – Elizabeth Donnelly Carney

 

Macedonian monarchy despite its origins in the remote border regions of the Greek world,had a very broad impact and influence on the political institutions of the rest of the ancient world.

The part royal women played in Macedonian monarchy had a similary long life in political history.

The conquests of Philip II (359-356 B.C) and those of his son,Alexander III,commonly know as Alexander the Great(336 -323),built an empire that stretched from northern Greece to the borders of modern India.

 

Elizabeth Donnelly Carney,Women and Monarchy in Macedonia,University of Oklahoma Press,page 4

Modern historians about Macedonia – N.G.L Hammond

 

“Greece and Macedon were akin in blood and culture.” 

 

N.G.L. Hammond , “A History of Greece to 332 B.C.”, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1959),page 651

 

 

Modern historians about Macedonia – Eugene Borza

 

Only recently have we begun to clarify these muddy waters by revealing the Demosthenic corpus for what it is: oratory designed to sway public opinion and thereby to formulate public policy. That elusive creature, Truth, is everywhere subordinate to Rhetoric; Demosthenes’ pronouncements are no more the true history of the period than are the public statements of politicians in any age. 

In the Shadow of Olympus:The Emergence of Macedon, Eugene N. Borza, Princeton University Press,1990,pages 5- 6

This larger Macedon included lands from the crest of the Pindus range to the plain of Philippi and the Nestos River. Its northern border lay along a line formed by Pelagonia, the middle Axios valley and the western Rhodopi massif. Its southern border was the Haliacmon basin, the Olympus range and the Aegean, with the Chalcidic peninsula as peripheral.

 

We thus have a conception of Macedonia both more and less extensive than Hammonds’s - less in that it reduces Emphasis on the north western lands that lie today within the Yugoslav state, but more in that it takes into greater account the territory east of the Axios. It is a definition based on the political development of the Macedonian State over a long period of time,incorporating the territory drained by 3 rivers,adding the Strymon to the Haliacmon and Axios.

In the Shadow of Olympus:The Emergence of Macedon, Eugene N. Borza, Princeton University Press,1990,pages 29 - 31 

“Borza has taken the trouble to know Macedonia: the land, its prehistory, its position in the Balkans, and its turbulent modern history. All contribute…to our understanding of the emergence of Macedon…. Borza has employed two of the historian’s most valuable tools, autopsy and common sense, to produce a well-balanced introduction to the state that altered the course of Greek and Near Eastern history.”

—Waldemar Heckel, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Modern historians about Macedonia – John Maxwell O’Brien

 

To underline his role as avenger and hegemon of the Corinthian League, and perhaps in the hope that the Athenians would come to share in the fantasy of this as a war of revenge, Alexander selected 300 full sets of armor from dead Persians and ordered them to be sent back to Athens and dedicated to Athena on the Acropolis. The attached inscription read:

“Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Lacedaemonians,106 set up these spoils from the barbarians dwelling in Asia” (A.1.16.7).

Alexander the Great:The Invisible Enemy by John Maxwell O’Brien, page 62

Modern historians about Macedonia –N. G. L. Hammond

 

 

Quote:

 Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century, that the Macedones were a  greek speaking.The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute - paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the ‘yauna takabara’, which meant “Greeks wearing the hat”.

There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of greek. Finally, in the latter part of the  fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiodus genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants  firmly into the Aeolic branch of the greek speaking family.Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be  accepted as conclusive.”

pages 12 -13

 

 

Quote:

 As we have mentioned in Chapter I, Perdiccas and his brothers came from Argos and Peloponnese. They were members of the Royal house of Argos, the “Teminidae”, descendants of Temenus, whose ancestor was Heracles, son of Zeus; it was this Temenus who led the Dorian tribes into the Argolid and founded Dorian Argos late in the 12th century. Thus Perdiccas came to Macedonia with the aura of divine favor, and he could claim that the Temenidae and the Argeadae were both descended from Zeus and so were diogeneis. To Greeks of the classical period the Temenid name was well known. 

Thus the oracle which was concerned post eventum with he following of the new capital, Aegeae, by Perdiccas began with the line “The noble Temenidae have royal rule over a wealth producing land. Herodotus made a special point of emphasizing that the royal house of Macedonia was Greek by descent, and Thucydides, who questioned much of what Herodotus said, concurred with him in calling the Macedonian kings “Temenidae from Argos”. Almost a century later Isocrates wrote to Philip II, saying “Argos is your fatherland”, and he asked Philip to emulate his father [Amyntas], the founder of the monarchy [Perdiccas], and the originator of the family (Heracles).

page 18

 

Quote:

 

The matter is of only academic interest to a few scholars today. No one in Antiquity doubted the truth of the clam.

page 19

 

 

 

The Macedonian State:The Origins, Institutions and History,N. G. L. Hammond ,1989

Μ. Χάιντεγκερ,ο μεταφυσικός του μηδενισμού και οι αντιπλατωνιστές επίγονοί του

 

                                    Νύχτα και Ομίχλη

 

Περιγραφή

Η μελέτη αυτή –εκκρεμότητα τριών δεκαετιών– επιχειρεί να διαλύσει την σύγχυση που διαχύθηκε στο μυαλό μας, όταν την κριτική και νοηματοδοτική δύναμη του νου υποκατέστησε η γλωσσική εκφορά της απουσίας νοήματος. Γίναμε, έτσι, υποχείρια φλύαρου αναμασήματος μηδαμινοτήτων, μέσω επικοινωνιακών δικτύων, σ’ ένα κόσμο που έχασε την ισορροπία του και την θέλησή του να δρομολογήσει μια νέα.

 Kατάθεση μιας εμπειρίας ζωής με την φιλοσοφία, η μελέτη αυτή, εξιχνιάζει και διασαφηνίζει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο η σκέψη του καιρού μας παροπλίσθηκε, αφήνοντας αναξιοποίητα όσα γόνιμα στοιχεία της ελληνο-δυτικής φιλοσοφίας θα συνέβαλλαν στην επανεκκίνηση θεσμίσεων δικαιότερης πολιτικο-κοινωνικής οργάνωσης και αναδόμησης του σύγχρονου κόσμου. Για την σάρωσή τους από την φαουστική παράδοση της γενικευμένης κυριαρχίας, χρειάστηκε να μεσολαβήσει η αποδόμηση των σύγχρονων μεταστοιχειώσεων του Αριστοτελικού Πλατωνισμού από τον Μ.Heidegger και τους επιγόνους του, με τη μορφή «φονικής» ερμηνείας της κοσμικής και ανθρώπινης θετικότητας.

Η εξιχνίασή της στην ανά χείρας μελέτη μπορεί να τελεσφορήσει ως αντίσταση ή εναντίωση στον αντιδραστικό μηδενισμό, με τη συνεργασία πολλών θετικών δυνάμεων, στον ακαδημαϊκό και στον έξω-ακαδημαϊκό χώρο.

         Λίγα λόγια για την συγγραφέα

 

Η Αλεξάνδρα Δεληγιώργη γεννήθηκε στην Θεσσαλονίκη και ζει στην Αθήνα.Σπούδασε φιλοσοφία στο Α.Π.Θ και κοινωνιολογία/εθνολογία στην Σορβόννη. Είναι Ομ. Καθηγήτρια φιλοσοφίας (Α.Π.Θ).Συνεργάστηκε με φιλοσοφικά και λογοτεχνικά περιοδικά και εφημερίδες. Έχει εκδώσει δοκίμια, φιλοσοφικές μελέτες, μυθιστορήματα και διηγήματα. Το δοκίμιό της Ά-νοστον ήμαρ (εκδ. Άγρα 1997) τιμήθηκε με το Κρατικό Βραβείο Δοκιμίου του 1998 και το μυθιστόρημά της Τρυφερός Σύντροφος (εκδ. Άγρα 2011) τιμήθηκε με το Βραβείο «Νίκος Θέμελης» 2012.

 

 Εκδόσεις Αρμός