Paralus wrote:
Agreed: he differentiates on both the arming (Macedon having no heavy infantry of any use) and ethnos. We know that Philip II extended the "companionate" to Greeks in Macedonia but we do not know if earlier kings did similar. Likely not. Were these Greeks actually a part of Macedonia one would expect them to be subject to the king. It is odd that these Greeks, "domiciled within the country", seemingly are totally independent islands within Macedonia. Isuspect they are those Brasidas has "talked into" joining him and likely Greeks of the coastal poleis - almost certainly formerly aligned with Athens. If not, they are a little like villages of Lacedaemonians scattered about Attica. The question is: why are they a separate entity within the Macedonian Kingdom?
I can't seem to recall the exact source, but somewhere I have read that during some disaster, a war or an earthquake, whole communities from the Peloponnesus were given shelter in Macedonia. They may as you say have been scattered communities, but it is also a possibility that at the time of the Peloponnesian War these Greeks were given temporary residence pending some change of affairs back in their home states, and were not expected to be Macedonian subjects. While I am unable to find the other source I am thinking about, these should give an example:
[5]" After Helice you will turn from the sea to the right and you will come to the town of Ceryneia. It is built on a mountain above the high road, and its name was given to it either by a native potentate or by the river Cerynites, which, flowing from Arcadia and Mount Ceryneia, passes through this part of Achaia. To this part came as settlers Mycenaeans from Argolis because of a catastrophe. Though the Argives could not take the wall of Mycenae by storm,[6] built as it was like the wall of Tiryns by the Cyclopes, as they are called, yet the Mycenaeans were forced to leave their city through lack of provisions. Some of them departed for Cleonae,
but more than half of the population took refuge with Alexander in Macedonia, to whom Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, entrusted the message to be given to the Athenians.2 The rest of the population came to Ceryneia, and the addition of the Mycenaeans made Ceryneia more powerful, through the increase of the population, and more renowned for the future."
Pausanias, Book 7.25
"Theopompus says
that when Pericles overpowered Euboea the Histiaeans by agreement migrated to Macedonia, and that two thousand Athenians who formerly composed the deme of the Histiaeans came and took up their abode in Oreus." [4]
Strabo 10.1.14
At the time of Perdiccas, communities such as these may have been considered to be temporary settlers (refugees even) and not Macedonians per se. As you say, I don't believe we have any references to their acceptance as Macedonian companions until the time of Philip II.
Paralus wrote:Thucydides thrice refers to the "Macedonians" in this description. It is a pity it is not Arrian. The first is a clear reference to those that Perdiccas "rules over", aka his subject Macedonians. The second is a clear reference to cavalry in Thucydides' listing of the army. Again we have the allies, Macedonian hippies and the large "crowd of barabarians". The third referrs "the makedones" and the "plethos ton barbaron" (the many barbarians) having scarpered.
The question here is, who are the "barbarians"? Clearly they are not the Illyrians for they have caused the scarpering by changing sides. Given this is not the kingdom of Philip II they can hardly be the Paeonians, Thracians or others. Thucydides notes only the Acanthians and Chalcidians as well as those Peloponesians Brasidas brought with him (including mercenaries). The Macedonian kingdom at this time is likely to have comprised only the lower plain and not all of that (the Greek poleis of the coast for example).
I would guess that Thucydides referes to the "hetairoi" of Perdiccas, his un-numbered his cavalry nobility ("all the cavalry"), as the "Makedones" and the crowd of barbaroi are the serf population of Macedonians pressed into service as traditional peltasts with whatever they could lay hands on (javelin/longche and hopefully some sort of shield). It is Philip II who expands the landed population of Macedonia as his infantry is transformed from serf to landholder and thus into "Makedones" or actual "citizens" (for want of a better word).
For the "plethos ton barbaron" it's difficult to say. It could just be a contingent of barbarian troops that Perdiccas has gotten from somewhere that Thucydides doesn't elaborate on (and in Thucydides world view there were enough around to choose from) or even as you see it, serfs of Macedonia (after all, all of Greece had an indigenous population prior to the arrival of the Greeks, such as the Pelasgians), but what I think is important is that Thucydides is careful in distinguishing them, there are Macedonians, and then there are barbarians, but they are not one and the same. At some future point, these "barbaroi" may have become Macedonians, if they are indeed the impressed serfs, but at the time of Perdiccas, it does not appear that they were considered as Macedonians so we cannot say for sure. Yes, the detail of an Arrian would have been helpful!
Paralus wrote:As I say, imagine an Orkney Islander and a Londoner conversing over a beer...
Or a Canadian and an Australian?