pothos.org

There seems to be alot of discussion as to whether or not the Macedonians fall into the definition of Greek in terms of nationality.Since Greece was never a nation state in the modern sense in ancient times,opinions are subjectives However lets look Athenian origins -According to Herodotus -Athenians were NON GREEK Pelasgians that got absorbed into the Greek family. QUOTES-HERODOTUS BOOK 1. If therefore all the Pelasgian race was such as these, then the Attic race, being Pelasgian, at the same time when it changed and became Hellenic, unlearnt also its language-- Herodotus in Book 1 restricts the Hellenic name to Dorians , Makedon ect of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian.\" He later states regarding Peloponesians-
The Peloponnesians that were with the fleet were ... the Lacedaimonians, ... the Corinthians, ... the Sicyonians, ... the Epidaurians, ... the Troezenians, the people of Hermione there; all these, except the people of Hermione, were of Dorian and Macedonian stock and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region."
(Herod. VIII, 43 {Loeb])
Thus Herodous implies that Macedonians and Dorians of the Peloponese (macedonian pindus stock}were Hellenic in origin while it was the ATHENIANS who were NOT originally Hellenic. Whether or not Heroduts is correct in his theories is debatable.However his work was read in Greece and Macedonia and to the best of my knowlege was generally accepted. Of course Demoshanes viewed Phillip and his people as Barbarians.But Demosthanes view is also subjective.He was of course part Sythian in blood so the term barbarian could apply to him and was mentioned by Athenians at the time.

So who was right Herodotus or Demothanes? Both views of course are subjective. Herodotus was Dorian so therefore one can say he had a bias as well. Since Greece was never a political entity at the time one can't say with certainty what did and did not constitute Greekness.If there were divergent views in antiquity certainly certainly modern views are are also subjective.

Well that clarifies my questions regarding the Macedonian connection with the Peloponnese. Interesting background history.

Regardsit was my understanding that the Peleopnese were the original settlers Dorian,Mycenae my knowledge as to this is scant but I recall the early mycenean masks all connected to the Peleponese.Even the illiad and the epics refer to Spartans and Spartan kings I would regard the Spartans and Peleponese as the earliest Greeks my knowledge towards Athens very small.regards
kenny

During the time of the Illiad the only group to be referred to as Hellenes ( Greeks) was Achilles and his Myrmidons from Thessaly (north-central Greece).The rest of the Greeks including the Spartans were referred to as Acheans,Danaans and Argives NOT Hellenes.The Dorians ( a crude Greek speaking peoples)were beleived to have originated in the Pindus region of Epirus and Macedonia and invaded Southern Greece and established a ruling class in Sparta.The Dorian connection to the Spartans occurs after the Trojan war.The Dorians after settling in the land of Hellas in central Greece carried the name in areas that they settled .Thus they were known as people from Hellas which was gradually adopted as a collective name. Again what defines Greekness is purely subjective .Obviously Herodotus included the Macedonians and Dorian Spartans in his defintion of original Hellenes and excluded the Athenians .Demoshtanes excluded the Macedonians and Aeolians from his definition and held the Athenians as the ideal.Both Herodotus and Demostanes had some personal bias and agendas for there reasoning.

In the purest sense the only ones who can lay claim to the Hellenic origins is Achilles and his Myrmidons from Thessaly who were the only people in the Illiad from a place called Hellas.

bravo
you are right!!
I want only to remind to the nongreek friends that
the word "Greek" (from the greek word "graikos") is the one that the western countries use was used as a deffinition for the greeks in south italy. In the opposite the eastern countries name all the greeks with words came from "Ionia" (a deffinition of western Turkey before the catastrophy). Thats why only greeks call the country "Hellas".the only I want to add is that it is intresting what Thucydides is saying about the subject.

This all sounds far to modernistic an approach, I think it best be left up to Mary renault to determine what the Greeks, Alexander etc really were. She, of course being very objective and not putting any modern spin on history. As a historical fiction writer, I think she's right up there! worthy of deification - forget modern interpretations, historians, critical analysis, it all amounts to their own attempts to get the spot light, unlike Mary
cheers!

Herdotus seems to be contradictory and unclear:"... His inquiries pointed out to him two states as pre-eminent above the rest. These were the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, the former of Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. And indeed these two nations had held from very, early times the most distinguished place in Greece, the being a Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one having never quitted its original seats, while the other had been excessively migratory; for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedni, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians..."If "remove" means that they completely relocated (and changed name), then there can not be both Pindus and Peloponnese Macedonian stock as suggested. Besides, is it clear that Macedni is the same as Macedonians?"...When the Greeks, on their withdrawal from Artemisium, arrived off Chalcis, the Plataeans disembarked upon the opposite shore of Boeotia, and set to work to remove their households, whereby it happened that they were left behind. (The Athenians, when the region which is now called Greece was held by the Pelasgi, were Pelasgians, and bore the name of Cranaans; but under their king Cecrops, they were called Cecropidae; when Erechtheus got the sovereignty, they changed their name to Athenians; and when Ion, the son of Xuthus, became their general, they were named after him Ionians.)...""...My own opinion of these matters is as follows:- I think that, if it be true that the Phoenicians carried off the holy women, and sold them for slaves, the one into Libya and the other into Greece, or Pelasgia (as it was then called),..."On the language of the Pelasgi:

On the language of the Pelasgi:"...What the language of the Pelasgi was I cannot say with any certainty. If, however, we may form a conjecture from the tongue spoken by the Pelasgi of the present day- those, for instance, who live at Creston above the Tyrrhenians, who formerly dwelt in the district named Thessaliotis, and were neighbours of the people now called the Dorians- or those again who founded Placia and Scylace upon the Hellespont, who had previously dwelt for some time with the Athenians- or those, in short, of any other of the cities which have dropped the name but are in fact Pelasgian; if, I say, we are to form a conjecture from any of these, we must pronounce that the Pelasgi spoke a barbarous language. If this were really so, and the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue, the Athenians, who were certainly Pelasgi, must have changed their language at the same time that they passed into the Hellenic body; for it is a certain fact that the people of Creston speak a language unlike any of their neighbours, and the same is true of the Placianians, while the language spoken by these two people is the same; which shows that they both retain the idiom which they brought with them into the countries where they are now settled..."So Crestons and Placianians spoke the same language, unlike any of their neighbours. "...And yet, I am told, these very Greeks are wont to wage wars against one another in the most foolish way, through sheer perversity and doltishness...whence it comes to pass that even the conquerors depart with great loss: I say nothing of the conquered, for they are destroyed altogether. Now surely, as they are all of one speech, they ought to interchange heralds and messengers, and make up their differences by any means rather than battle; or, at the worst, if they must needs fight one against another, they ought to post themselves as strongly as possible, and so try their quarrels. 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..."So the language of the various Greeks is so similar that they could even share messengers. So much for the Northern Hellenic dialects, if Herodotus is to be believed."...The dress of the Phrygians closely resembled the Paphlagonian, only in a very few points differing from it. According to the Macedonian account, the Phrygians, during th

"...The dress of the Phrygians closely resembled the Paphlagonian, only in a very few points differing from it. According to the Macedonian account, the Phrygians, during the time that they had their abode in Europe and dwelt with them in Macedonia, bore the name of Brigians; but on their removal to Asia they changed their designation at the same time with their dwelling-place...""The Peloponnesians that were with the fleet were ... the Lacedaimonians, ... the Corinthians, ... the Sicyonians, ... the Epidaurians, ... the Troezenians, the people of Hermione there; all these, except the people of Hermione, were of Dorian and Macedonian stock and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region." (Herod. VIII, 43 {Loeb])"A bit contradicting.One of the things that constituted "Greekness" seems to be the language. Even the Athenians changed their language when became part of the Hellenic body.

The word "Greek" seems to derive from "Graeco", the mythological forefather of the Greeks.

The mythology/theology is another thing that could be part of the "Greekness", despite not being authentic Greek and certainly not exclusive to the Greeks."Almost all the names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt. My inquiries prove that they were all derived from a foreign source, and my opinion is that Egypt furnished the greater number. For with the exception of Neptune and the Dioscuri, whom I mentioned above, and Juno, Vesta, Themis, the Graces, and the Nereids, the other gods have been known from time immemorial in Egypt. This I assert on the authority of the Egyptians themselves. The gods, with whose names they profess themselves unacquainted, the Greeks received, I believe, from the Pelasgi, except Neptune. Of him they got their knowledge from the Libyans, by whom he has been always honoured, and who were anciently the only people that had a god of the name. The Egyptians differ from the Greeks also in paying no divine honours to heroes.""Besides these which have been here mentioned, there are many other practices whereof I shall speak hereafter, which the Greeks have borrowed from Egypt. The peculiarity, however, which they observe in their statues of Mercury they did not derive from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgi; from them the Athenians first adopted it, and afterwards it passed from the Athenians to the other Greeks. For just at the time when the Athenians were entering into the Hellenic body, the Pelasgi came to live with them in their country, whence it was that the latter came first to be regarded as Greeks. Whoever has been initiated into the mysteries of the Cabiri will understand what I mean. The Samothracians received these mysteries from the Pelasgi, who, before they went to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their religious ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who were the first of all the Greeks to make their statues of Mercury in this way, learnt the practice from the Pelasgians; and by this people a religious account of the matter is given, which is explained in the Samothracian mysteries."

"Graeco" is exactly the same with "Graikos"
the mythological forefather of the Greeks.
"ae" is "ai" (diphthongos)
"c" is "k" (kappa)