Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

"Little is known of the Macedonian army before the reign of Philip II. Certainly, the area which the earlier Macedonian kings drew their recruits was limited only to lowland Macedonia. The only effective arm appears to have been cavalry. These horsemen, generally acknowledged as the best in Greece, were drawn from the local nobility[...]The only really effective infantry in this period appears to have been drawn from southern Greeks settled within Macedonia's borders who fought as hoplites."

"Philip first cut the ground from under it by uniting the nation in his Corinthian League[...]In this manner Philip united all Greeks (with the single exception of Sparta) into a League of states, and so for the first time in history created a Greek unified state."

"When we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south..."

"Long long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed. We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors..."

"This was Macedonia in the strict sense, the land where settled immigrants of Greek stock later to be called Macedonians."

"When Athens falls, when spreading of Greeks beyond the area of Greece starts, as many know, after the conquests of Alexander of Macedonia, new Greek states are established and Egypt becomes the main centre of Greek civilization, with the centre in Alexandria. Greeks winning over Asia, that is the main idea of Alexander."

""From a historical point of view the term Macedonia had no clear ethnic meaning (it is because of thousands of years of mixing of various tribes and peoples), although it is clear that in ancient times Macedonia was considered a Greek state and Macedonians [were] Greeks living in Macedonia"."

"...Certain proto-populations occupying distinct areas of the Balkans could be distinguished on the territories of the cultural groups: in western part of the Balkans the proto-Illyrians, in the east the proto Thracians, in the south the Hellenes (i.e: Greeks), in the northern part of the Balkans the proto Daco-Mysians and in the southwest of the Central Balkans the proto Bryges."

"The latest archaeological findings have confirmed that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the Makednoi (ma(e)kos = length). They shared the same religious beliefs as the rest of the Hellenic world but up until the Classical period remained outside the cultural and political development of the southern city states[...] Yet "vulgar" Macedonians were not unanimously accepted by "refined" southern Greeks, especially by Athenians, as brethren. Occasionally they were classified as "barbarians". This was not due to some latent but still distinguishable Thracian and Paeonian cultural influences or to local linguistic peculiarities. To a certain extent Athenian reluctance could be attributed to the Macedonian’s rough manners, their monarchic government, and their delayed appearance on the scene. But the main source of antipathy was more than a century of conflict over eastern Macedonia, Thrace, the Chalcidice colonies, and, of course, the final victorious military involvement of Macedonia in southern affairs from 350 B.C. onwards which signaled the end of the Classical period."

"During the early archaic period at the Macedonian territory, the Dorian tribal groups came across over the Pindos mountain,to the area of today's North-Western Greece and parts of the southern Republic of Macedonia. They established several early principalities partially by chasing away the local Paeonian tribes. Those tribal groups were the ancient Macedonians."

"Persian rule in Egypt was not to survive long, but its overthrow was not the work of Egyptians. In 336 BC a Greek army, led by Alexander III (Alexander the Great) king of Macedonia invaded the Persian empire[...] It would be easy to see in this, the formal establishment of Greek rule in Egypt, the logical culmination of three centuries of Greek influence and patronage. But, except in so far as the earlier involvement of Greeks in Egyptian affairs prepared the Egyptians psychologically to accept Greek rule."

"By Demosthenes the interval was spent rallying Greek opinion against 'The barbarian', as he unjustly and inaccurately called the Macedonian (the near-Greekness of whose culture is now revealed in a clearer light by such archaeological finds as the painted frescoes at Vergina, uncovered in 1977). That Demosthenes propagandist and political efforts almost succeeded is shown by the closeness of Philips' final victory on the field at Chaeronea."

"In 350 BCE Philip of Macedonia united Greece under Macedonian rule. His son Alexander, surnamed the Great, in turn conquered the entire Persian empire uniting Greece with the Ancient Near east."

"The city-states of ancient Greece established colonies in almost every part of their known world. Later Alexander of Macedonia through his conquests spread Hellenic culture both east to Asia and south to Egypt. One of the lesser-known legacies of Alexander's excursions is the Greeks who stayed in northern India, ruling there for twenty generations."

"The Macedonians were of Greek stock, as their traditions and remains of their language prove."

"The idea of the city-state was first challenged by the ideal of pan-Hellenic unity supported by some writers and orators, among which the Athenian Isocrates (436338) became a leading proponent with his Panegyrics of 380 suggesting a Greek holy war against Persia. However, only the rise of Macedonia made the realization of panHellenic unity possible."

"Although the Macedonians, whose territory occupied the area around present-day Thessaloniki in northern Greece, considered themselves part of the Greek cultural sphere, many Greeks regarded them with contempt. In the eyes of the Greeks, the Macedonians were a mere offshoot of the original stock. They spoke a Greek dialect, to be sure, but they were led by a backward monarchy and their nobles."

"Philip, on campaign in Thrace, got the news along with two other messages. His general, Parmenion, had soundly defeated the Illyrians in the west; and his racehorse had won at the Olympic Games. The right of Olympic entry was a prized inheritance of the kings of Macedon. The Games were only open to Greeks; and Macedonians were not recognized in the south as the offshoots of the original stock, which in fact they were. They were regarded as semi-barbarous (the actual term 'barbarian' was reserved for Persians) and the royal house had just scraped in on the strength of a remote Argive ancestry. For Philip, to whom acceptance in the Greek world was a lifelong dream, this news may have been the most welcome item of the three..."

"The wedding plans were resplendent. High ranking guests and state envoys were invited from all over Greece, as befitted Philip's of pan Hellenic war leader. Festival games in honour of the twelve Olympian gods were to be dedicated at a ceremony in the theatre at Aegae, near modern Edessa, the ancient capital..."

"The Greek leaders perceived the sudden resurgence of Persian power in the region as a new and significant challenge to their interests. To gain support for an activist policy, some attempted to redefine the nature of the Greek-Persian conflict from one of straightforward geopolitics to the more emotional issue of pan-Hellenism. For such proponents of a continuation of the struggle the issue was no longer merely the matter of the defense of the Greek city-states. The Persian challenge was now characterized as a conflict of principle, of Hellenic culture and civilization against Asiatic barbarism in an unrelenting struggle for survival. They advocated a crusade to be carried out by a unified Greek nation that was to include all that partook of Greek civilization. However, the traditional leadership of Athens and the other prominent city-states, exhausted by the long external and internal wars, were unable to mobilize the support necessary for an effective response to the Persian challenge. Nonetheless, the pan-Hellenic crusade was soon to be undertaken, but not by Athens. It was Macedonia that was to impose its own leadership on Greece and undertake the renewed struggle against Persia in the name of the Hellenes."

"After successfully annexing Thessaly and Thrace, Philip was widely acknowledged as the natural leader of a Hellenic alliance. The venerable Isocrates saw Philip as the man that Greece needed to deal with a chronic demographic problem that menaced its future. He argued that Greece was plagued by overpopulation, which produced large numbers of men suitable for military service who wandered about, without loyalty to any city, selling their services to anyone who could pay for them and thereby posing a constant menace to the stability of the country. What was needed, he suggested, was a new country that might be colonized by Greece's surplus population. This new land would have to be conquered from Persia, and Philip of Macedon, who was already successfully challenging the Persians in a contest for control of the European shores of the Hellespont, was clearly the only one who might be able to annex all Anatolia to the Hellenic world."

"Philip had no illusions about the stability of the Common Peace, given the turbulent history of the Greek city-states, their competitiveness, and their general reluctance to sacrifice their freedom of action even for the common good. Moreover, he was a Macedonian, from the backwater of the Greek world [...] A Persian offer of 300 talents was privately accepted by Demosthenes, who employed it for purposes compatible with mutual Athenian-Persian interests in thwarting Macedonian ascendancy."

"Paeonians, a people who during the first millennium BC inhabited the border area between the three great Paleobalkanic peoples - Illyrians, Thracians and Hellenes. (i.e:Greeks)"

"Alexander the Great: A Macedonian king (336-323), son of Philip II, the greatest conqueror of the antiquity, a pupil of Aristotle. Completed the conquest of Hellas. (From) 334 lead a campaign against Persia. Conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, has reached India. Died in Babylon. Extraordinarily brave. He ranks among the greatest military leaders of the world. Representative of the methodical and devastating tactics. Within the realm of tactics, he used synergy by horsemen and infantry. His military genius was based also on the great erudition. He spread Hellenic culture in the East. About him and his deeds, there is a large body of literature. Stories about him reached in medieval times also the Serbian culture (cf. Aleksandrida)."

"Philip V (220-178 BCE), carried a struggle against Romans trying to halt their penetration into Balkans, but he was defeated in the battle of Cynoscephalae, after which he was forced to renounce all Greek lands, with the exception of Macedonia; he obliged to the difficult conditions of peace (surrender of the fleet, paying of taxes etc) which meant the beginning of Roman conquest of Macedonia."