misappropriation
. . . . of Alexander the Great: More recently even Alexander’s
father, Philip, has also been abducted:
“When Macedonia renamed Skopje airport for Alexander the Great in 2007,
this seemed a one-off to annoy Greece. More recently, however, the government
has broadened a policy the opposition calls “antiquisation”. The main road to
Greece has been renamed for Alexander and the national sports stadium named
after his father, and plans are afoot to erect a huge statue of Alexander in
central Skopje.”
Even the popular but supposedly serious periodical Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, has recently
(January-February 2009) published an article with the name “Owning Alexander: Modern Macedonia lays its claim to
the ancient conqueror’s legacy.”
called Paionia
in antiquity: The geographic situation is made clear by Livy’s
account of the creation of the Roman province of Macedonia in 146 B.C. (Livy
45.29.7 and 45.29.12). The land north of Mt. Barnous and Mt. Orbelos was
inhabited by Paionians. The natural barrier formed by these mountains must be
acknowledged. Barnous (modern Voras or Kaimaktsalan) reaches a height of 2524
meters, while Orbelos (the whole range extending to east and west of the
Strymon; the western ridge is the modern Beles or Kerkini with a height of 1474
meters) has a maximum height toward the east of 2211 meters.
Strabo (7. frag 4), writing a few years before the birth of Christ, is even
more succinct in saying that Paionia was north of Macedonia and the only
connection from one to the other was (and is today) through the narrow gorge of
the Axios (or Vardar) River.
does not form a line of communication: M. Sivignon,
in M. Sakellariou (ed) Macedonia (Athens 1982) 15.
subdued by
Philip II: Diodorus Siculus 16.4.2 See also Demosthenes (Olynthian
1.23) who tells us that they were “enslaved” by the Macedonian Philip and
clearly, therefore, not Macedonians. Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point.
about a millennium after the death of Alexander: For the first appearance of the Slavs in the Balkans in the mid-6th century
after Christ, see Walter Pohl, “Justinian and the Barbarian Kingdoms,” in
Michael Maas (ed.), Age of Justinian (Cambridge 2005) 469-471; for their
devastating path through Greece in the 580’s, see Anna Avramea, Le
Péloponnèse du IVe au VIIIe siècle, changements et persistances (Paris
1997) 67-80
thoroughly and indisputably Greek: In the
words of the father of history “I happen to know that [the forefathers of
Alexander] are Greek” (Herodotus 5.22). The date of when Alexander I competed
at Olympia is not sure, but it certainly occurred between 504 and 496 B.C. He
established his Hellenic roots by tracing his ancestors back to Argos and,
ultimately to Herakles. Hence the coins with the head
of Herakles wearing the skin of the Nemean Lion from Archelaos and Amyntas,
among others.
Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia: Thucydides apud Pal. Anth. 7.45; Pausanias 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus
13.103. Some modern scholars doubt this tradition, but not that Euripides spent
time in Macedonia.
Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi: Plutarch, Alexander 3.9 and 4.9; Moralia 105A. Philip
advertised his victories, and therefore his Greekness, by minting coins
commemorating those victories. Below is a silver coin with the head of Olympian
Zeus on the front and Philip’s victorious horse on the reverse, labeled with
his name “of Philip” in Greek. A gold coin with the head of Apollo of Delphi on
the front, and Philip’s winning two-horse chariot on the reverse, again labeled
with his name “of Philip” in Greek.
delegation
from Athens: See, inter alios, Demosthenes, De
Falsa Legatione, and Aischines, De Legatione. It is the tirades of
Demosthenes against Philip (e.g. 9.30-35 in which he calls Philip not only “not
a Greek, nor related to a Greek, nor even a barbarian from someplace that can
be called good”) that have given rise to the notion that the Macedonians were
not Greek, but Demosthenes tended to call all his enemies barbarian, even
fellow Athenians (e.g. 21.150).
Another northern Greek, Aristotle: Because
Aristotle’s native city, Stageira, was established in the 7th century B.C.
before the Macedonians had developed their kingdom, Aristotle cannot be called
a native Macedonian, although his father, Nikomachos, was the friend and doctor
of Amyntas III (393-369) according to Diogenes Laertius 5.1. Philip later, as a
part of his conquest of the whole of the Chalkidike in 348 B.C. (Demosthenes,
19.266) , seems to have laid waste to Stageira, but rebuilt it in 342 B.C. at
Aristotle’s request (Diogenes Laertius 5.4). Clearly the relationship between
him and Macedonia was close.
tutor of
Alexander: Diogenes Laertius 5.4; Plutarch, Alexander
7.2-8.1. Aristotle also taught a number of Alexander’s peers and comrades, some
of whom later became kings like Ptolemy of Egypt.
classroom which can still be seen: A spacious room cut back into natural bed rock with cuttings for roof
supports and a bench for the students is easily repeopled in the visitor’s
imagination with Aristotle standing in the middle and Alexander and his pals on
the bench.
It was Aristotle who advised Alexander to “treat the Greeks as if he
were their leader, other peoples as if he were their master” (Plutarch, On
the Fortune of Alexander 329B). In the event, Alexander did not take this
advice for his only wives were non-Greek orientals.
founding cities and establishing centers of learning: Although cities like Pergamon and Alexandria in Egypt became major
cultural centers under the successors of Alexander (the Attalids and the
Ptolemies, respectively), it was Alexander who laid their foundations. See
Diodorus Siculus 20.20.1 and Justin 13.2, and Arrian 3.1.5, respectively.
as far away
as Afghanistan: Excavations at Ai Khanoum on the northern border
of modern Afghanistan have produced great quantities of Greek inscriptions and
even the remnants of a philosophical treatise originally on papyrus. One of the
most interesting is the base of a dedication by one Klearchos, perhaps the
known student of Aristotle, that records his bringing to this new Greek city,
Alexandria on the Oxus, the traditional maxims from the shrine of Apollo at
Delphi concerning the five ages of man:
- In childhood, seemliness
- In youth, self-control
- In middle age, justice
- In old age, wise council
- In death, painlessness
Klearchos inscription, ca. 300
B.C., now in Kabul Museum
For further information about the Greekness of Ai Khanoum, see Robin Lane
Fox, The Search for Alexander (London 1980) 425-433, and figures on
pages 390-393, and elsewhere; and Paul Bernard, Les fouilles d’Ai Khanum
(Paris 1973).
Slavs and
their language were nowhere near Alexander or his homeland until 1000 years
later: see above.
The ancient
Paionians: The ancient Paionians may have been of Hellenic
stock, but relatively little is known about them, partly because “no Paionian
Philip ever dominated Greece, and no Paionian Alexander ever conquered the
known world” ( Irwin L. Merker, “The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia,” Balkan
Studies 6 (1965) 35).
Nonetheless, they appear already in the Trojan War (albeit on the Trojan
side; Homer, Iliad 2.848-850, 16.287-291, 17.348-351). Their
confrontation with the Persians is recorded by Herodotus (5.1, 12-17). They
fought against Philip who subdued them and with Alexander against the Persians,
especially in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. (Quintus Curtius, History
of Alexander 4.9.24-25.
They enjoyed, even under the Macedonians, a certain degree of autonomy as
is shown by their negotiations with Athens (IG II2 127) and the many
coins minted under a series of Paionian kings, whose names are Greek and
inscribed in Greek on the coins. See, for example, the following silver issue
of Patraos, probably depicting the slaying of a Persian satrap by the Paionian
Ariston as told by Quintus Curtius (see above):
Even more significantly for the assimilation of Paionia into the Greek
world are the dedications of statues of Paionian kings made at Delphi and
Olympia, and especially the bronze head of a Paionian bison, also at Delphi.
See BCH 1950:22, Inschriften von Olympia 303; and Pausanias
10.13.1, respectively.
Greekish: No Paionians are recorded as victors in the Olympic or other Panhellenic
games. This may, of course, be a reflection of a lack of athletic ability
rather than a lack of Greekness.
territorial
aspirations: We would note that in 1929, in an effort to
submerge unruly local identities into a unified Yugoslav nation, King Alexander
of Yugoslavia named the region the Vardarska province, after the major river
that runs through it. See, for example, the Yugoslav stamp of 1939 with the
ancient Paionia labeled with the name Vardarska.
This effort to reduce ethnic tensions was rescinded by Tito, who used the
“Macedonian” identity as leverage against Yugoslavia’s Greek and Bulgarian
neighbors. The (mis)use of the name Macedonia at that time was recognized by
the United States State Department in a dispatch of December 26, 1944, by then
U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius:
“The Department [of State] has noted with considerable
apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor
of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from
Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory
would be included in the projected state. This government considers talk of
Macedonian ”nation”, Macedonian “Fatherland”, or Macedonian “national
consciousness” to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor
political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive
intentions against Greece.”
[Source: U.S. State
Department, Foreign Relations vol viii,
Washington, D.C.,
Circular Airgram (868.014/26Dec1944)]
This map shows the “real” Macedonia (in Slavic) which includes ancient
Paionia, the Greek province of Macedonia (the historical Macedonia), and a part
of southwestern Bulgaria (which was also inhabited by Paionian tribes in
ancient times).
Other maps, such as this one above in an 8th grade history book in 2005,
maintain that, as of 1913 and thereafter, “Macedonia” included parts occupied
by Albania (yellow), Bulgaria (purple), and Greece (red).
The White Tower of Thessalonike in Greek Macedonia, fronting onto the
Aegean Sea, is the central decoration of this note printed in Skopje in 1991.
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