| What do the ancient historians say? |
Polybios
"In the past you rivaled the Achaians and the kinsmen Macedonians and their ruler, Philip,
about the hegemony and glory, but now that the freedom of the Hellenes is at stake at a war against
an alien people (Romans), ...but now if you invite them do not you see that you invite them against
your ownself and the whole of Hellas. ...And does it worth to ally with the barbarians against the
Epeirotans, the Achaians, the Akarnanians, the Boiotians, the Thessalians, almost all the Hellenes
with the exception of the Aitolians who are a wicked nation... So Lakedaimonians it is good to
remember your ancestors, ... be afraid of the Romans... and do ally yourselves with the Achaians
and Macedonians. And if the most influential amongst yourselves oppose that then stay neutral
and do not side with the unjust.
"How highly should we honour the Macedonians, who for the greater
part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake
of the security of Hellas? For who is not aware that Hellas would have
constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the
Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?"
Herodotos
"Now that the men of this family are Hellenes, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm,
is a thing which I can declare on my own knowledge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evident. That
they are so has been already adjudged by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at Olympia"
"Tell your king who sent you how his Hellenic viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably... "
"Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Hellenes, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know"
Thoukididis
"The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos"
"In all there were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by all the Macedonian
cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand strong, besides an immense crowd of barbarians."
Arrian
"He sent to Athens three hundred Persian panoplies to be set up to
Athena in the acropolis; he ordered this inscription to be attached: Alexander
son of Philip and the Hellenes, except the Lacedaemonians, set up these spoils
from the barbarians dwelling in Asia",
"Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and the rest of Hellas and did us great harm,
though we had done them no prior injury;... I have been appointed hegemon of
the Greeks... "
Aeschines
....at the congress of the Lakedaimonian allies and the rest of the Hellenes, in which Amyntas,
the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote
was absolutely under his control, he joined the rest of the Hellenes in voting..."
Plutarchos
"But he said, `If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes'; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to
combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every every continent, to search
out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the boiunds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean,
and to diseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorius Hellenes should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond
the Kaukasos...' "
"Yet through Alexander, Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Hellenes ...
Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Hellenic magistracies ... Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Hellenic city, for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence.'
"When he (Alexander the Great) arrived at Ilion he sacrificed to Athena and offered libations to the Heroes."
Isokratis
"It is your privilege, as one who has been blessed with untrammeled freedom, to consider all Hellas your fatherland, as did the founder of your race."
Pausanias
"They say that these were the tribes collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Hellenic Assembly: ... the Macedonians joined and the entire Phocian race ... In my day there were thirty members: six each from Nikopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly ... "
The Phocians were deprived of their share in the Delphic sanctuary and in the Hellenic
assembly, and their votes were given by the Amphictyons to the Macedonians.
(Pausanias Description of Greece 10.3.3)
Diodoros of Sicily
"Such was the end of Philip ... He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but
the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire
among the Hellenes, while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in
arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy."
"Along with lavish display of every sort, Philip included in the procession statues of the twelve
Gods wrought with great artistry and adorned with a dazzling show of wealth to strike awe to
the beholder, and along with these was conducted a thirteenth statue, suitable for a god, that
of Philip himself, so that the king exhibited himself enthroned among the twelve Gods.
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.92.5)
Every seat
in the theater was taken when Philip appeared wearing a white cloak and by his express orders his
bodyguard held away from him and followed only at a distance, since he wanted to show publicly
that he was protected by the goodwill of all the Hellenes, and had no need of a guard of spearmen."
"After this Alexandros left Dareios's mother, his daughters,and his son in Susa, providing them with persons
to teach them the hellenic dialect,..."
"Alexandros observed that his soldiers were exhausted with their constant campaigns. ...The hooves
of the horses had been worn thin by steady marching. The arms and armour were wearing out, and
the Hellenic clothing was quite gone. They had to clothe themselves in materials of the barbarians,..."
Flavious Josephus
" And when the book of Daniel was showed to him (Alexander the Great) wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended"
Titus Livius
"The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same language,
are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time;
with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war;
for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not
from reasons that change from day to day."
The propaganda against Greece is often based on quotes from ancient historians (mainly Greek) who
seem to consider Macedonia as a different nation. These quotes usualy consist of one or two isolated
lines which is misleading. If the reader reads the whole document the meaning is completely different.
Furrthermore there are cases where the translation is not accuret or even cases where some words
have been carefully altered to change the meaning.
History is harsh to those who try to manipulate it.
Here is a small collection of quotes that proves what was the ancient Greek's opinion about the
Macedonians.
(Polybios 9.37.7-39.7; Speech of Lykiskos, the representative of Akarnania)
(The Histories of Polybios, IX, 35, 2)
(Herodotus, The Histories 8.43)
(Herodotus V, 20, 4)
(Herodotus V, 22, 1)
(Thucididis 99,3)
(Thukididis 4.124)
(Arrian I, 16, 7)
(Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander II, 14, 4)
(Aeschines, On the Embassy 32)
(Plutarchos, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332 a-b)
(Plutarchos Moralia. On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A)
(Plutarchos, Alexander 15)
(Isokratis, To Philip 127)
(Pausanias Phokis 8,2 & 4)
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.95.1-2)
(Diodoros of Sicily 16.93.1)
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.67.1)
(Diodoros of Sicily 17.94.1-2)
(Flavious Josephus 11.8.5)
(Titus Livius, From the Foundation of the City 31)
