Macedonia History

 We actually know almost nothing about Lucius Ampelius, the author of the Liber Memoralis . Nevertheless, his work has survived the years and is accessible to us. He is the author of the textbook of ancient mythology, geography, and history, and that's pretty much all we know about him—and, of course, that he was a Roman who lived either in the time of Trajan or Constantine. Researchers therefore consider a rather long period of more than two hundred years in which he could have lived—according to Wikipedia, from 98 to 337 AD. But, let's turn to his work Liber Memorialis and jump straight into chapter six, which could be titled "On the Planet Earth". There, Ampelius lists various "most well-known peoples" in a list that, according to him, represents three inhabited continents out of a total of four: Africa (located between the Tanais and the Nile), Libya (between the Nile and the Gulf of Gades), and Europe (between the Strait and the Tanais). We quote the f...

  The work "Friedrich August Wolf's Lectures on Ancient Studies, Volume Four", published in 1835, is the subject of our short article today. Friedrich August Christian Wilhelm Wolf, as he was known in full, was a German classical philologist and scholar of antiquity. He is considered the founder of classical and modern philology. The following is a quote from page 28 (translated): Macedonians should not be considered Greeks; the ancients did not count them among them and called them barbarians; in fact, Macedo was a derogatory name . They differed from the Greeks in their customs and had many barbaric characteristics long after the Greeks were already civilized. The first time we see Macedonia shine is in the time of Archelaus in Socrates. He had a court where Greek culture prevailed and a lot of young people around him. There was no culture in the country itself; this was only achieved in Philip's time. The Greeks did not easily count among themselves peoples who had...

 In the ongoing debate about whether the ancient Macedonians or Alexander the Great were Greeks, we would like to recall the Lexicon of Lost Peoples. There we find a concrete reference to this question. But first, let's look at a short bio about the author of the work. About Harald Haarmann Harald Haarmann (born April 16, 1946 in Braunschweig) is a German linguist, cultural scientist and author. He studied general linguistics, various individual philological disciplines and prehistory at the universities of Hamburg, Bonn, Coimbra and Bangor. Haarmann received his doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1970 and completed his habilitation at the University of Trier in 1979. He has taught and researched at various German and Japanese universities and is a member of the research team at the Research Centre on Multilingualism (Brussels). Since 2003 he has been Vice President of the Institute of Archaeomythology (headquarters in Sebastopol (California), USA) and Director of its Europea...

 Once again we will quote an excerpt from the works of the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. In an earlier post we wrote about how Diodorus separated Macedonians from Greeks based on "race" . Today's example fits seamlessly into Diodorus' view. In addition, the following quotes come from the same work and the same book as the example mentioned above. Brief info about Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 1st century BC. Almost nothing is known about his life. He came from Agyrion (Agira) in Sicily and spent a long time in Rome and Egypt (during the time of the 180th Olympiad, i.e. in the period 60/59 to 57/56 BC). Diodorus' historical work, written in Greek, is called Diodori Siculi Bibliotheca historica and is a universal history in 40 books, of which books 1–5, 11–16 and 18–20 have been preserved. As far as we know, it is the most comprehensive historical work written by a Greek in antiquity and which has been...

  It has been a while since the historian Stephen G. Miller sent out a "cry for help". Macedonia is Greek, and it must stay that way - was his story!  In a circular letter he tried to persuade other historians and academics to jump on his horse. At first, some did so, but nowadays his attempt is almost forgotten. Only almost, because some Greek nationalists still use his (poor) action at the time and the website he founded as the basis for their "arguments". But Miler's attempt was criticized among scholar. Open criticism hit him in the German media. Uwe Walter sharply criticized this call in a column in the FAZ, the German historian described Miller's call as an "embarrassing historical-political call". The British academic of Swiss origin Andreas Willi also criticized Miller's approach and the "arguments" he put forward. And indeed, politics was the motivation for the American PHD Miller to write this (embarrassing) appeal. His appe...

 For the first time in North America, Macedonian archaeological artifacts will be exhibited at the international exhibition “The First Kings of Europe”, presenting artistic excellence in the field of social and religious forms characteristic of various stages of prehistory. The exhibition The First Kings of Europe is the result of the initiative of the Field Museum from Chicago and cooperation with the Institute and Museum - Bitola, the Gevgelija Museum and the Institute and Museum - Prilep. The national coordinator of the exhibition is Goce Naumov, who made a selection of several Neolithic, Neolithic and Iron Age objects found at the Vrbjanska Chuka, Shuplevec and Milci sites. These objects, along with hundreds of other artifacts from 23 Balkan museums, show the gradual social development of prehistoric communities that gradually transformed from egalitarian tribal organizations in the Neolithic to the first European kingdoms in the Balkan Iron Age. – The exhibition is initiated b...

 An excerpt from a compiled german paper titled "Greek history up to 336 BC - a first overview up to the appearance of Alexander the Great" by Norbert Froese. Taken from the german website antike-griechische.de ("ancient-greece") We have taken/translated a passage from page 24: The rise of Macedonia - The relationship between Macedonians and Greeks Historians argue about whether Macedonians are actually Greeks. In this form, I don't think the question is very productive. What is interesting, however, is the question of how the inhabitants of the Greek heartland perceived the Macedonians and whether the Macedonians themselves felt like Greeks. From the perspective of the mainland Greeks, the Macedonians are at most something like half-Greeks. On the one hand they are connected to the Macedonians through a related language (23), but on the other hand they are separated from them by a number of features of culture and tradition. Conversely, according to the evidenc...

 Over 500 piles and ancient artifacts discovered in Vrbnik, experts suspect that houses could be found. The underwater archaeological excavations will continue until September 2021 at the Vrbnik site, which is located on the west bank of Lake Ohrid at the exit of the city of Struga near the Kalishta settlement. The excavation work began on August 12th, and so far over 500 piles have been discovered and an area of about 500 square meters has been documented, which on average corresponds to about a tenth of the entire settlement. Experts involved in the project stated that they expect to find several houses under water. It is only a matter of time, they say. " The aim of this year's research is to take samples from the site in previously explored and documented parts of the settlement over a period of 20 days from August to September. Parallel to the underwater research, dendrochronological and carbon analyzes are being prepared in the premises of the Nikola Nezlobinski Natural ...

 For most of early Macedonian history, kings struggled constantly to maintain their independence while simultaneously striving to assert their preeminence over the local dynasts. Macedonia consisted of two distinct geographical regions: Lower Macedonia, which supported a large agricultural population, and Upper Macedonia, mountainous hinterlands which held extensive forests and rich mineral deposits. In antiquity, neither Macedonians nor Greeks considered the Macedonians to be Greek. Macedonian and Greek culture had little in common. Most Macedonians were farmers or seminomadic pastoralists living in scattered villages. War and hunting were central to the life of a Macedonian noble. The monarchy was the central institution of Macedonian society. Macedonian kings were autocrats, but they were not all-powerful. In the late sixth century BC, Amyntas I made an alliance with Persia and the kingdom was shielded from attack by its neighbors. In the fifth century, Alexander I, Perdiccas I...

 Radio Bulgaria reports in its newsflash section new discoveries in the ancient Macedonian city of Heraclea Sintica The BNR reports as follows: During research and excavation works in the ancient city of Heraclea Sintica in the Rupite near Petritsch area (southwestern Bulgaria), archaeologists repeatedly come across valuable artifacts, including a representation of Alexander the Great, a relief image of a musician, a massive marble sculpture of a bull and a statue associated with the Mithras cult, an inscription from the first century in honor of the emperor Tiberius and a masterfully made statue of a young woman in life size. Archaeologists are convinced that it is the statue of the ancient goddess of victory Nike, as it was found on the site of the Acropolis that houses the city's sanctuaries. The statue has well-preserved wings, but the head is missing. It is believed that the artwork was damaged during the barbarian invasions in the late 3rd century. About Heraclea Sintica...

 What was the Mother Tongue of Alexander the Great? by Anthony Ambrozic, 8 Lafayette Place, Thornhill , Ontario L3T 1G5, CANADA Preface It was not until the 1970s that serious work on Phrygian inscriptions began. With the exception of American excavations at Gordium in the 1950s and a publication in 1966 of an adventurous work by Otto Haas (Phrygische Sprachdenkmäler), there had been little progress until the decade of the 70s. It was the advent on the scene of a giant that broke the lull. Aided by the Asia-Minor-inscription terrain expert, Claude Brixhe, it was Michel Lejeune who brought his genius and expertise to bear on the subject matter. Having organized the cooperation of the French Institute of Archeology at Istanbul, the University of Pennsylvania excavation team at Gordium, and a variety of museums in Turkey, they systematically proceeded to prepare, examine, and review each inscription individually. By joint accord they established a definitive redaction which in 1984 wa...

 "The sommon Macedonian soldier was proud not to be a Greek", this quote comes from the work 'Alexander the Great' by Philip Freeman. Even in the introduction on page 5, Freeman invalidates a number of newfangled myths that arose about the language of the Macedonians in the course of the Greek struggle for the inheritance of Macedonia: The language of the Macedonians differed from the Greeks, the Macedonians from the Upper Regions and according to Freeman, the "Lowland farmers" spoke a common language that separated them from the Greeks in the south. As a result, they are to be seen as an independent people. So we read: Though the pastoral Macedonians of the mountains differed from the lowland farmers in many ways, they shared a common language that defined them as a single people - and separated them from the Greeks to the south. The Macedonian tongue was so far removed from the Greek of Athens or Sparta that it may as well have been a different language en...

 King Philip II of Macedonia (father of Alexander the Great) was the guarantor for Macedonia's rise, as well as for the later glory that his son Alexander III of Macedonia would reap. When Philip defeated the allied Hellenes at Chaironeia with Alexander's help, it marked a turning point in the history of the "Greek world". From then on the Greeks were led by a stranger: King Philip II of Macedonia, as the "Hegemon of the Corinthian League". In the Corinthian League, Philip gathered all the Greeks he had defeated - The Corinthian League was a federation of states that consisted of the defeated Greeks. Almost all city-states were "united" under the the federal government of the Macedonian king. Macedonia, on the other hand, was not a member of the Confederation. Philipp, however, let himself be determined as the hegemon, as he was the  winner on the battlefield. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel reported on these events in his work...

 Macedonia fought three bitter long wars against the Romans, who set out to conquer the area. In the second Macedonian-Roman War, Titus Quinctius Flamininus fought against the Macedonians, who were led by King Philip V of Macedon into the battlefield. The ancient writer Plutarch wrote a work on Flamininus. In one passage we read an interesting detail. According to Plutarch, the Romans did not come to fight against the Greeks, but against the Macedonians for the Greeks. Philip V ruled over the Greeks, and so the Romans acted as the liberators of the Greeks. We read in Plutarch, Flaminius: It is told of Pyrrhus, that when first, from an adjacent hill or watchtower which gave him a prospect of the Roman army, he descried them drawn up in order, he observed, that he saw nothing barbarian-like in this barbarian line of battle, And all who came near Titus could not choose but say as much of him, at their first view. For they who had been told by the Macedonians of an invader, at the head...

 In his work "History of Greece Vol. 12" (published 1875) Georg Grote wrote, that "The basis of Philip’s character was Macedonian, not Greek!" Who was Georg Grote? George Grote (born November 17, 1794 in Clay Hill near Beckenham, now London, † June 18, 1871 in London) was an English ancient historian. ... Elected to Parliament for London in December 1832, he joined the radical party and surrendered. especially the introduction of the secret ballot for the task, which he proposed every year. However, since he did not succeed in defeating the resistance of the Conservatives and a large part of the Whigs, he resigned his mandate in 1841 and resigned from banking a year and a half later, only to concentrate on drafting his History of Greece (London 1846 -56, 12 vols. Plus 2nd vol. Excursions; 5th ed. 1883, 12 vols .; German, 2nd ed., Berlin 1880, 4 vols .; the sections mythology and antiquities specially translated from it by T. Fischer, Leipzig 1856-60, 4 vols.), Which...

 In the inaugural dissertation "Studies on War and Power Formation in Early Hellenism" (Justus Liebig University, Giessen) we find an important reference to the constant question of whether the ancient Macedonians were actually Greeks, as the modern Greek propaganda claims.  This construction that a foreign king was leader of a Greek league is an absolute novelty In section "5.2.4" Personal union" we read the following passage about the father of Alexander the Great, Phillip II of Macedon: ... The area to which the Argead kings had been of special interest even before Philip was Thessaly, the bridging land between the Hellas of the great Poleis and Macedonia. The rule over Thessaly meant security to the south and was at the same time an offensive position, a gateway against Thebes or Athens, both of which had appeared as intervention powers in Macedonia. But Thessaly had more to offer than just its strategic location; Thessaly had a powerful cavalry, but also a...