His Natinality

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Was Alexander the Great Greek or was he Macedon? Thank you for your help.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2002

Answers

ancient greece wasn't even a real place...everything back then was kingdoms...athens was pretty much all of greece.....alexander the great conquered all those greek kingdoms, and macedonia was not hellenic...the first hellenics were fishermen.....that's why greece is settled so far south on the mediterranean.......greece occupies 52 percent of what is technically macedonia, albania occupies a small percentage and bulgaria and serbia occupy another big percentage....macedonia is way bigger than greece......what is now called northern greece is actually macedonia, 4 million macedonians live there....its funny too because in greece there are actually only 3 million of you....haha, and the rest are turks, bulgars, and macedonians......you greeks are soo cocky, you try to change the history books, you try to assimilate macedonians to believe they are greek...when in actuallity, there are so many so called "greeks" that are actually macedonian...they have just been washed into your culture...you just can't handle it.......you greeks won't let the macedonians call there own country macedonia, you take there flag from them.....a lot of you are just a bunch of jealous prejudice pigs that feel threatened

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004

First of all I think you people have your history facts really mixed up, if any of this is based on any kind of REAL history!!!

The Albanians :

If you open up any history book you'll find Alexander demolishing them (Albanians) in his path, according to Strabo, Albania was bounded on the east by the Caspian, and on the north by the Caucasus. On the west it joined Iberia, while on the south it was divided from the Greater Armenia by the river Cyrus. By later writers, the northern and western boundaries are differently given,it was found to be the fact that the Albani occupied the country on both sides of the Caucasus, and accordingly Pliny, in c. 15, carries the country further north, as far as the river Casius, while in this Chapter he makes the river Alazon, the modern Alasan, the western boundary towards Iberia.

So as anyone can plainly see they never had any connection to Balkan Whites but always were a mixture of Mongols and the later Turks.

If you continue to look in that history book, you'll find that they only were "rederected" or should I say that they populated the area they occupate today, only during the Byzatine empire, when such "transfers" were a common phenomenon. The Byzantines brought them to the current area they have populated only as mercenary troops, that is the reason they use the double headed eagle on a red background as their nations symbol, because as everyone knows that was the exact symbol the Byzantine army used.

Now the Macedonian Hellenes :

If you think of it, this doesn't have a great difference to Americans, Australians and the Brits. Does any one of you remember reading about American Independence? If you do you see all we have here is Anglosaxons from England (Englishmen) getting their *** kicked ( no offence to any Brit that might be reading this) by the Anglosaxons in New World (Americans). They were not a different race, though they did live in different places and had different names, so what we have here is two "modern polis" fighting against eachother, just people of the same origin/race/blood call it what you like.

The name dispute and some history info :

Everybody claims that Macedonia is more than a name but few can say what it is the name of. It is an undeniable fact that the land was named after the Ancient Makedones, Greek-speaking people. Their kingdom originally did not extend beyond the north of Lakes Prespa and Achris (present Ochrid), where the non-Greek speaking and hostile tribes of Dardanes and Paeones lived.

The problem begins from Roman times, the name Macedonia was used for a much wider area, including Paeonia (but not Dardania), parts of Thrace, Thessaly, and Southern Greece, while in the Byzantine Empire it was completely disassociated from classical Macedonia; it was a division (theme) in Thrace bordering on the Black Sea. In the actual area of the ancient kingdom the Byzantines established the theme of Thessaloniki.

Since the end of the Roman times, and for well over 2,000 years, Macedonia was never identified with specific and constant adminstrative or geographical borders. It was only late in the 19th century that the name ?Macedonia? was used conventionally to denote the region of three Ottoman vilayets (provinces) namely of Thessaloniki, Monastir (present Bitola) and Uskub (present Skopje). By that time the region had become the bone of contention among various Balkan nationalities. By the dawn of the 20th century, the name ?Macedonia? was widely accepted as the geographical denomination for the region which more or less included the above three Ottoman provinces; not the region of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia. It is worth remembering that at that time the name ? Macedonia? had a geographical?not an ethnic nor administrative? connotation.

As a result of the Balkan wars of 1912-13, the region was liberated from Ottoman rule. The initial three allies?Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia?who had fought together to overthrow the Ottomans from their European possessions, shared parts of the region. In the end, Greece acquired the southern part, which included the entire Aegean littoral region, which approximately amounted to 51% of ? geographical Macedonia?, and close to 90% of the ancient kingdom. About 38% reverted to Serbia (later Yugoslavia), while Bulgaria was limited to only 9%. A small strip of land west of the Prespa lake was later joined to the Albanian state.

Of the three parts of ?geographical Macedonia?, only the Greek part was given, after its liberation, the admininstrative name of Macedonia, namely ?Geniki Dioikisi Macedonias" (General Administration of Macedonia). This administrative name, with certain variations and intervals?when it was named ?Northern Greece? to include the region of Thrace?has survived to the present, as evidenced by the presence in Thessaloniki of the ?Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace?.

The Serbian (Yugoslav) part was initially called ?Southern Serbia?, but later, during the inter-war period, it was named Vardarska Banovina (Province of Vardar). Only after the Second World War, did the Yugoslav Communist Party, in re-organizing the Yugoslav state on a federal basis, assign the name of the ?People?s Republic of Macedonia? to the former ?Vardarska Banovina? (in 1963 it was renamed ?Socialist Republic of Macedonia?).

The Bulgarian part never assumed the Macedonian name. During the interwar years it was known as the Pirin district, whereas after the Second World War it was given the administrative name of the Blagoevgrad Okrug (?Blagoevgrad District?).

Conventionally, Greeks and foreign observers, referred to the three regions as ?Greek Macedonia?, ?Serbian/Yugoslav Macedonia? and ? Bulgarian Macedonia?. More or less, the use of these names underlined the fact that by the international treaties which ended the Balkan wars?the Treaty of Bucharest (1913)?and the First World War?the Treaty of Neuilly (1919)?the three Macedonian regions had become integral parts of the respective sovereign states of Greece, Serbia/Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

In 1991, as a result of the disintegration of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, its federated unit of the ?Socialist Republic of Macedonia?, proclaimed its independence as Republika na Makedonia ?Republic of Macedonia?). It is interesting to observe, that, both as a federated and as an independent state it did not adopt the name of the region over which it exercised sovereignity, i.e.?Vardar Makedonija?, but took possession of the name of the entire region of Macedonia, which, as we have seen extended over four countries. This christening was preceeded and followed by extremist nationalist rhetoric and visions for a future unified Macedonian state

Language:

In simple words, under ?Macedonian language? or ?the Macedonian?, every traditional linguist, until at least the end of the 1940s (when the standardization of the new language took place) understood the ancient Macedonian language. Very important linguists such as H. Ahrens (De Graecae linguae dialectis, Goettingen 1843), G. Chatzidakis (Zur Abstammung der alten Makedonier, Athens 1897) or O. Hoffmann (Die Makedonen. Ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum, Goettingen 1906) devoted themselves to the analysis of the ancient Macedonian language as a pre-stage of Greek. Contemporary linguists such as G. Buck (The Greek Dialects, Chicago 1955), J. Chadwick (The Prehistory of the Greek Language, Cambridge 1963), G. Babiniotis (?Ancient Macedonian: The Place of Macedonian among the Greek Dialects?, in : A. M. Tamis (ed.), Macedonian Hellenism, Melbourne 1990, pp. 241- 250) have continued using this terminology

In recent years, a wealth in unprecedented numbers (over 5,000) of Greek inscriptions from archaeological excavations in Greek Macedonia, have furnished concrete evidence of the Greek identity of the language of Ancient Macedonia. The most recent authoritative assessment of the Ancient Macedonian dialect is provided by the eminent Emeritus Professor of the University of Paris, Olivier Masson, in the recent edition (1996) of ?THE OXFORD CLASSICAL DICTIONARY? 3rd edition, 1996, Oxford U. Press, (Oxford, New York) pp. 905-6: ?For a long while Macedonian onomastics, which we know relatively well thanks to history, literary authors, and epigraphy, has played a considerable role in the discussion. In our view the Greek character of most names is obvious and it is difficult to think of a Hellenization due to wholesale borrowing... Macedonian may then be seen as a Greek dialect, characterized by its marginal position and by local pronunciations. Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it an Aeolic dialect we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek... We must wait for new discoveries, but we may tentatively conclude that Macedonian is a dialect related to North-West Greek?.

On the other hand, Slavists have for a long time used the term ? Macedonian? in its geographical context, in order to describe a number of Southwestern Bulgarian dialects, spoken in the broader geographic area of Macedonia (transcending the borders of Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia). From the beginning of the 20th century to the 1940s, a series of international scholars have written on this subject: Tracts and scientific papers have been written by such linguists as V. Oblak (Macedonische Studien. Die slavischen Dialekte des suedlichen und nordwestlichen Macedoniens, Wien 1896), A. Mazon (Conte slaves de la Macedoine sud-occidentale, Paris 1923), A. Vaillant (?Le probleme du slave macedonien? In: Bulettin de la societe de la linguistique de Paris, 1938, No. 39, pp.195-210), A. Belic? (La Macedoine, etudes ethnographiques et politiques, avec cartes Paris & Barcelone, 1949), A. Selischchev (Ocherki po makedonskoj dialektologij. Spb 1918, Sofia 1981. They all refer to the slavic dialects of Macedonia as Bulgarian.

Of course, no serious scholar could even trace a remotest relationship between an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Ancient Macedonia and the Slavic dialect recently converted into an independent literary language in FYROM. The only ?linkage? was, once again, the Macedonian name. Although a term defining totally different concepts, it was viewed by nationalists as a useful conveyor for usurping the cultural heritage of neighbouring peoples.

Who are the Macedonians?

Today observers agree that there is more than one variant of Macedonians. Ironically, all these variants are usually defined in foreign languages by the same name: Macedonians, Macedoniens, Macedoni etc. (with the notable exception of the Germans, who use two names: ?Makedonen? for the Ancient Macedonians, and ?Mazedonier? for the various contemporary brands of Macedonians).

Let us, then take one by one the various brands of Macedonians.

a. Macedonians of antiquity: A tribe of Greek culture and language The etymology of their name is further proof of their greek identity. They gave their name to the land and self-identified themselves in their Greek vernacular as , [pronounced ?makethnɒ (a as in about, e as in bet, ɟas ea in eat?)]. Under Alexander the Great they united the Greeks and spread the greek language and greek civilisation to the known limits of the world.

b. Macedonians [Makethones] as a regional Greek name: For centuries, in Byzantine and Ottoman times, Greek-speakers of the wider and usually ill-defined Macedonian regions identified themselves as Macedonians in the regional as well as in a cultural sense. Particularly after the revival of Greek cultural heritage, educated Makethones also compounded their greek identity with elements of the ancient Macedonian heritage and proud references to the Kings Alexander and Philip and their generals such as Philotas, Krateros, etc. It is interesting to notice that such names were given only by the Greeks of Macedonia to their children, not by the Slavs of Macedonia, who opted for names of the medieval Bulgarian tradition (Boris, Ivan). How popular the Macedonian name is among the Greeks of Macedonia, is attested by its widespread use. Since the 19th century, and especially during the 20th until today, numerous Greek firms, shops, associations, schools (both private and state institutions) have used the adjective ?Macedonian? as part of their trade mark.

c. Macedonians [Makedontsi] as a regional Bulgarian name: At the time of the Bulgarian renaissance of the 19th century, and during the national liberation struggles, the Bulgarians, like the Greeks, used regional names, in addition to their ethnic Bulgarian name, to identify themselves. Thus the name Makedontsi was used to differentiate the Bulgarians of Macedonia from the Dunavtsi, Trakiitsi etc. The name Makedontsi gained more prominence after the establishment of the Bulgarian state (1878) and during the Bulgarian armed fighting in Macedonia in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. It was used to describe the Bulgarians of Macedonia and distinguish them from those of the Bulgarian Principality. The term is still being used in this sense by Bulgarian Macedonians in Bulgaria and the diaspora.

d. Macedonians [Makedontsi] as an ethnic term of certain Slavs of the wider Macedonian region: Nationalists and scholars continue their debate over their diametrically opposing views concerning the origins of the name Makedontsi as an ethnic term. It is still a controversial issue. It is true, however, that at the beginning of the 20th century, certain Slav- (Bulgarian-) speaking intellectuals and nationalists from Macedonia sought to define themselves, through the Macedonian name, as a separate national group from the Bulgarians. But the main impetus came during the 1930s when the Comintern and the communist parties of the Balkan states, motivated by political reasons, adopted the term not only as a regional but as an ethnic one. It was on this basis, that during the Second World War and after the Liberation, the Yugoslav communists accepted and sanctioned the Macedonian name as the ethnic and national name of a separate people within the Yugoslav federation.

e. Macedonians or Makedontsi: This is also today the name of the citizens of the newly recognized state of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). By this name, the state recognizes not only the ethnic Slav Macedonians, but also the Albanians, the Vlachs, the Serbs and other citizens of the country

Any one can easily recognize the problems raised by employing a single term (Macedonians) when translating into foreign languages the various Macedonian identities. The problem becomes more acute, as persons identifying themselves by?or belonging to?one of the five variants react strongly against being identified with today?s Makedontsi. To a considerable degree the post-World War II conflict between Bulgarians and Yugoslavs, and the most recent one between Greece and FYROM stems from the confusion over the identification of different peoples by one and the same name. Indeed, the current difficulties between Sofia and Skopje over the name of the language in which documents of bilateral agreements should be drafted, has much to do with the interpretation of the name.

Now in the Classics we find :

Herodotus gives us the following story, which is related to the star as a symbol of the royal Argaed dynasty: herodotus_VIII137 (document); "

...Three brothers of the lineage of Temenos came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gavganis and Aeropos and Perdikkas, and worked for the king that was there. When the king learned that when the queen baked the bread of Perdikkas, it doubled its size, than of the other breads, he considered that as a miracle and ordered the 3 brothers to leave his kingdom. The brothers required their payment. Then the king told them to take the sun as a payment. Gavganis and Aeropos where taken by surprise and the youngest brother, Perdikkas, accepted the offer. He took out his sword, circled it 3 times and took the sun, which he placed in his underarm and left with his brothers." Herodotus VIII,137 Historian, 484-426BC

"And she conceived and bore to Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus."

(Hesiod, Catalogues of Women and Eoiae 3 [Loeb, H.G. Evelyn-White])

Herodotus:

"For in the days of king Deucalion it (i.e. a Macedonian tribe) inhabited the land of Phthiotis, then in the time of Dorus, son of Hellen, the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus; driven by the Cadmeians from this Histiaean country it settled about Pindus in the parts called Macedonian; thence again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into Peloponnesus, where it took the name of Dorian."

(Herod. I, 56, 3 [Loeb, A.D. Godley])

"Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably."

(Herod. V, 20, 4 [Loeb])

"Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know."

(Herod. V, 22, 1 [Loeb])

"But Alexander (I), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place."

(Herod. V, 22, 2)

"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])

"Three brothers of the lineage of Temenos came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gauanes and Aeropos and Perdiccas."

(Herod. VIII, 137, 1 [Loeb])

"For I (Alexander I) myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery."

(Herod. IX, 45, 2 [Loeb])

Thucydides:

"The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia ... Alexander I, the father of Perdiccas (II), and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos."

(Thuc. II, 99, 3 [Loeb, C. F. Smith])

Isocrates:

"Argos is the land of your fathers."

(Isoc., To Philip, 32 (Loeb, G. Norlin])

"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."

(Isoc., To Philip, 127 [Loeb])

" ... all men will be grateful to you: the Hellenes for your kindness to them and the rest of the nations, if by your hands they are delivered from barbaric despotism and are brought under the protection of Hellas."

(Isoc., To Philip, 154 [Loeb])

Polybius:

"This is a sworn treaty made between us, Hannibal ... and Xenophanes the Athenian ... in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece."

(Pol. Histories, VII, 9, 4 [Loeb, W.R. Paton])

"How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?"

(Pol. Hist., IX, 35, 2 [Loeb])

Strabo:

"And Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece."

(Strab. VII, Frg. 9 [Loeb, H.L. Jones])

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 Greeks, save the Lacedaimonians, set up these spoils from the barbarians dwelling in Asia."

(Arr. I, 16, 7 [Loeb, P. A. Brunt])

"Your ancestors invaded Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury; ... (and) I have been appointed leader of the Greeks ..."

(Arr., Anab. Alex. II, 14, 4)

Pausanias:

"They say that these were the tribes collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Greek Assembly: ... the Macedonians joined and the entire Phokian race ... In my day there were thirty members: six each from Nikopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly..."

(Paus. Phokis VIII, 2 & 4 [Loeb, W. Jones])

"Belistiche, a woman from the coast of Macedonia, won with the pair of foals ... at the hundred and twenty-ninth Olympics."

(Paus. Eleia VIII, 11 [Loeb])

Plutarch:

"Yet through Alexander (the Great) Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks ... Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Greek magistracies ... Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Greek 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."

(Plut. Moralia. On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A [Loeb, F.C. Babbitt])

"Alexander lived many hundred years ago. He was king of Macedon, one of the states of Greece. His life was spent in war. He first conquered the other Grecian states, and then Persia, and India, and other countries one by one, till the whole known world was conquered by him. It is said that he wept, because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. He died, at the age of thirty-three, from drinking too much wine. In consequence of his great success in war, he was called Alexander the Great."

And for all you Skopians, Here is what some Skopian (Fyromian) scholars have said about this dispute:

A collection of excerpts from FYROMian academic literature that confirms the Greek ethnicity of ancient Macedonians

1)'We are not to be amazed that in the archaeological material of Pelagonia we have a rarely great wealth of reflections of all pronounced cultural events in the relations between middle-Danubian and Graeco-Aegean world' Mikulcic,Ivan "Pelagonija",Skopje,1966,pp.2

'In a such great chronological distance in the life of ancient Pelagonia two stages are visible: development and existence in the frames of Hellenic culture and later the Roman one'

Ibid.,pp.4

2)'The lower part of Vardar is certainly the area south of Demir- Kapija gorge that entered Hellenic cultural sphere very early and already before 600 b.c. the material culture is thoroughly Hellenised.' "The Valley of Vardar in Ist millennium b.c" ("???????? ?? ??pd?p ß? ?pß??? µ??e??sµ ?.?.e.") ,Skopje,1982,pp.2

3)'Even in the last decades of 5th century stabilization in all spheres of social life is established. As first sign of the new time import from Graeco-Macedonian south appeared as well as fortified settlements that later grew into urban centers with character of economic and religious nuclei of the region' "Guide to the archaeological exhibition"("??d?? ??? ?p? e???????? ?????a?"),Skopje,1996,pp.54

4)'For example,Pelagonia,which is naturally oriented to the South, was the first to be subjected to Greek influence, together with the lower part of Vardar' "Archaeologic Map of the Republic of Macedonia"("?p?e?????? µ??? ?? ? e?sa???? ???ed?????"),Skopje,1996,pp.71

5)'From the mountains of Epirus Dorian Makednoi (Macedonians) made their advance towards Macedonia, conquering the native tribes who latter gained new, Hellenistic culture and after that are politically organized into a powerful state' "The Art in Macedonia"("Sµe?????? ß? ???ed?????"),Skopje,1984 pp.26

6)'Paeonians,a people who during the first millennia b.c inhabited border area between the three great paleobalkanic peoples-Illyrians, Thracians and Hellenes' Veljanovska,Fanica "An Attempt at Anthropological Definition of the Paeonians"("?a?d ?? ???p???????? det???p??e ?? ?????f?? e"),Skopje,1994

7)'...Certain proto-populations occupying distinct areas of the Balkans are to be distinguished on 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, in the northern part of the Balkans the proto Daco-Mysians and in the southwest of the Central Balkans the proto Bryges.' "Bryges on the central Balkans in the 2nd and 1st millennium b.c."("? p????e ?? fe??p?????? ?????? ß? ß??p??? ? ?pß??? µ??e??sµ ?.?.e.") (summary)

"Arheologija" No 1,Skopje 1995

'With the end of Iron Age III, i.e. with the total Hellenisation of material culture,the prehistory of Macedonia ends.' Sanev,Vojislav "Prehistory of S.R. Macedonia"("?p????? p??? ?? ?.?. ???ed?????"),Skopje 1977,pp.13

9)"The Art of Antiquity left in the region of Ohrid a great number of traces of its own presence.Illyrian forts imported goods from Greek centers and imitated them in a modest fashion. Political advancement of the Macedonians and their domination enabled cultural influx that manifested itself through products of crafts and alphabet. From the times of Phillip II deeper advances in the area of Lychnidos are attested.Cultural influences of the Graeco- Macedonian world are more present.Rich Hellenistic culture arrived at Illyrian soil" "Ohrid" by Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova ,in:"The Art in Macedonia"("Sµe?????? ß? ???ed?????") ,Skopje 1984, pp.85

10)"With the increase of influences from developed cultured south and with the acceptation of Hellenic influences over Paeonia,which already in the V and IV centuries b.c.have committed great changes in the Paeonian culture, usage of Greek Pantheon was also accepted" Petrova,Eleonora "Cults and symbolism of Paeonian tribes compared with the Illyrian and Thracian ones"("?s???? ? ??µa???? µ?? ??? ?????????e ??eµ??? ???pede? ?? ???p????e ? ?p????????e") in: "Macedoniae Acta Archeologica",Skopje No.13,pp.129

"Having the central position in this part of the Balkans,Paeonia,apart from receiving influences from the Hellenic south, wasn't an exception with regard to influences from Illyrian and Thracian sphere"

Ibid.,pp.134

11)"Greek epigraphic monuments created before definitive Roman domination of our area are to be found in modest quantity" Bitrakova Grozdanova,Vera "Hellenistic Monuments in S.R.Macedonia"("? e?e???????? ???µe??f? ß? ?.?.???ed?????"),Skopje,1987,pp. 130

"Study of the inscriptions speaks about epigraphic characteristics of the neighboring Macedonian-Hellenic world"

Ibidem. pp.103

12)"During the early arhaic 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" "Macedonian Heritage"("???ed????? ????ed??ß?"),No 1,july 1996,pp.5

13)"The northern periphery of Greek world, inhabited with ancient Macedonians and other peoples and tribes, wasn't developed for democracy as the most developed social system at that time" Mikulcic,Ivan "Ancient towns in the Republic of Macedonia"("???????? e ?p?d?ß? ß? ?e?sa???? ???ed?????"),Skopje,1999,pp.9

"Our overview was exposed chronologically. The first part embraces the early antiquity in our country, the period from 5th century b.c. up to the middle 3rd century b.c.. Throughout this centuries one can follow the Hellenic spirit and the creation of the Hellenic civilization in our areas, which left a basic imprint on the material artifacts"

Ibidem. pp.10-11

14)"The quantitative ceramic material used to be produced with the usual process including the labor of persons .Partly because of that, partly because of the traditions that had taken roots into our soil, which with centuries before that used to be watered with Hellenic spirit and Hellenistic way of life ,the use of the building ceramics had been brought to minimum" Lilcic,Viktor "Building ceramics in the Republic of Macedonia during the Roman Period:Scupi,Stobi,Heraclea Lynkestis,Styberra"

("Gp?de??? ?ep?µ??? ß? ?e?sa???? ???ed????? ?? ßpeµe ?? p?µ????? ? ep??d-??s??,???a?,?ep???e?????e????,???aep?"), Skopje,1996,pp.120

15)"In any case during the classical and Hellenistic periods and especially in the 4th and 3rd centuries b.c. we can no longer speak of Paeonian cult in the Peaonian region ,but of cults adopted by the entire Hellenic civilization, where through the material culture, elements of spiritual life from developed south were adopted. This was followed by the strenghtening of the autochthonous elements above all, the solar cult. Since Paeonians were centrally located in this region of the Balkans,they were influenced from the Hellenic south but they also couldn't avoid the influences from the Illyrian and Thracian sphere" Petrova,Eleonora "The cults, symbolism and Deities in Paeonian and neighboring regions" in:

"Macedonia and the neighboring regions from 3rd to1st millennium b.c.-Papers presented at the international symposium in Struga- 1997",Skopje,1999,pp.118

So in conclusion people OPEN UP A BOOK! before you start srewing with other peoples history !!!!



-- Anonymous, September 30, 2004


Look Modern Macedonia was formed in 1991 out of the old Yugoslavia, it is in a different area to the ancient macedonia which is in Greece and the inhabitants of modern Macedonia are not in anyway related to the ancient macedonians, modern Macedonins are just rejects from slovakia. Nor was aristotle Macedonian he came from the region around thebes (Boetia) The ancient Macedonians were and are Greek, it was only an Athenian who mocked the Macedonians and called them Barbarians because they were not as civilised as the city states. Alexander was Greek his mother came from epirus and his Grand parents came from the pelopenese. Alexander himself claimed he was decended from Herakles who came from Thebes and Achilles who came from Mycenea.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2004

You greeks just don't give up...your soo fuckin cocky....macedonia has a great heritage, and at that time alexander the great conquered most of greece...and thought very little of the greeks...his army consisted of 90 percent or more macedonian...the rest were greek bitches......macedonians of the time had there own gods...and greece stole a lot of them to be there own.......another thing.....Aristotle was macedonian as well, he was from a macedonian state, not from greece......the first hellenics were fishermen, and that's all they were, that's why athens and all the greek kingdoms were settled on the mediteranean......macedonia has a very strong heritage, but you greeks are to stuck up to realize that

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2004

Wrong! The ancient Macedonians were not Greek. The Illyrians also were not Greek, they were a Dinaric race (which also means they weren't Albanian either). Funny how Greeks and Albanians and Fyromians all claim him as their own when none of them have much to do with him.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2004


Alexander the great was greek. He came from the Greek state of Macedonia. his racial group was Greek.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2004

Both the Illyrians and Macedonians were Greek tribes like the Ionians and Dorians further south with a common language and culture. The proof lies in archaeology and linguistics and cannot be distorted no matter how hard some people try. Yes the Greek polis’s were more evolved but that does not mean the Macedonians and Illyrians were any less Hellenes than the rest of them.

-- Anonymous, June 10, 2004

Arrgh! Nations are more modern invention. When Alexabnder was born there were no nations in the modern sense. There were kingdoms and city-states and tribes and at least one empire ruled by a king-of- kings. Therefore, Alexander did not have a "nationality".

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2004

Yes Alexander was born in Macedonia, but Macedonia was then a greek kingdom. They spoke greek worshipped the greek gods and were allowed to take part in the olympic games, which no "barbarian" was allowed to. Sure they had wars with other greeks, but all greeks had wars with each other.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2004

of course he was macedonian but who were the macedonians at Alexander perioD????

An Illyrian tribe which means albanian ....He was a barbarian for the greeks, sure and the slaves (bulgars and serbs came in the balkan 600 after Christ... It is easy to understand. If you not admit that macedonian are illyrians, there is a problem. Anyway, Philip's mother was a pure illyrian princess called Euridike and Olympia, Alexander's mother was from Epire, Known to be albanian illyrian by blood and by language

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2003



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-- Anonymous, June 22, 2003


Alexander The Great was and always will be Macedonian. his father phillip was king of Macedonia and so was Alexander. How can he be from Afganistan? Thats just stupid.

ALEXANDER WAS AND STILL IS THE GREATEST CONQUORER THAT WILL EVER LIVE this website is good but some info is wrong coz people make stupid comments. Andreas

ps. they are making Alexander's face on the side of a mountain in Macedonia and will be ready in 2005. i cant wait to see it.

-- Anonymous, February 17, 2003


He is an Afghanistan guy not Mecadon!!! You don't know or study HISTORY!!! It was in my Social Studies Book!!! So don't lie!!!

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2002

Alexander the Great was a Macedon. His Mother cam from Epirus. In this time, Greece was divided in diverent countries and Macedon was also an independent country in the north.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2002

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