11-23-2010, 03:50 PM
Quote:The Macedonians were not only a handful of nobles ruling over barbarian peasantry. It was a whole people conquering other people and effectively exterminating/ousting or assimilating them as is the norm in all such cases. The Pierians are all attested to have been driven away to the east, as are most other tribes against whom Argead Macedonia expanded.What is the evidence for such a norm, the evidence for a mass ("whole people") Macedonian migration? How do we know the literary accounts (such as Thucydides') are not merely some later rationalizations (because unfortunately they are late and retrospective) for a historical change which the ancient authors perceived and tried to explain: in old days there were Pierians, now there are Macedonians, ergo the latter drove the former away.
"Thracian" sounds a bit too presumptive (given we know little to nothing about non-Greek languages of Macedonia), but "barbarian" as in non-Greek or maybe a Greek and non-Greek mix is a fair assessment, isn't it? There might have been Greek speakers before the Argeads, but on the other hand, I don't know what's the reason to push all linguistic assimilations in Bronze Age, when they could have been in progress in Archaic or even Classical age.
Drago?
