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It\'s all Greek to me (Makedonians included) ...
#91
I guess the fact that Yauna meant Ionian is well known, because the Ionian Greeks would have been the first of the Hellenes that the Persians came into contact with (even allowing for the fact that Asia Minor at the time also had Aiolian and Dorian areas of settlement too). Yauna/Ionia - the two names are obviously similar sounding. The Persian 'yauna' was from the Greek ?????. Therefore to an administrator in Susa perhaps an Ionian was a Greek and vice versa (by extension)? In the same respect Greek Makedonians could have been included in the catch-all phrase? There are also, however, interesting similarities of word structure to yauna in the Hebrew word for the Greek/s yavamin / Y?w?n / Y?w?n?m and the Turkic phrase yunan (which I readily accept may well be derived from the former or perhaps a common root).

It is similar to the way in which all the Hellenes became known to the Romans as ??????? (Graikoi) i.e Graeci from the tribe that originated in Euboia and settled in Italy.
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[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
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#92
In many Asiatic languages except the Turkish the word "yunan" signifies the Greek and I have been informed that in some Indian dialects the term "Yavana" exitsts. The Romans except the Beotian Graekoi new the inhabitats of the colony GRAXA known also Graekoi.

Kind regards
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#93
I stumbled across the following passage and thought it was interesting. Evidently even some of the ancients had difficulties describing themselves as Greek, Macedonian or some sort of hybrid combination.

Quote:First, it seems likely that Appian would anyway not have looked directly to a Greek background as his source of identity, but rather to a Graeco-Macedonian one. The status of the Macedonians as Greeks had long been open to dispute. Alexander the Great was protected from scrutiny by his own merits. The Successors, the founders of the Hellenistic kingdoms and their heirs, were more exposed… It is clear from Appian’s Syrian Wars that Appian himself had discussed the question of the relationship between Macedonians and Greeks. ‘The affairs of the Macedonians and the Greeks were closely associated (epimikta) at various times and places, as I have demonstrated in my Hellenic History’ (Syrian Wars 2.5). In other words, being Macedonians was different (cf. ibid. 57. 297, Mithridatic War 41. 159), and very definitely a source of pride (cf. Preface 9.33, 10.37-42, 12.45; Civil Wars ii. 149. 619-152. 649 for the digressive comparison between Caesar and Alexander), but not too different. Appian as an Alexandrian could legitimately claim the authority of Macedonian arms, as well as the intellectual inheritance of Greece.

Swain, Hellenism and Empire
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#94
One of the gravest mistakes many make when reading ancient Greek texts is to misunderstand the use of the definitive article when talking about "the Greeks". In modern English, when we read "The Macedonians and the Greeks" we immediately assume that the Macedonians are something different since it is the Macedonians AND "the Greeks". Then further evidence as to the non-hellenism of people we can find in many ancient writers such as Aeschines, for example, a contemporary to Demosthenes who wrote :

“…saying that it was delivered in the presence of the ambassadors whom the Greeks had sent to you; for you had invited them….” (Aeschines, on the Embassy 2.57) or “…for in thus fixing the dates, he saw to it that the meetings of your assembly should be held before the ambassadors from the states of Hellas should have arrived.” (Aeschines, on the Embassy 2.61) or “The Lacedaemonians were the leaders of the Hellenes, not long ago, on both land and sea, and yet they suffered so great a reversal of fortune when they met defeat at Leuctra that they were deprived of their power over the Hellenes, and lost such of their warriors as chose to die rather than survive defeat at the hands of those over whom they had once been masters.” (Isocrates, to Phillip 5.47) and again here “nay, they are now warred upon by their neighbors ; they are distrusted by all the Peloponnesians ; they are hated by most of the Hellenes ; they are harried and plundered day and night by their own serfs ; and not a day passes that they do not have to take the field or fight against some force or other, or march to the rescue of their perishing comrades.” (Isocrates, to Phillip 5.49) and "For he collected a naval force off Rhodes, won a victory over the Lacedaemonians in a sea-fight, deposed them from their sovereignty, and set the Hellenes free. . (Isocrates, to Phillip 5.63)

or when talking about "Greece" as an area :

“Well, if I were trying to present this matter to any others before having broached it to my own country, which has thrice freed Hellas--twice from the barbarians and once from the Lacedaemonian yoke--I should confess my error.” (Isocrates, to Phillip 5.129)

Are these words evidence against the Athenians' and the Lacedaemonians' hellenism? Would we consider these words evidence as to the Macedonians' otherness if they were directed against the Macedonians?

And as far as the "Yaunas" are concerned, we established that there are a number of theories, but we have also seen that the one which enjoys the most acceptance is the one that translates the Yauna Takabara as "the Macedonians". Of course doubts exist, of course other theories have been proposed too. Maybe, another clue could lie in India, where in the edicts of Asoka (mid 3rd century BC) we read about the "Yonas".

“Now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. And it (conquest by Dhamma) has been won here, on the borders, even six hundred yojanas away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni.” Rock Edict Nb13 (S. Dhammika).

In the Gandhari original Antiochos is called “Amtiyoko nama Yona-raja”

So, here we have unambiguous evidence of yet another eastern civilization calling the Macedonians "Yonas" (Iones). We are fortunate enough to not rely on "sun hats" or "small shields" to affirm the translation.

That the Jews also knew the Macedonians as Greeks is also known.

From the Machabees :

1:11. And there came out of them a wicked root, Antiochus the
Illustrious, the son of king Antiochus, who had been a hostage at Rome:
and he reigned in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of
the Greeks.

8:21. And the he goat, is the king of the Greeks, and the great horn
that was between his eyes, the same is the first king.

10:20. And he said: Dost thou know wherefore I am come to thee? And now
I will return, to fight against the prince of the Persians. When I went
forth, there appeared the prince of the Greeks coming

Much sometimes is said about the Romans but even Rufus (our only source that an interpreter would be needed to understand Macedonian, yet in a much debatable passage) says :

"?Mutiny was but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers to give their opinion. They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they themselves knew, to the common soldiers. Instead, they declared that the sun represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations.” (Quintus Curtius Rufus 4.10.1)

and

"?As for Alexander, it is generally agreed that, when sleep had brought him back to his senses after his drunken bout, he regretted his actions and said that the Persians would have suffered a more grievous punishment at the hands of the Greeks had they been forced to see him on Xerxes? throne and in his palace.?"
(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5.7.11)

or

"When the Branchidae met him the next day, he told them to accompany him. On reaching the city, he himself entered through the gate with a unit of light-armed troops. The phalanx had been ordered to surround the city walls and, when the signal was given, to sack this city which provided refuge for traitors, killing the inhabitants to a man. The Branchidae, who were unarmed, were butchered throughout the city, and neither community of language nor the olive-branches and entreaties of the suppliants could curb the savagery. Finally the Macedonians dug down to the foundations of the city walls in order to demolish them and leave not a single trace of the city.”

One of the best ones is given by Cicero in his Orations:

“For if all the wars which we have carried on against the Greeks are to be despised, then let the triumph of Marcus Curius over king Pyrrhus be derided; and that of Titus Flamininus over Philip; and that of Marcus Fulvius over the Aetolians; and that of Lucius Paullus over king Perses; and that of Quintus Metellus over the false Philip; and that of Lucius Mummius over the Corinthians. But, if all these wars were of the greatest importance, and if our victories in them were most acceptable, then why are the Asiatic nations and that Asiatic enemy despised by you? But, from our records of ancient deeds; I see that the Roman people carried on a most important war with Antiochus; the conqueror in which war, Lucius Scipio, who had already gained great glory when acting in conjunction with his brother Publius, assumed the same honour himself by taking a surname from Asia, as his brother did, who, having subdued Africa, paraded his conquest by the assumption of the name of Africanus. [32] And in that war the renown of your ancestor Marcus Cato was very conspicuous; but he, if he was, as I make no doubt that he was, a man of the same character as I see that you are, would never have gone to that war, if he had thought that it was only going to be a war against women. Nor would the senate have prevailed on Publius Africanus to go as lieutenant to his brother, when he himself; a little while before, having forced Hannibal out of Italy, having driven him out of Africa, and having crushed the power of Carthage, had delivered the republic from the greatest dangers, if that war had not been considered an important and formidable war.”

and Pliny the Elder who wrote :

"Such, at all events, were the opinions generally entertained in the reign of Alexander the Great, at a time when Greece was at the height of her glory, and the most powerful country in the world."

One should really make a list of sources who directly claim that the Macedonians were not Greeks and then juxtapose them to the bulk of sources that directly and unambiguously claim the opposite. I will not quote Strabo or Herodot, but what about :

"??? ?? ??????????? ??? ???????? ??? ?????????? ??? ??? ????????? ??????????, ?? ?????????? ????????? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ????????? ??? ???????? ??? ??? ?????."

Dionysius Hallicarnassensis, 20.1.3

or

???? ??????• ??? ??? ????? ??? ??????? ??? ???????? ????????? ??????, ???? ?????????? ?? ?? ????????• ??? ?? ?? ?????? ??????????? ????? ????????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????, ??????????? ???? ???? ?? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ????????• ? ?? ?????? ???????? ????? ???????, ???? ??????"

Dio Chrysostomus Soph., Orationes. {0612.001} Oration 4 section 9 line 3

and tons more...
Macedon
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George C. K.
῾Ηρακλῆος γὰρ ἀνικήτου γένος ἐστέ
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#95
Quote:I guess the fact that Yauna meant Ionian is well known, because the Ionian Greeks would have been the first of the Hellenes that the Persians came into contact with (even allowing for the fact that Asia Minor at the time also had Aiolian and Dorian areas of settlement too). Yauna/Ionia - the two names are obviously similar sounding. The Persian 'yauna' was from the Greek ?????. Therefore to an administrator in Susa perhaps an Ionian was a Greek and vice versa (by extension)? In the same respect Greek Makedonians could have been included in the catch-all phrase? There are also, however, interesting similarities of word structure to yauna in the Hebrew word for the Greek/s yavamin / Y?w?n / Y?w?n?m and the Turkic phrase yunan (which I readily accept may well be derived from the former or perhaps a common root).
For centuries Europeans called the indigenous populations of Americas Indians. Leaving aside the fact these people were not really Indians, did they at least have a single ethnic identity? A single language? Calling the Cherokee Indians (Amerindians and American Indians are not really some improvements in terminology) does it mean the Cherokee have some sort of Indian idenity or speak some Indian language?

More than that, the Indians from India do not have a single identity (well, perhaps today, as citizens of a modern Indian state) nor a single language. This thing is not only a modern construct, as from Antiquity, although some of our Greek and Roman sources mention the Indians (as an 'umbrella term'), in reality there was no single Indian identity or language.

Some Germanic tribes derived *walhaz from the name of one tribe, the Volcae, to call their (mostly Celtic speaking) neighbours. In time this term started to name both Latin/Romance and Celtic speaking populations, ranging from Welsh to Vlachs. As above, there's no single identity, no single language.

Names are names and just that. If Persians called some people Yauna, there's no reason to believe they referred to Greeks only (even if the name itself derives from the name of a certain community - the Ionian Greeks in our case). As for how this name was used in latter times, the Turkish Yunan shows the Yauna are Greeks, much like the English Welsh shows the Vlachs are Celts.


So far I mentioned only exonyms. However the dissonance between names and languages goes beyond that.

The Rus were some Scandinavian, Germanic speaking populations. The Russians today speak a Slavic language.
The Bulgars were some steppe tribes, apparently Turkic speaking, but there might have been mixed with some Iranic speaking populations as well. The Bulgarians today speak a Slavic language.
The Franks were a Germanic tribe coagulated of several other tribes. The French today speak a Romance language.
And the examples can continue ...

Quote:It is similar to the way in which all the Hellenes became known to the Romans as ??????? (Graikoi) i.e Graeci from the tribe that originated in Euboia and settled in Italy.
Linguistically, it may be that the names of the Graikoi and of the Thraikoi to be related, stemming from a common root. If this would be the case, we'd have one more instance of a single name coming to define two different populations. Or more, as apparently the Thracians themselves spoke several different languages and the Ancient Greeks started to name them all with this name.

Quote:And as far as the "Yaunas" are concerned, we established that there are a number of theories, but we have also seen that the one which enjoys the most acceptance is the one that translates the Yauna Takabara as "the Macedonians".
The most accepted one is "petasos-wearing Ionians" which in turn can be interpreted as referring to Macedonians, Thessalians and other Greeks or non-Greeks (as wearing the petasos was not really limited to Macedonians).

As for Yaunas in eastern sources, I already presented some Babylonian inscriptions with Yaunas having non-Greek names.
Drago?
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#96
Quote:So far I mentioned only exonyms. However the dissonance between names and languages goes beyond that.

The notion implicit in the argument that Greeks and Macedonians spoke the same language is that they are a common people and identity. The history of English speaking peoples might betray that.
Paralus|Michael Park

Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους

Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!

Academia.edu
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#97
Surely the point is that ultimately, by far and away the most powerful of the Greek states/regions/territories in terms of longevity, sheer size, and projection of power was Makedon? In some ways it outgrew its Greek origins and (in typical Greek localistic manner) was more concerned with its more focussed Makedonian identity first - just had been the Athenians, Spartans and Thebans in turn before them; and the Epeirotes, Aitolians and Akhaians afterwards. The Makedonian state/territory seriously swamped anything any previous Greek power had ever managed - even after Alexander and the break-up of his domains into the successor kingdoms. It is entirely representative of that distinct exclusive localism that any of the Greek powers should think of themselves as being regional/local/tribal first and Hellenic second. No surprises there. And this greater Makedonian entity (still a basically Greek construct to many ancient observers) would be bound to have its own distinct colourings, which put it at variance with the other (lesser) Greek powers. As I say ... nothing surprising at all. The correct reading should perhaps be the Makedonians and the other Greeks, when they were feeling pan-Hellenic - and the Makedonians and the (non-Makedone) Greeks, when they were not ...
[size=75:2kpklzm3]Ghostmojo / Howard Johnston[/size]

[Image: A-TTLGAvatar-1-1.jpg]

[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
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