It\'s all Greek to me (Makedonians included) ...

[Ghostmojo]

Two points from me:

(a) I absolutely don't want this to get political (in the terms of the modern 'name' issues etc.) but I utterly agree with Stefanos. I am not Greek. I am English, but I have a lifelong love of Greece, its history and culture and am one of many hundreds of thousands of students of Greece (if not millions throughout the ages) who recognise the debt we in the west to owe to Hellenic civilisation. As the subject was raised, the appearance of this new FYROM republic from a failed and broken former slavic conglomerate (Yugoslavia) and its attempts to co-opt a culture that is not theirs (Alexander the Great Airport for god's sake! :x ), is shameful, deceitful and thoroughly repugnant. However, I feel do sorry for their nation, in that it is clearly a sad people without a history or a culture (or a language come to that) and which has decided to steal that belonging to others - specifically by reaching back into history (and attempting to re-fashion it). I do understand why others (particularly Greek Makedonians) feel so strongly about it, and they have my complete support. That's all I have to say about that...

(b) I do want this to remain a discussion about the ancient history of that part of the Balkans and not what has happened since the 1990s. It is the Makedonian involvement in the greater antique Greek history that interests me, as does that of the other component parts. There is an interesting discussion to be had here about the extent of who and what was Greece in the pre-christian period. Depending upon the standpoint it seems to be the law of diminishing returns with no hard and fast boundaries really ever established (except perhaps under Roman dominion). For example, from Sparta at very many points in history - their sole interest in the lands of Greece ended at the Isthmus of Corinth. I have read a fair bit about this business of Makedon/Makedonia and its part in Greek affairs and am interested in other's views about it.

Perhaps defaulting to Herodotos' view about Greek 'nationality' is the best recourse: where the attributes of Greekness are identified as shared blood, shared language, common sanctuaries and sacrifices and similar customs. One reason why the Greeks are Greek is because they worship at the same altars.

In terms of geography though, I suppose I would be described thus as a Post-Strabo Man! :wink:

I would guess Alexander's or Philip's view might be Makedonian first and then Greek second (although I can't think of references where they specify which sub-group they might have considered themselves to be (i.e Dorian) other than Makedones); whereas a polis-dwelling resident of Attika might think Athenian first, Ionian second, Greek third (would he have considered himself Attikan as well?); Leonidas or Brasidas might have specified Spartan/Lakedaimonian/Dorian/Lakonian(?)/Greek perhaps? And would Epamminondas have said Theban/Boiotian/Aiolian/Greek in that order? The loyalty to tribe and territory and ethne (Hellenic branch) as we know was all-important to all Greeks. To confuse matters further, one is reminded of Kleomenes I on the Athenian acropolis trying to persuade the priestess to grant him entry to the inner sanctum on the grounds that he was Achaian (rather than Dorian like his other Spartan comrades who had likewise been forbidden access) via his descent from Herakles. Athena was of course having none of it. The apparent unity of religion still left plenty of grounds for specific exclusion ...