ALEXANDER WAS VERY MUCH SO GREEK

I just had to respond to the other topic that actually says Alexander was not Greek.


I see many lack historical knowledge of ancient Greek history. Macedonians weren't Greek? That fallacy wouldn't be from the same comic book that gave the idea ancient Greek couples stopped having sex after their 3rd child, would it?

People need to read carefully the ancient writings of the Greeks and not what one finds on random political based online sites. Start with ancient Greeks like Aeschines and Isocrates who viewed the Macedonians as Greeks LONG before Macedon was any powerful Kingdom never mind trying to conquer the Southern Greek Polies.

Aeschylus - do people know when he lived? Try the 6th century BC now go back and calculate what era King Philip 'conquered' as some ignorantly claim Athens. Aeschylus the ATHENIAN, one of those same Southern Greeks that some falsely claim viewed Macedons an "Barbarian None Greeks"! Read his play "The Suppliants," where the poet on the basis of the age-long legend handed down by the Greeks from prehistorical times proclaims the descent of the Macedonians from the Doric branch and directly tells us about the Macedons origin from the Argive Heracleids, as those who ruled "the land of the Perrhaibians," "beyond Pindus," "near the Paeonians," "in the Dodona mountains" and "all the territory through which the pure Strymon flows." Aeschylus tells us that the Argaeads also include the peoples of Thessaly and Epirus, whose royal families had their own traditions of descent from Hellenic gods. So tell me why did Aeschylus who lived CENTURIES before Macedon became a superpower, why did Aeschylus the bearer par excellence of pan-Hellenic traditions and ideals, who also was A FIGHTER at one of Greece's most well known battles at Salamis and singer of the all-Greek surge against the invader from Asia, believed Macedonia to be a Greek people and land, why did Aeschylus broadcasts Macedons royal house descent as Greek, according to Greek legend, from the Hellenic pantheon, hmm? What, was he scared of a backwards kingdom that had NO power at all during his life time?

Another great start in learning ancient Greek history by scholars and not cereal boxes would be Hesiod an Anatolian Greek who lived in the 8th century BC, do the calculation on how many centuries that was BEFORE Macedon became the powerhouse it did. In Classical Greek:

"Magnhta Makhdona: Makedonia h cwra wnomasqh apo Makedonos tou Dios kai Quias ths Deukaliwnos, ws fhsin Hsiodos: h d’ upokusamenh Dii geinato terpikeraunw uie duw Magnhta Makhdona Q’ ippiocarmhn, oi peri Pierihn kai Olumpon dwmat enaion. (1)" (Hsiodos, c.720 BC)

Translation in English:

"Magnes and Macedon: And she (Thyia daughter of the Greek progenitors Deucalion and Pyrrha and sister of Hellen, who together with his three sons Dorus, Xuthus (with his sons Ion and Achaeus) and Aeolos, comprised the set of the basic 7 ancient tribes that formed the Greek/Hellenic nation) conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus.’(1)" (Hesiod, c.720 BC)

The "Macedon" Hesiod is speaking about is the forefather of whom his descendants, the Macedonians, took their name from and of whom they (the Macedons) and ancient Greeks clearly considered a Hellenic tribe.

Here is another ancient ATHENIAN Greek, Thucydides who lived 100 YEARS before Philip united the Hellenes. This is what he states about the Macedons:"The total Hellenic force was about three thousand; the cavalry that went with them, Macedonians and Chalcidians, were all told a little less than one thousand, and there was besides a great multitude of barbarians". Here is it is in Greek too: Gk:"MAKEDONVN JYN XALKIDEYSIN OLIGVN ES XILIOYS, KAI ALLOS OMILOS TVN BARBARVN POLYS".
Thucydides distinguishes the Greeks which included the Macedonians and Chalcidians too on the one hand and barbarians who were not Greek on the other by using the adjective few (Gk: OLIGVN) for the former and many for the latter (Gk:POLY).

Here is another ancient Greek ATHENIAN source for people Euripides, and he knew the Macedonians very well given he LIVED amongst them for many years and had NO problem communicating in Hellenic with them, that is hundreds of years LONG before the supposed 'Hellenization' of Macedon some claim. He wrote many tragedies that were written and played while he was in Macedonia. This would have been impossible, had the Macedonians been 'barbarians' (non-Greek). This is because in one of these tragedies, 'Iphigeneia in Aulis', the Greek superiority over the barbarians is emphasized. The following epigram in memory of Euripides which is attributed by some authors to Thucydides may give us more light to the actual beliefs of the people of that time (and possibly Thucydides):"MNHMA MEN ELLAS APAS' EYRIPIDOU, OSTEA D' ISXEI GH MAKEDVN, H GAR DEJATO TERMA BIOU". That is Classical Greek, translation:"Macedonia, the land of Greece that holds the bones of Euripides." The Macedons would have found their Kingdom called by other ancients "the land of Greece=(Grk):MNHMA MEN ELLAS APAS' EYRIPIDOU offensive if as some falsely claim it wasn't the land of Hellenes if it wasn't so. Given that the Macedons did not find it offense is more evidence the ancient Macedons were a Hellenic tribe.

Here is another ancient Greek Herodotus states the following about ancient Macedons Greekness in Histories, 1.53.1: "…for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedonians, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopia having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians."

Another ATHENIAN Isocrates states the following LONG before Philip conquered Athens: "For I am going to advise you to champion the cause of concord among the Hellenes and of a campaign against the barbarians; and as persuasion will be helpful in dealing with the Hellenes, so compulsion will be useful in dealing with the barbarians. This, then, is the general scope of my discourse. I affirm that, without neglecting any of your own interests, you ought to make an effort to reconcile Argos and Lacedaemon and Thebes and Athens; for if you can bring these cities together, you will not find it hard to unite the others as well;" Now why would Isocrates who was a Greek Athenian ask the help of a King who was supposedly not Greek to champion the cause of the Greek cause? That's like an American politician asking Bin Ladin to champion the American cause.

Also this is what John Edwin Sandys states in "The first Philippic and the Olynthiacs" Publisher: London, Macmillan and co. includes Greek texts and commentaries regarding passage "Argos"[Herodotos VIII 137, IX 45, Thucydides II 99,2, V 80,2] :"one of Philip's ancestors, Alexander A', had as a Greek been allowed to compete at the Olympic games [Herodotos V 22]. Demosthenes, however, in his hatred of Philip, never acknowledges his Greek descent. ... of breath as he gasps out this final and comprehensive phrase of vituperation. In such a spasmodic utterance no one need be surprised either at the presence of hiatus or at the concurrence of several short syllables". In other words what classics scholar Sandys is saying Greeks did not side with Demosthenes because they did not take his accusations seriously. Anyone who believes what Demosthenes said was taken at face value by most Greeks are fooling themselves. A parallel to that is if someone took seriously Bush Senior when he called former President Clinton a "bozo," and not comprehend it was just an abusive term used as an insult towards another political person.

As for those out there who try to use the lame a s s excuse Greeks were just trying to 'gain favors' with Macedon are forgetting one HUGE factor in their lame argument: why would Greeks like Thucydides, Aeschylus, Hesiod, etc.
who ALL lived CENTURIES before King Philip became a powerful king make claims that the Macedonians were Hellenic? What did these ancient Greeks who lived CENTURIES before Macedon became a power house have to "gain the favor" of a small POWERLESS insignificant kingdom that had no influence on world affairs? Answer: nothing, they had nothing to fear, nothing to gain, nothing at all, they stated exactly what the ancient world view on Macedonians was, that of a Hellenic Kingdom. This is also reinforced by the Persians, who ruled Macedon for a while there. The Persians call the Macedonians, and this is inscribed to this day and found on Cyrus the Greats tomb "The Greeks Wearing Hats", in reference to the special hats the Macedonians were known to wear.

PS: Oh and since ancient Greek history is not a subject most of you are familiar with, here is another FACT ya'll should store away: it was King Alexander I, don't confuse him with Alexander the Great, who SPIED upon and warned the Spartans, Athenians and other Greeks of Xerxes attack on Greece. And it was King Alexander I who pushed the last remaining Persian soldiers out of the Hellenic region, hundreds of years BEFORE the supposed "Hellinization" of Macedon under King Philip. People really need to research what they are trying to argue before they come out looking ignorant of the facts.