Is the truth about Aleksandar the Grat and Macedonia finally seen?

Question:MACEDONIA the clip that shocked Greece.
you can see it on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYIDO583...
American famous archeologist Borza (profesor on university Pensilvania State in USA) and greek historic profesor Stela Drogu (not sure about the speling of the names) are talking that Macedonians were not Greeks, but separate nation! It's strange how before 30 years the Greeks admited this, and suddanly (when Macedonia bacame independant country) they are denying the same think!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: MACEDONIA the clip that shocked Greece.
you can see it on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYIDO583...
American famous archeologist Borza (profesor on university Pensilvania State in USA) and greek historic profesor Stela Drogu (not sure about the speling of the names) are talking that Macedonians were not Greeks, but separate nation! It's strange how before 30 years the Greeks admited this, and suddanly (when Macedonia bacame independant country) they are denying the same think!

Macedonia was never part of Greece. Actually, north teritories of modern Greece are part of Macedonia. I'm talking about Aegean Macedonia!

This is mostly semantics.

Macedonia was not part of Greece, but in many ways made itself part of it.

Alexander's "conquest" of Greece allowed many of the elements of Greece that the modern world knows to pervade his empire. Its called the Greek Empire in many cases because of the spread of Greek culture that came with it.

The Macedonians of Alexander's time spoke a variety of Greek, and the Royal house claimed they were descended from Argives or the house of Argos.
What they certainly were not is Slavs.

The clip is about authentic macedonia of Greece! Not about modern
(Slavic/Albanian)Macedonia!!
The clip is EXELENT and says completely different things from what the asker has suggested!!!
(There was never of course any clip that shocked Greece. It is quite interesting to realize how a specific user always post completely untrue information!!!)
The clip has been presented in a twisting and falsified way!!!
It is interesting to see that black lines cover the text on screen so that we can not see the title of it and the origin of it, (probably because the title is something like “the Glory of Greece”!!!)
In this clip both Borza and the Greek archaeologists NEVER doubt that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks! (It is a well know fact that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks)
It is fake information that user Plostad has added in a propagandistic way!
Very conveniently the clip stops when the narrator explains how Alexander expanded Greek culture and civilization in the known world!!
In fact in the clip Borza and the Greek archaeologist simply say the obvious! That the ancient Macedonians were not “Barbarians” as they have been accused by the Athenians, but sophisticated and civilized like the rest of Greeks
They simply said that the Athenians considered the monarchy a barbaric institution that Greeks shouldn’t have! That’s why the Ancient Macedonians were criticized.
(Of course nowhere any historian suggests that the ancient Macedonians have any connection with the modern Slav-Macedonians (pseudo-Macedonians).
As for Borza is a very well known historian and his views are twisted by
the pseudo-Macedonians
Let’s see what Borza says about the Ancient Macedonians and
the modern pseudo-Macedonians:
“Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and (Slav)Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émi-grés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity.”
And
“It is difficult to know whether an independent (Slav)Macedonian state would have come into existence had Tito not recognized and supported the development of
“Macedonian ethnicity” as part of his ethnically organized Yugoslavia. He did this as a counter to Bulgaria, which for centuries had a historical claim on the area as far west as Lake Ohrid and the present border of Albania.
And the above are from
“Macedonia Redux”, Eugene N. Borza, The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Frances B. Titchener and Richard F. Moorton, Jr., editors

And lets see what Borza says about the ancient Macedonians and lets hope that the modern Pseudo-Macedonians will stop use him one and for all!!!
And now the statement form Borza that socked (Slavic/Albanian)Macedonia:

“"Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "HIGHLANDERS" or "MAKEDONES" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia ARE DERIVED FROM NORTHWEST GREEK STOCK; THEY WERE AKIN BOTH TO THOSE WHO AT AN EARLIER TIME MAY HAVE MIGRATED SOUTH TO BECOME THE HISTORICAL "DORIANS", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that NORTHWEST GREECE PROVIDED A POOL OF INDO-EUROPEAN SPEAKERS OF PROTO-GREEK from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country."
"First, the matter of the GREEK origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments)that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable."
“ Eugene N. Borza, ‘Makedonika’
Regina Books, Claremont CA

And the statement from the first
Slav-Macedonian President that shocked (Slavic/Albanian)Macedonia :
"Here is what the first President of
(Slavic/Albanian)Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov said: “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century ... we are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians" (Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35). Also, Mr Gligorov declared: "We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia… Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century" (Toronto Star, March 15, 1992).
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/acce...

And the documentaries that shocked (Slavic/Albanian)Macedonia
http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/greece...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_fi...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/gre...
http://www.history.com/marquee.do?conten...

Next time try to listen to the clips, you might learn something!!!
And try to post real arguments!! Not fake ones!!!

Macedonia is Greek, it is now, and was in the past and always will be.
The usage of "Macedonian" as a nationality was an invention of Marshal Josip Broz Tito in 1944. Tito, the communist dictator of Yugoslavia, created a false "Macedonian" ethnic consciousness among his south Slavic citizens for a number of reasons, including his campaign against Greece to gain control of Greece's province of Macedonia and the main prize of the major port city of Thessaloniki. Until Tito changed the name, this province was named Vardar Banovina.
By taking the info in the video u posted and blocking things out and editing it, u try to change the reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oHivXjiX...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVOfzCCL6...

No scientist has ever claimed that ancient Macedonians were not greeks, because it simply is not true. But even if that was true, and ancient MAcedonians were a different nation, they definitely were not Slavs, Bulgarians or Albanians, which is what modern "Macedonians" are. So whatever the case baout ancient Macedonians, YOU have nothing to do with THEM!

How pathetic distorting history and reality just for creating a false identity.
One could possibly admit that during the middle ages some minorities populated the wider territory Macedonia, among which Slaves and Vlaches, but they have no connection whasoever with ancient Macedonians.
Ancient Macedonians were definately a Greek Doric ethnicity, relative to Romans, ancient Germans, and Celts, but not to Slaves.
"Macedonians" are a branch of the Bulgarian ethnicity, which invaded the Balkan Peninsula in the middle ages, that is many centuries after the Greek Macedonian kingdom was flourishing.

The archaeological findings, which are abudant, prove that Ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribal branch, and this is based not only on scripts and texts on their tombs, but also on their burrial customs, their everyday life mode, their names (from the king's family to the most common people), their education.
Let's not make a freak out of real hostory, for political and territorial reasons.

Oh, come on now! For every "scholar" you'll find claiming Macedonians were not Greeks, I can get you 50 proving that they were (and are)! Check it out below, but before, check out what Macedonians thought of themselves:

ANCIENT MACEDONIANS ABOUT THEMSELVES:

Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 498 BCE to 454 BCE:

“Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably.” (Herodotus, “Histories”, 5.20.4, Loeb)

“Men of Athens... In truth I would not tell it to you if I did not care so much for all Greece; I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Greece change her freedom for slavery. I tell you, then, that Mardonius and his army cannot get omens to his liking from the sacrifices. Otherwise you would have fought long before this. Now, however, it is his purpose to pay no heed to the sacrifices, and to attack at the first glimmer of dawn, for he fears, as I surmise that your numbers will become still greater. Therefore, I urge you to prepare, and if (as may be) Mardonius should delay and not attack, wait patiently where you are; for he has but a few days' provisions left. If, however, this war ends as you wish, then must you take thought how to save me too from slavery, who have done so desperate a deed as this for the sake of Greece in my desire to declare to you Mardonius' intent so that the barbarians may not attack you suddenly before you yet expect them. I who speak am Alexander the Macedonian.” (From the speech of Alexander I of Macedon when he was admitted to the Olympic games, Herodotus, "Histories", 9.45)

Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, 356 BCE - 323 BCE:

“Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Greece and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed leader of the Greeks, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you... (Alexander's letter to Persian king Darius in response to a truce plea, as quoted in "Anabasis Alexandri" by Roman historian Arrian, Book II, 14, 4)

“Holy shadows of the dead, I’m not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions.” (Addressing the dead Greeks of the Battle of Chaeronea, as quoted in “Historiae Alexandri Magni” by Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus.)

“If it were not my purpose to combine foreign things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of Greek justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me, Diogenes, that I imitate Heracles, and emulate Perseus, bands follow in the footsteps of Dionysus, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious Greeks should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Caucasus.” (Plutarch, "Moralia: On the Fortune of Alexander", I, 332a-b, Loeb)

“Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Greek Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Greek peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians. (Pseudo-Kallisthenes, “Historia Alexandri Magni”, 1.15.1-4)

“Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.” (Pseudo-Kallisthenes, “Historia Alexandri Magni”, 1.37.9-13)

“They will be fighting for pay… we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it.” (Addressing his troops prior to the Battle of Issus, as quoted in “Anabasis Alexandri” by Roman historian Arrian, Book II, 7)

Philip V, King of Macedon, 221 BC - 179 BC:

“For on many occasions when I and the other Greeks sent embassies to you begging you to remove from your statutes the law empowering you to get booty from booty, you replied that you would rather remove Aetolia from Aetolia than that law” (Polybius, “The Histories”, 18.4.8)

MODERN ARCHAEOLOGISTS, HISTORIANS AND LINGUISTS ABOUT MACEDONIA:

ARCHAEOLOGISTS:

The first Greek-speaking people in the southern Balkan Peninsula arrived in Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus sometime after 2600 B.C. and developed, probably due to the extreme mountainous nature of the country, their several different dialects.
David Noel Freedman, "The Anchor Bible Dictionary", Doubleday, 1992, p. 1093

Greek epigraphic monuments created before definitive Roman domination of our area are to be found in modest quantity.
Vera Bitrakova Grozdanova, FYROMian archaeologist, "Hellenistic Monuments in S.R.Macedonia", Skopje, 1987,p. 130

Macedonia and Epirus were the buffers of Greece in Europe...
R. M. Cook, British archaeologist, "The Greeks until Alexander", 1962, p. 23

At the end of the Early Iron Age kings still reigned in Argos, Messenia, Epirus and Macedonia, and at Sparta there was the curious system of two co-regnant kings. But most Greek states were governed by aristocracies with annual magistrates of limited functions and a permanent council, whether hereditary or chosen...
R. M. Cook, British archaeologist, "The Greeks until Alexander", 1962, p. 65

Herodotus stated quite clearly that Perdiccas, the first recorded king of Macedonia, and his descendants were Greeks and there is no reason why we should not take the Father of History's word on this fundamental point..
John Crossland, British archaeologist and Diana Constance, "Macedonian Greece", p.16, W.W. Norton & Company (September 1982)

Tradition held the other element to be Hellenic, and no one in the fourth century seriously questioned its belief.
David George Hogarth, "Philip and Alexander of Macedon", p.5

The king [of Macedon] was chief in the first instance of a race of plain-dwellers, who held themselves to be, like him, of Hellenic stock.
David George Hogarth, "Philip and Alexander of Macedon", p.8

From Alexander I, who rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea and proclaimed himself to the generals their friend and a Greek, down to Amyntas, father of Philip, who joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings of Macedon bid for Greek support by being more Hellenic than the Hellenes[...] Archelaus patronized Athenian poets and Athenian drama and commisioned Euripides to dramatize the deeds of his Argive ancesto[...] "Macedonia" therefore, throughout historical times until the accession of Philip the Second, presents the spectacle of a nation that was no nation, but a group of discordant units, without community of race, religion, speech or sentiment, resultant from half-accomplished conquest and weak as the several sticks of the ****** in the fable.
David George Hogarth, "Philip and Alexander of Macedon", pp.9-10

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 [...] 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.
Ivan Mikul?i?, FYROMian archaeologist, "Pelagonija", Skopje, 1966, p.2, p.4

The star of vergina applies to the 3rd Century BC northern Greece - a very different situation, not related to the 21st Century AD. I think it's modern politics, and we're witnessing the use of an archaeological symbol for history that it's really not related to.
Bajana Mojsov, FYROMian archaeologist, "BBC News (2004), When archaeology gets bent, BBC World Service, 2004, The World Today programme", Accessed 12 October 2006

Here we notice that in acts the term "Hellenes" (or "Greeks") is used with noteworthy propriety: the people of Thessalonica, of Berea, of Ephesus, of Iconium. and of Syrian Antioch are spoken of as Hellenes. Those were all cities which had no claim to be Roman, except in the general way of being parts of the Roman provinces Macedonia, Galatia, and Syria. They were counted Greek cities, and reckoned themselves as such.
William Mitchell Ramsay, "Historical Commentary on First Corinthians", p.34

During the next 13 years, Alexander, or "Alexander the Great" as he is regularly referred to, conquered an immense area that comprised the largest empire in ancient times. Persia was added to Greece as was Asia Minor, Syria/Palestine, and lands extending all the way to the Indus River. Everywhere the conquering Greeks went, they instilled their Greek culture in a process that we might call "Hellenization". Greek religion, thought, and science were passed along, most importantly, the Greek language was instituted as the official means of communication[...] Within a few years, a general named Ptolemy established a dynasty that would rule Egypt for close to 300 years. These were Greek, not Egyptian, rulers of Egypt. Yet they retained most of the roles and obligations of their pharaonic predecessors, albeit with a distinctly Hellenistic favor. All of Ptolemy's male successors bore his name, and altogether there would be fifteen Greek rulers of Egypt with the name Ptolemy. This is why this era of Greek rule is often referred to as the "Ptolemaic Period".
Donald P. Ryan, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ancient Egypt", pp. 198-199

With the end of Iron Age III, i.e. with the total Hellenisation of material culture,the prehistory of Macedonia ends.
Vojislav Sanev, FYROMian archaeologist, "Prehistory of S.R. Macedonia", Skopje 1977, p.13

HISTORIANS:

Philip II, at least from the time of his victory over Phocis, Athens, and their allies in 346, prepared to proclaim himself the champion of a United Greece against the barbarians.
Ernst Badian, "Cambridge history of Iran", p. 421

It was he (Philip II) who accustomed this people of shepherds and peasants to urban life, who subdued the belligerent barbarian neighbours, opened up access to the sea and the country itself to Hellenic culture. For the Greeks, however, the Macedonians alway remained "barbaroi", never recognised by the Hellenes as cultural equals, not even when on the crest of world dominion[...] In the cultural gulf between Greeks and Macedonians the question of Macedonian national origin was never more than of secondary importance in antiquity. For modern scholars the evidence from names - there is not a single sentence extant from the language of the Old Macedonians - tilts the scales in favour of the view that includes the Macedonians among the Greeks. The theory, therefore, advocated by the student of Indo-European linguistics, P.Kretschner , that the Macedonians were of Graeco-Illyrian hybrid stock, is not to be regarded as very probable. So the majority of modern historians, admittedly with the noteworthy exception of Julius Kaerst , have argued correctly for the Hellenic origin of the Macedonians. They should be included in the group of the North-West Greek tribes. This does not, however, discount the statement of Thucydides (II 99) that the Macedonians were related to the Epirotes from possibly having an element of truth. From the point of view of history it is more important that a century of isolation in the country which bears their name moulded the Macedonians into a distinctive social, political and anthropological unit, developing their essential features from within, and without domination by Hellenic influence. Thus the character of the Macedonian people had long since been moulded when, in the great power struggle between Athens and Philip, the hate-filled orations of Demosthenes repeatedly emphasised the divisive features between Greeks and Macedonians.
Hermann Bengtson, "History of Greece", University of Ottawa Press, 1988. Chapter 10 Philip of Macedonia, pgs 185-186

Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of Proto-Greek from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country... First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments) that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable.
Eugene N. Borza, "Makedonika", Regina Books, Claremont CA

Only recently have we begun to clarify these muddy waters by revealing the Demosthenean corpus for what it is: oratory designed to sway public opinion and thereby to formulate public policy. That elusive creature, Truth, is everywhere subordinate to Rhetoric; Demosthenes' pronouncements are no more the true history of the period than are the public statements of politicians in any age.
Eugene N. Borza, "In The Shadow of Olympus", pp. 5-6, Princeton University Press

There is no doubt that this tradition of a superimposed Greek house was widely believed by the Macedonians [...] There was a persistent, well attested tradition in antiquity that told of a group of Greeks from Argos -descendants of Temenus, kinsman of Heracles- who came to Macedonia and established their rule over the Makedones, unifying them and providing a royal house.
Eugene N. Borza, "In The Shadow of Olympus", p. 80, Princeton University Press

"There is no reason to deny the Macedonians' own traditions about their early kings and the migration of the Macedones[..] The basic story as provided by Herodotus and Thucydides, minus the interpolation of the Temenid connections, undoubtedly reflects the Macedonians' own traditions about their early history.
Eugene N. Borza, "In The Shadow of Olympus", p. 84, Princeton University Press

Their daughter, who would be the half-sister of Alexander the Great and, later the wife of Cassander, was appropriately named Thessalonike, to commemorate Philip's victory in Thessaly. In 315 Cassander founded at or near the site of ancient Therme the great city that still bears her name.
Eugene N. Borza, "In The Shadow of Olympus", p.220, Princeton University Press

Alexander ruled the world as his father had ruled Macedon, concentrating power in his own hands and office to his Companions. In nationality the Companions remained overwhemingly Hellenic.
A.B. Bosworth, professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia, "Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great", Cambridge University Press, Reissue Edition, March 1993

It [Corinthian League] comprised states, which were each bound to Macedon by bilateral treaties; and it was perfectly natural that they should create a general alliance under the leadership of the Macedonian king, acting as the spiritual successors of the Hellenic League of 480 BC.
A.B. Bosworth, professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia, "Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great", Cambridge University Press, Reissue Edition, March 1993

The prime example of a change in status is the case of Aspendus in Pamphylia. The degree of hellenism there has been questioned in recent years, but Alexander certainly regarded the city as Greek, There seems to have been no doubt about the Aeolic origins of the harbariscd population of Side (cf. Air. 1.26.4). The Aspendians, who at least used a dialect, which was recognisably Greek, were granted citizen rights at Argos in the latter part of the fourth century, as kinsmen and (probably) colonists, and the people of Cilician Soli who also claimed Argive origins were given privileged access to the assembly. They were certainly regarded as Hellenic communities and Alexander will have treated them as such, as he did the people of Mallus, whose Argive origins inspired his generosity (Arr. 11.5.9)[...] Alexander himself seems to have made little distinction in his last years between Greeks of Europe or Asia, or even between Greeks and Barbarians.
A.B. Bosworth, professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia, "Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great", Cambridge University Press, Reissue Edition, March 1993

Macedonian kings were proud of their Greek blood, and it was only jaundiced opponents like Demosthenes the Athenian who ventured to call them "barbarians." They claimed descent from Hêrakles through the Dorian Kings of Argos, and they learned the tales of Troy and of Odysseus, and the songs of the Greek lyric poets, as they learned their letters. Fifty years before Alexander was born, a King of Macedon had been proud to give a home to the aged "modernist" playwright, Euripides, eighty years old and sick and tired of a democracy which had led Athens into defeat and revolution, and whose philistines accused Euripides of preaching atheism and immorality…
A. R. Burn, "Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Empire", Macmillan, 1948, p.4

He [Alexander] was a great reader, too. He had been early caught by the glamour of the Tale of Troy, like most Greek boys; and he never grew weary of it. As far as the Oxus and the Indus, he carried with him his personal copy of the Iliad...
A. R. Burn, "Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Empire", Macmillan, 1948, p.11

The Macedonians were Greeks. Their language was Greek, to judge by their personal names and by the names of the months of the calendar; Macedonian ambassadors could appear before the Athenian assembly without needing interpreters; in all Demosthenes' sneers about their civilization there is no hint that Macedonians spoke other than Greek. But it was a distinct dialect not readily intelligible to other Greeks; linguistically as geographically, Macedonia was remote from the main stream of Greek life. King Alexander 'the Philhellene' had been allowed to compete in the Olympic Games only after his claim to being Greek had been fortified by the claim that the Macedonian ruling house had originated in Argos in the Peloponnese, which really conceded that those who sneered at Macedonia as 'barbarian' were right. The sneers went on. The sophist Thrasymachus at the end of the fifth century referred even to king Archelaus as a 'barbarian.' Isocrates in the fourth no less than Demosthenes spoke of the Macedonians as 'barbarians.' The truth was that Macedon was as culturally backward as it was liguistically remote, and even the exact Thucydides classed it as 'barbarian.' Archelaus began to change all this and to make clear the Greeknes of his country. It was under him that the city of Pella began to be not only the 'greatest city in Macedonia' but also a show-place which Greeks desired to visit, a centre of Greek culture. Archelaus was a generous patron of the arts, and the leading literary figures of the age were happy to reside at his court. Euripides spent his last years in Macedon, and wrote there the Bacchae and the Archelaus. At Dium in the foothills of Mount Olympus a Macedonian Olympic Festival was instituted which included a drama competition. There must have been as appreciateive audience. Under Archelaus, Macedon had ceased to be a cultural backwater.
George Cawkwell, Emeritus Fellow, University College, Oxford, "Philip of Macedon", Faber & Faber, London, 1978, p. 22

Macedonia (or Macedon) was an ancient, somewhat backward kingdom in northen Greece. Its emergence as a Hellenic (Greek) power was due to a resourceful king, Philip II (359-336), whose career has been unjustly overshadowed by the deeds of his son, Alexander the Great.
Mortimer Chambers, Professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles, "The Western Experience", p. 79, Mortimer Chambers et al, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2nd edition, 1997

Such a glorious ancestry was in the eyes of Greeks the hallmark of the Hellenic persona of the king of Macedon, who could, on the other hand, rely on fidelity of the people from which he had sprung. The Greek cities did not feel that they were allying with a barbarian, since for generations the Macedonian dynasty had been allowed, as Greeks, to take part in the Olympic games, where they won prizes[...]In Greece proper nevertheless, there remained a number of people like Demosthenes, who had in no way renounce their hatred of Macedon. They did not lack the means to take action: the new king of Persia, Darius III Codomannus, whose reign started in 336, anxious to war off the threat of a Macedonian invasion, liberally distributed among the Greeks funds that were to buy consciences and cover the expenses of war against Alexander.
Francois Chamoux, French historian, "Hellenistic Civilization", Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2002, p.8, 9’’

To a certain extent the Macedonian monarchy had already been a unifying element in Greek history, even before the conquests of Alexander.
Michael Crawford, Fergus Millar, Emilio Gabba, "Sources for Ancient History", p. 12, Cambridge University Press

We have for the first time a standard of Macedonian royal burial by which to judge other rich tombs. We have much new information on the military equipment of the era. We have a whole new chapter in the history of Greek tomb paintings, a fragmentary field but one which throws unique and contemporary light on the whole lost achievement of Greek free painting.
Michael Crawford, Fergus Millar, Emilio Gabba, "Sources for Ancient History", p. 181, Cambridge University Press

The king of the Macedonians was now a member of the Synhedrion, whose decrees had to be expressly ratified by the individual states. These Hellenistic Leagues, directed by Macedon, rounded off a process of which the general unity is unmistakable, quite apart from all that was conditioned by the time and the special circumstances of each case.
Victor Ehrenberg, "The Greek State", Methuen, (July 2000), p.120

For the Greeks of the third century B.C., it is true, the Hellenistic world was only an extension of the earlier Greek world; that in itself is perhaps sufficient justification for including the present discussions under the one general title. There is more to add. It was Greeks who most strongly determined the general spirit and the cultural form of the Hellenistic age. It was the Greek spirit which, nourished and merged in the stream of Greek evolution, took over the local influences.
Victor Ehrenberg, "The Greek State", Methuen, (July 2000), p.135

Alexander and the Macedonians carried Greek civilization into the East. It is, I believe, a historical fact that a command was issued by the king to the Greek states to worship him as a god; with this the monarchy took a new form, which went far beyond the Macedonian or Persian model, and which was destined to have immense importance in world history. How far Alexander deliberately tried to Hellenize the East remains uncertain; but the outcome certainly was that he opened up the world to a Greek.
Victor Ehrenberg, "The Greek State", Methuen, (July 2000), p.139

Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greeks all had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now, political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aeschines once even found it necessary, in order to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'Entirely Greek'. Demosthenes' allegations were lent on appearance of credibility by the fact, apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different from that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common to western Greeks of Epiros, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the Macedonians, and their fundamental Greek nationality was never doubted. Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was the issue raised at all.
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", University of California Press, February 1993

The Molossians were the strongest and, decisive for Macedonia, most easterly of the three most important Epirote tribes, which, like Macedonia but unlike the Thesprotians and the Chaonians, still retained their monarchy. They were Greeks, spoke a similar dialect to that of Macedonia, suffered just as much from the depredations of the Illyrians and were in principle the natural partners of the Macedonian king who wished to tackle the Illyrian problem at its roots.
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", University of California Press, February 1993

Since so little is known about the early Macedonians, it is hardly strange that in both ancient and modern times there has been much disagreement on their ethnic identity. The Greeks in general and Demosthenes in particular looked upon them as barbarians, that is, not Greek. Modern scholarship, after many generations of argument, now almost unanimously recognises them as Greeks, a branch of the Dorians and ‘NorthWest Greeks’ who, after long residence in the north Pindus region, migrated eastwards. The Macedonian language has not survived in any written text, but the names of individuals, places, gods, months, and the like suggest strongly that the language was a Greek dialect. Macedonian institutions, both secular and religious, had marked Hellenic characteristics and legends identify or link the people with the Dorians. During their sojourn in the Pindus complex and the long struggle to found a kingdom, however, the Macedonians fought and mingled constantly with Illyrians, Thracians, Paeonians, and probably various Greek tribes. Their language naturally acquired many Illyrian and Thracian loanwords, and some of their customs were surely influenced by their neighbours[...] To the civilised Greek of the fifth and fourth centuries, the Macedonian way of life must have seemed crude and primitive. This backwardness in culture was mainly the result of geographical factors. The Greeks, who had proceeded south in the second millennium, were affected by the many civilising influences of the Mediterranean world, and ultimately they developed that very civilising institution, the polis. The Macedonians, on the other hand, remained in the north and living for centuries in mountainous areas, fighting with Illyrians, Thracians, and amongst themselves as tribe fought tribe, developed a society that may be termed Homeric. The amenities of city-state life were unknown until they began to take root in Lower Macedonia from the end of the fifth century onwards.
John V.A. Fine, American historian, "The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History", Harvard University Press, 1983, pgs 605-608

The Macedonian kings, who maintained that their Greek ancestry traced back to Zeus, had long given homes and patronage to Greece's most distinguished artists.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.48

But Alexander was stressing his link with Achilles... Achilles was also a stirring Greek hero, useful for a Macedonian king whose Greek ancestry did not stop Greeks from calling him a barbarian.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.60

No man, and only one hero, had been called invincible before him, and then only by a poet, but the hero was Heracles, ancestor of the Macedonian kings.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.71

To his ancestors (to a Persian's ancestors) Macedonians were only known as 'yona takabara', the 'Greeks who wear shields on their heads', an allusion to their broad-brimmed hats.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.104

As for the hired Greeks in Persian service, thousands of the dead were to be buried, but the prisoners were bound in fetters and sent to hard labour in Macedonia, because they had fought as Greeks against Greeks, on behalf of barbarians, contrary to the common decrees of the Greek allies.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.123

Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Spartans..., as Sparta did not consider it to be her fathers' practice to follow, but to lead.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.123

In spirit, Alexander made a gesture to the Lydians' sensitivities, though his Greek crusade owed them nothing as they were not Greeks.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.128

Alexander was not the first Greek to be honoured as a god for political favour...
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.131

Macedonia as a whole was tended to remain in isolation from the rest of the Greeks...
Peter Green, "Alexander the Great", page 20

...for the first time he (Phillip) started to understand how Macedonia's outdated institutions of feudalism an aristocratic monarchy so despised by the rest of Greece.
Peter Green, "Alexander the Great", page 24

The men of Lower Macedonia worshipped Greek gods; the royal family claimed descent from Heracles. ….The Molossian dynasty of Epirus, on the marches of Orestis and Elimiotis, claimed descent from Achilles, through his grandson Pyrrhus - a fact destined to have immeasurable influence on the young Alexander, whose mother Olympias was of Molossian stock...
Peter Green, "Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography"

In particular with the grim struggle for the succession still fresh in their minds, they urged - very reasonably - that before leaving Macedonia he should marry and beget an heir. However, the king rejected this motion out of hand, a decision which was to cause untold bloodshed and political chaos after his death. It would be shameful, he told them, for the captain - general of the Hellenes, with Philip's invincible army at his command, to idle his time away on matrimonial dalliance...
Peter Green, "Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography"

In less than four years he had transformed Macedonia from a backward and primitive kingdom to one of the most powerful states in the Greek world.
Peter Green, "Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography"

That the origin of this new population should be the supposed Dorian of northwest Greece seemed to be confirmed by the early appearance of cist graves at Kalbaki in Epeiros, Kozani, Vergina and Khaukhitsa in Makedonia.
Jonathan M. Hall, Professor of Ancient Greek History at the University of Chicago, "Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity", Cambridge University Press, 1998

At the end of the bronze age a residue of Greek tribes stayed behind in Southern Macedonia [...] one of these, the "Makedones" occupied Aegae and expanded into the coastal plain of lower Macedonia which became the Kingdom of Macedon; their descendants were the Macedonians proper of the classical period and they worshipped Greek gods. The other Greek tribes became intermingled in upper Macedonia with Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians[...] in the early 5th century the royal house of Macedon, the Temenidae was recognised as Greek by the Presidents of the Olympic Games. Their verdict was and is decisive. It is certain that the Kings considered themselves to be of Greek descent from Heracles son of Zeus. "Macedonian" was a strong dialect of very early Greek which was not intelligible to contemporary Greeks.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "A History of Greece to 323 BC", Cambridge University, 1986 (p 516)

Philip was born a Greek of the most aristocratic, indeed of divine, descent... Philip was both a Greek and a Macedonian, even as Demosthenes was a Greek and an Athenian...The Macedonians over whom Philip was to rule were an outlying family member of the Greek-speaking peoples.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "Philip of Macedon" Duckworth Publishing, February 1998

As subjects of the king the Upper Macedonians were henceforth on the same footing as the original Macedonians, in that they could qualify for service in the King's Forces and thereby obtain the elite citizenship. At one bound the territory, the population and wealth of the kingdom were doubled. Moreover since the great majority of the new subjects were speakers of the West Greek dialect, the enlarged army was Greek-speaking throughout.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "Philip of Macedon" Duckworth Publishing, February 1998

The first sentence of the actual Life of Alexander lives up to Plutarch's warning words. 'Alexander's descent, as a Heraclid on his father's side from Caranus, and as an Aeacid on his mother's side from Neoptolemus, is one of the matters which have been completely trusted.' While the Heraclid and Aeacid descent went unquestioned by ancient writers, the citation of Caranus as the founding father in Macedonia and so analogous to Neoptolemus in Molossia was not only controversial but must have been known to be controversial by Plutarch. For he was conversant with the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. which had looked to Perdiccas as the founding father in Macedonia. Caranus was inserted as a forerunner of Perdiccas in Macedonia only at the turn of the fifth century: he appeared as such in the works of fourth-century writers, such as Marsyas the Macedonian historian (FGrH 135/6 i- 14) who on my analysis was used by Pompeius Trogus (Prologue 7 'origines Macedonicae regesque a conditorc gentis Carano'). Thus the dogmatic statement of Plutarch, that Caranus was the forerunner, should have been qualified, if he had been writing scientific history. But because the statement conveyed a belief which Alexander certainly held in his lifetime it was justified in the eyes of a biographer and in the eyes of those who were more concerned with biographical background than with historical facts. If Plutarch had been challenged, he would no doubt have claimed that his belief was based on his own wide reading of authors who had studied the origins of Macedonia and provided 'completely trusted' data.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch's 'Life' and Arrian's 'Anabasis Alexandrou'", p.5, Cambridge Classical Studies

The terms for the Phocians were mild by Greek Standards (one Greek state proposed the execution of all the men) disarmament, division into village-settlements, payment of all indemnity to Apollo and expulsion from the Amphictiony. In their place the Macedonians were elected members. The two votes of Phocis on the council were transferred to the Macedonian state.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Genius of Alexander the Great", p.18, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (November 26, 2004)

The Balkan situation was far from secure, with the Odrysians and Scythians only recently defeated and with the Triballi still defiant. Yet Philip was confident of success in the interest of the Greek-speaking world and of Macedonia in particular.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Genius of Alexander the Great", p.21, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (November 26, 2004)

What Clearhos saw there was the familiar features of his Greek world far to the west: a Macedonian palace, Rhodian porticoes, coan funerary monuments, Athenian propylaea, Delian houses, Megarian bowls, Corinthin tiles, and Mediterranean amphorae. Traditionally Greek but cosmopolitan and eclectic this city provided a fitting home for the easternmost copy of the Delphic maxims.
Frank L. Holt, "Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria", p. 44

...for with Alexander the stage of Greek influence spread across the world.
John Pentland Mahaffy, "Alexander's Empire", p. 8

Hadrian... also founded a temple of `Zeus Panhellenios', and established Panhellenic games and an annual Panhellenic assembly of deputies from all the cities of Greece and all those outside which could prove their foundation from Greece;... The importance attached to Hadrian's institution is best illustrated by an early third-century inscription from Thessalonica honouring a local magnate, T.Aelius Geminius Macedo [Makedon] , who had not only held magistracies and provided timber for a basilica in his own city, and been Imperial `curator' of Apollonia, but had been archon of the Panhellenic congress in Athens, priest of the deified Hadrian and president of the eighteenth Panhellenic Games (199/200); the inscription mentions proudly that he was the first `archon' of the Panhellenic Congress from the city of Thessalonica. That was one side of the picture, the development of Greek civilization and the conscious celebration of its unity and prosperity. In the native populations of the East it produced mixed feelings, nowhere better exemplified than the conversation of three Rabbis of the second century,...
Fergus Millar, "The Roman Empire and its Neighbours," 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1981), pp.205-206

While the Macedonians proper on the lower course of the Haliacmon (Vistritza) and the Axius (Vardar), as far as the Strymon, were an originally Greek stock, whose diversity from the more southern Hellenes had no further significance for the present epoch, and while the Hellenic colonization embraced within its sphere both coasts -on the west with Apollonia and Dyrrachium, on the east in particular with the townships of the Chalcidian peninsula - the interior of the province, on the other hand, was filled with a confused mass of non-Greek peoples,[...] The Greek cities, which the Romans found existing, retained their organisation and their rights; Thessalonica, the most considerable of them, also freedom and autonomy. There existed a League and a Diet ('koinon') of the Macedonian towns, similar to those in Achaia and Thessaly. It deserves mention, as an evidence of the continued working of the memories of the old and great times, that still in the middle of the third century after Christ the diet of Macedonia and individual Macedonian towns issued coins on which, in place of the head and name of the reigning emperor, came those of Alexander the Great. The pretty numerous colonies of Roman burgesses which Augustus established in Macedonia, Byllis not far from Apollonia, Dyrrachium on the Adriatic, on the other coast Dium, Pella, Cassandreia, in the region of Thrace proper Philippi, were all of them older Greek towns, which obtained merely a number of new burgesses and a different legal position, and were called into life primarily by the need of providing quarters in a civilised and not greatly populous province for Italian soldiers who had served their time, and for whom there was no longer room in Italy itself. The granting of Italian rights certainly took place only to gild for the veterans their settlement abroad. That it was never intended to draw Macedonia into a development of Italian culture is evinced, apart from all else, by the fact that Thessalonica remained Greek and the capital of the country.
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen, "The Provinces of the Roman Empire", vol.1, translated by W.P.Dickson, from the 1909 edition (Chicago, Ares Publishers, 1974), pp.299-301

In its marginal status it [Macedonia] bore some reseblance to the less urbanized areas of Greece such as Achaea and Aetolia. It resembled them as well in the fact that it preserved earlier and less sophisticated political structures and like them it suffered from internal disunity. Both the land and its population had the potential under favorable conditions of developing a state whose power far exceeded other Greek powers[...] It [Macedonia] was a strategically important centre of routes leading northwards out of Greece towards the Danube.
Michael M. Sage, American historian, "Warfare in Ancient Greece", Routledge. p.162

Little is known of the Macedonian army before the reign of Philip II. Certainly, the area which the earlier Macedonian kings drew their recruits was limited only to lowland Macedonia. The only effective arm appears to have been cavalry. These horsemen, generally acknowledged as the best in Greece, were drawn from the local nobility[...]The only really effective infantry in this period appears to have been drawn from southern Greeks settled within Macedonia's borders who fought as hoplites.
Michael M. Sage, American historian, "Warfare in Ancient Greece", Routledge, pp.163-164

Philip first cut the ground from under it by uniting the nation in his Corinthian League[...]In this manner Philip united all Greeks (with the single exception of Sparta) into a League of states, and so for the first time in history created a Greek unified state.
Ulrich Wilcken, "Alexander the Great"

When we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south...
Ulrich Wilcken, "Alexander the Great", p. 22

Long long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed. We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors...
Michael Wood, (Statement made by a Kalash named Kazi Khushnawaz, "Footsteps of Alexander the Great", p.8)
(i.e.: Seleucus was one of the Generals of Alexander the Great. He was born in 358 or 354 BC in the town of Europos, Macedonia and died in August/September 281 BC near Lysimathia, Thrace.)

This was Macedonia in the strict sense, the land where settled immigrands of Greek stock later to be called Macedonians.
W. J. Woodhouse, Australian historian, "The tutorial history of Greece, to 323 B.C. : from the earliest times to the death of Demosthenes", p.216, University Tutorial Press, 1904, (reprinted 1944)

To Greek literary writers before the Hellenistic period the Macedonians were "barbarians". The term referred to their way of life and their institutions, which were those of the ethne and not of the city-state and it did not refer to their speech. We can see this in the case of Epirus. There Thucydides called the tribes barbarians but inscriptions found in Epirus have shown conclusively that the Epirotic tribes in Thucydides' lifetime were speaking Greek and used names which were Greek. In the following century "barbarian" was only one of the abusive terms applied by Demosthenes to Philip of Macedon and his people.In passages which refer to the Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great and the early successors there are mentions of a Macedonian dialect, such as was likely to have been spoken in the original Macedonian homeland. On one occasion Alexander called out to his guardsmen in Macedonian (Makedonisti) as this (viz. the use of Macedonian) was a signal (symbolon) that there was a serious riot. Normally Alexander and his soldiers spoke the standard Greek, the koine and that was what the Persians who were to fight alongside the Macedonians were taught. So the order in Macedonian was unique, in that all other orders were in the koine it is satisfactorily explained as an order in broad dialect, just as in a Highland Regiment a special order for a particular purpose could be given in broad Scots by a Scottish officer who usually spoke the Kings English.The use of this dialect among themselves was a characteristic of the Macedonian soldiers (rather than the officers) of the King's Army. This point was made clear in the report — nor in itself dependable — of the trial of a Macedonian officer before an Assembly of Macedonians, in which the officer (Philotas) was mocked for not speaking in dialect. In 521 when a non-Macedonian general, Eumenes, wanted to make contact with a hostile group of Macedonian infantrymen, he sent a Macedonian to speak to them in the Macedonian dialect, in order to win their confidence. Subsequently, when they and other Macedonian soldiers were serving with Eumenes, they expressed their aftection for him by hailing him in the Macedonian dialect (Macedonisti). He was to them one of themselves. As Curtius observed "not a man among the Macedonians could bear to part with a jot of his ancestral customs". The use of this dialect was one way in which the Macedonians expressed their apartness from the world of Greek city-states.
Ian Worthington, Professor of Greek History at the University of Missouri-Columbia, "Alexander the Great", p.21, Routledge, 2002

Here we have seen that their early history is still largely an open question. They may have had Greek origins: Whatever process produced the Greek-speakers (of that is how one defines "Greek") who lived south of Olympus may have also produced the Makedones who wandered out of the western mountains to establish a home and a kingdom in Pieria.
Eugene N. Borza, "In The Shadow of Olympus", pp. 277-278, Princeton University Press

The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify.
John Bagnell Bury, "A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great", 2nd ed. (1913)

That the Macedonians and their kings did in fact speak a dialect of Greek and bore Greek names may be regarded nowadays as certain.
Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", University of California Press, February 1993

He was still in a world of Greek gods and sacrifices, of Greek plays and Greek language, though the natives might speak Greek with a northern accent which hardened 'ch' into 'g','th' into 'd' and pronounced King Philip as Bilip.
Robin Lane Fox, "Alexander the Great", p.30

Cleopatra VII would have described herself as a Greek. Whatever the racial ingredients of her Macedonian ancestors, her language, like theirs (though they had spoken a dialect), was Greek and so was her whole education and culture.
Michael Grant, "From Alexander to Cleopatra: The Hellenistic World", Scribner Paper Fiction

That the Macedonians were of Greek stock seems certain. The claim made by the Argead dynasty to be of Argive descent may be no more than a generally accepted myth, but Macedonian proper names, such as Ptolemaios or Philippos, are good Greek names, and the names of the Macedonian months, although differed from those of Athens or Sparta, were also Greek. The language spoken by the Macedonians, which Greeks of the classical period found unintelligible, appears to have been a primitive northwest Greek dialect, much influenced by the languages of the neighboring barbarians.
J.R. Hamilton, Australian historian, "Alexander the Great", Hutchinson, London, 1973

What language did these Macedones speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means highlanders, and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', meaning 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos. The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod recorded […] has a bearing on the question of Greek speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes; as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect. Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins of Hellen's three sons - Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus-who were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century, that the Macedones were a Greek speaking people. The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Macedonian State" p.12-13

The toponyms of the Macedonian homeland are the most significant. Nearly all of them are Greek.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Macedonian State" (1989)

Hesiod first mentioned 'Makedon', the eponym of the people and the country, as a son of Zeus, a grandson of Deukalion, and so a first cousin of Aeolus, Dorus, and Xuthus; in other words he considered the 'Makedones' to be an outlying branch of the Greek-speaking tribes, with a distinctive dialect of their own, "Macedonian".
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "Oxford Classical Dictionary", 3rd ed. (1996), pp.904,905

All in all, the language of the Macedones was a distinct and particular form of Greek, resistant to outside influnces and conservative in pronunciation. It remained so until the fourth century when it was almost totally submerged by the flood tide of standardized Greek.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "A History of Macedonia" Vol ii, 550-336 BC

There were two parts of the Greek-speaking world at this time which did not suffer from revolution and did not seek to impose rule over the city states. In Epirus there were three clusters of tribal states, called Molossia, Thesprotia and Chaonia[...]the other part of the Greek-speaking world extended from Pelagonia in the north to Macedonia in the south. It was occupied by several tribal states, which were constantly at war against Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Genius of Alexander the Great", p.11, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (November 26, 2004)

The language spoken by these early Macedonians has become a controversial issue in modern times. It seems not to have been so in antiquity. As we have seen, Hesiod made Magnes and Macedon first cousins of the Hellenes, and he therefore regarded them as speakers of a dialect (or dialects) of the Greek language. That he was correct in the case of the Magnetes has been proved by the discovery of early inscriptions in an Aeolic dialect in their area of eastern Thessaly. Then, late in the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, who visited the court of Macedonia, made the father of Macedon not Zeus but Aeolus, a thing which he could not have done unless he knew that the Macedonians were speaking an Aeolic dialect of Greek. A remarkable confirmation of their Greek speech comes from the Persians, who occupied Macedonia as part of their conquests in Europe c.510-480. [...] Disagreements over this issue have developed for various reasons. In the second half of the fifth century Thucydides regarded the semi-nomadic, armed northerners of Epirus and western Macedonia as "barbarians", and he called them such in his history of events in 429 and 423. The word was understood by some scholars to mean "non-Greek-speakers" rather than "savages." They were shown to be mistaken in 1956, when inscriptions of 370-68, containing lists of Greek personal names and recording in the Greek language some acts of the Molossians, were found at Dodona in Epirus. This discovery proved beyond dispute that one of Thucydides "barbarian" tribes" of Epirus, the Molossians, was speaking Greek at the time of which he was writing. Demosthenes too called the Macedonians "barbarians" in the 340s. That this was merely a term of abuse has been proved recently by the discovery at Aegae (Vergina) of seventy-four Greek names and one Thracian name on funerary headstones inscribed in Greek letters.
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, "The Miracle That Was Macedonia", Palgrave Macmillan (September 1991)

Macedonians had their own language related to Greek, but the members that dominated Macedonian society routinely learned to speak Greek because they thought of temselves and indeed all Macedonians as Greek by blood.
Thomas R. Martin, "Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times", Yale University Press, p. 188

Certainly the Thracians and the Illyrians were non-Greek speakers, but in the northwest, the peoples of Molossis (Epirot province), Orestis and Lynkestis spoke West Greek. It is also accepted that the Macedonians spoke a dialect of Greek and although they absorbed other groups into their territory, they were essentially Greeks.
Robert Morkot, British historian, "The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece", Penguin Publishing USA, January 1997

...despite ancient and modern controversies it seems clear that the Macedonians as a whole were Greek-speakers. While the elite naturally communicated with other elites in standard, probably Attic, the ordinary Macedonians appear to have spoken a dialect of Greek, albeit with load-words from Illyrian and thracian which gave ammunition to their denigrators[...] if proof needed of the sophistication of Macedonia at this time, one may bring forward the fragments of the earliest surviving Greek literary papyrus, a carbonized book-roll found in a tomb-group of c. 340-320 at Derveni near Thessaloniki. It preserves parts of a philosophical text on Presocratic and Orphic cosmology composed around 400, and surely had a religious significance for the man in whose funeral pyre it was placed. The Derveni roll provides evidence for a high level of culture among the aristocracy.
Graham Shipley, English historian, " The Greek World After Alexander", Routledge, p.111

LINGUISTS:

Before the times of the national unity installed by the Macedonians around the middle of the 4th century BC, Greece was composed of many regions or city states[...] That they [Dorians] were related to the North-West Dialects (of Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Acarnania and Epirus) was not perceived clearly by the ancients.
Sylvain Auroux, French linguist, "History of the Language Sciences: I. Approaches to Gender II. Manifestations", p.439

Whoever does not consider the Macedonians as Greeks must also conclude that by the 6th and 5th centuries BC the Macedonians had completely given up the original names of their nation - without any need to do so - and taken Greek names in order to demonstrate their admiration for Greek civilisation. I think it not worth the trouble to demolish such a notion; for any hypothesis of historical linguists which is put forward without taking into account the actual life of a people, is condemned as it were out of its own mouth.
Otto Hoffmann, German linguist, "Die Makedonen, Ihre Sprache und Ihr Volkstum", G?ttingen, 1906

And now after supervising the ancient Macedonian linguistic thesaurus we are posting the decisive question, if what is adding to the Macedonian language its character, are the hellenic or the barbarian elements of it, the responce can not be of any doubts. From the 39 "languages" that according to Gustav Mayer their form was "completely alien" has been proven after this research of mine, that 10 of them are clearly Hellenic, with 4 more possibly dialectical forms of common hellenic words, so from the entire collection are remaining only 15 words appearing to be justifiable or at least suspected of anti-hellenic origins. Adding to those 15, few others which with regards their vocals could be hellenic, without till now being confirmed as such, then their number, in comparison to the number of pure hellenic ones in the Macedonian language, is so small that the general hellenic character of the Macedonian linguistic treasure can not be doubted.
Otto Hoffmann, German linguist, "Die Makedonen, Ihre Sprache und Ihr Volkstum", G?ttingen, 1906

In final analysis it is possible that the name VYRGINON KRASTWNOS is of Thracian origins, while independent remains the name DIRVE[...] All the other names are beautiful, clear Greek constructions and only two of them NEOPTOLEMOS and MELEAGROS could have been loans from the Greek Mythology.
Otto Hoffmann, German linguist, "Die Makedonen, Ihre Sprache und Ihr Volkstum", G?ttingen, 1906

The names of the genuine Macedonians and those born of Macedonian parents, especially the names of the elitic class and nobles, in their formation and phonology are purely Greek.
Otto Hoffmann, German linguist, "Die Makedonen, Ihre Sprache und Ihr Volkstum", G?ttingen, 1906

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. ‘Ptolemaios’ is attested as early as Homer, ‘Ale3avdros’ occurs next to Mycenaean feminine a-re-ka-sa-da-ra- ('Alexandra'), ‘Laagos’, then ‘Lagos’, matches the Cyprian 'Lawagos', etc. The small minority of names which do not look Greek, like ‘Arridaios’ or ‘Sabattaras’, may be due to a substratum or adstatum influences (as elsewhere in Greece). Macedonian may then be seen as a Greek dialect, characterised by its marginal position and by local pronunciations (like ‘Berenika’ for ‘Ferenika’, etc.). Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it an Aeolic dialect (O.Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet (4th cent. BC) which may well be the first 'Macedonian' text attested (provisional publication by E.Voutyras; cf. the Bulletin Epigraphique in Rev.Et.Grec.1994, no.413); the text includes an adverb ‘opoka’ which is not Thessalian. We must wait for new discoveries, but we may tentatively conclude that Macedonian is a dialect related to North-West Greek.
Olivier Masson, French linguist, "Oxford Classical Dictionary:Macedonian Language", 1996

The problem of the nationality of the Macedonians has been studied a great deal. Otto Hoffman with linguistics as his starting point solved it correctly and decisively when he accepted that the Macedonians were Greeks.
F. Munzer, German linguist, "Die Politische Vernichtung des Griechentums", Leipzig 1925, p. 4

Any comments???

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First of all : who the hell is Aleksandar the Grat ?

If you are talking about Alexander the Great, here is an answer for you.

The greek archaeologist Stella Drogu did not said that they are not Greeks, she said that the rest of the Greeks in ancient times consider the Macedonians not so civilized because they had a king at the time when the rest of the greek city states had democracy or other non kingdom systems.

The Borza guy can say whatever he wants. In his theories there are thousands of other proves, from historians all over the world, that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks.

The memory of Alexander the Great and his Macedonians is marked deeply in the greek culture for 3 millenniums. The same memory is cooked in your culture for 100 years.

The first who had the idea of the creation of a new nation was Misirkov and he state very clear that this nation can be called macedonian but has nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians. Misirkov had those ideas because your bulgarian brothers failed to liberate you from the ottomans and unite you with bulgaria.

The only ones who didn't speak greek in the ancient Macedonian Kingdom were the tribes that united with the Macedonians after the expansion of the Kingdom. Your bulgarian dialect, or ANY other slavic language cannot connect with the language of those tribes. CAN YOU CONNECT THEM ANYHOW ?

I could go on forever but I doubt that you will ever learn. You cannot even get Alexander the Great's name right. With that stinky video you can't prove anything, I've got more videos about the history of Macedonia and I suggest you NOT to watch them for your own sick peace of mind and your Aleksendar the Grat pathetic dreams.

Greece - Age of Alexander the Great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQeCkYIoM...

Alexander the Great - The Man Behind the Legend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNU0phJH7...

Alexander the Great’s Mysterious Death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln-zbpI9y...

The Last Stand of the 300
This one is about the battle of Thermopylae but in the in this last part 10/10 (the epilogue), the historian, explains the importance of the sacrifice in the Thermopylae for the birth of the idea of the Greek nation. An idea that continued through Philip and Alexander who spread the Greek civilization all over the world and set the base for the western civilization.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjgsuHm6c...

Well, what can I possibly say that wasn't said already!
A final word for you and your tribe: You are publicly embarrassing yourselves by trying to twist history and spread lies.
The language you speak in your country, the "pseudo Macedonia" AKA FYROM, is close to Bulgarian, ask the Bulgarians, they understand what you say. You have NO connection with Greek Macedonians, NO connection with our land , our fathers land and you should have NO claims to our history.
Butt off, you are wasting every body's time in here.You will be accused of misinformation and misrepresentation of your country.
Enough already!!!

That clip really has shocked the official Greek politics.
Macedonians had never spoken Greek language - Ancient Macedonian is closed to "Slav" languages.
Macedonians had destroyed Greek cities as Teba and Olint - is that a sort of "pervading" ?
Macedonians had completely different mythology, religion, insignia, etc.

Mate, you can see that with your eyes shut. All it takes is just a bit of openmindedness. Fortunatelly, some people check as many sources as possible before they can form an opinion. Unfortunatelly for Macedonia, Greece has always had more money to spend to promote its cause. It is a fact that Macedonia can never keep up that pace, no matter how hard it tries. Therefore the Greeks will always be one step before the Macedonians and will manage to persuade the global audience in what they think is right. Has anyone seen any of the evidence on the Alexander's soldiers tribes which still live in the mountains of Pakistan and Iran? Is their heritage greek? NO! Should the Macedonian authorities promote the truth? Should more money be spent on it? Yes!