Ancient and Modern Evidence about the Distinct Macedonian Nation

The long list of modern scholars (among which are Eugene Borza, Waldemer Heckel, A.B. Bosworth, Peter Green, Ernst Badian, Carol Thomas, S.M. Burstain, P.A. Brunt, John Yardley), agree that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, but a distinct nation. Their views align with the Spanish genetic research above. Eugene Borza, Historian, Professor, and Archeologist, whom the American Philological Association refers to as "Macedonian specialist" has written:



"It is clear that over a five-century span of writing in two languages representing a variety of historiographical and philosophical positions the ancient writers regarded the Greeks and the Macedonians as two separate and distinct peoples whose relationship was marked by considerable antipathy, if not outright hostility."



Waldemar Heckel, one of the foremost Alexander scholars in the world, in his Alexander the Great (2004), writes on page 7:



“It is clear from the extant historians that the lost sources made a clear distinction between Macedonians and Greeks - ethnically, culturally and linguistically – and this must be an accurate reflection of contemporary attitudes...�?



In alignment with the genetic results cited above, the ancient Greek and Roman historians also clearly excluded Macedonia from Greece as a distinct country, and the Macedonians from the Greeks as distinct nation. Not one ancient historian wrote that Macedonia is “Northern Province of Greece�? or that the Macedonians are “northern Greeks�?.



The Greek orator Demosthenes, spoke of Alexander the Great’s father Philip II as "not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honors, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave" (Demosthenes, Third Philippic, 31).



Justin, the Roman historian from the 3rd century AD wrote: "Antipater was appointed governor of Macedonia and Greece" (Justin 13.4.5)



Arrian, the ancient Greek historian from the 2nd century AD wrote: "Darius' Greek mercenaries attacked the Macedonian phalanx… the Macedonian centre did not set to with equal impetus… and the Greeks attacked where they saw that the phalanx had been particularly torn apart. There the action was severe, the Greeks tried to push off the Macedonians into the river and to reserve victory to their own side… There was also some emulation between antagonists of the Greek and Macedonian races" (Arrian 2.10.4-7).



Pausanias, the ancient Greek historian from the 2nd century AD wrote: "the united Greeks defeated the Macedonians in Boeotia and again outside Thermopylae forced them into Lamia" (Pausanias 1.1.3)



Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian from 1st century AD quoted Alexander’s words where the king himself separates the Macedonians from the Greeks as distinct nation: “When you see the Greeks walking about among the Macedonians, do they not look to you like demi-gods among so many wild beasts?�? (Alex.51.2)



Conclusion



Please consider the Macedonian position when approaching Stone’s Alexander. Alexander and his Macedonians would have been appalled by Stone who had tried to make them fighting for Greece, when the ancient evidence says they did for Macedonia, because as the ancient authors testify they were not Greeks.