Macedonian were Barbarians in Ancient times!

[Daskalot]

Macedonians=Barbarians=Non-Greeks

Simple empiric logic.

[Starling]

To add more info to this map, it seems to be from page 11 of William R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas, 1911 edition. The table is from the bottom half of the map on page 14.

I also found that this map:



Is from page 13 of the same historical atlas, or at least this edition of it from 1911: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6Zc9AAAAYAAJ

I think there're a few other maps in there worth sourcing in more detail. For example, page 17:



In the first one Macedonia is clearly listed separately as a non-Greek ally, as the map directly below also excludes it when mapping out Greek states.

The map of the Macedonian empire on page 18-19 is pretty great:



I'd be wary of later editions, as I found a version of unmarked year that was recoloured.

[Karposh]

Interesting how in the year 1911 there was no pressure on academia to include Macedonia as part of the Greek world. Half of Macedonia had not yet fallen into Greek hands and Alexander's Empire was known by its rightful name – The Macedonian Empire. Today's compromise, The “Hellenistic” Empire smacks of appeasement to me. Careful not to upset today's Greeks, world academia has dropped the word Macedonian for a “Greek-ish” Empire. Not Greek or Hellenic, mind you, but kind of Greek i.e. Hellenistic or Greek-ish.

Looking at these maps here, I can't help noticing that most modern maps actually fail to depict Ancient Macedonia's southern boundary correctly. I posted something about this on another thread and I'll repost it here:

Most of the ancient geographers (including Strabo himself) unanimously placed the northern border of Greece at the Peneus River in the Vale Tempe, south of Mount Olympus."Beyond the river Peneus is the nation of the Macedonians", writes the ancient geographer Skylax in his work Periplous. Besides Strabo and Skylax, other ancient geographers that place Greece's northern boundary at the Peneus river include Dionysius, Diionisius of Calliphon. And a couple more:*"I therefore draw limits of Hellas at the country of the Magnesiians, i.e., to the Vale of Tempe"*(Dicaearchus).*"Above Tempe towards Olympus is the region of the Macedonians"*(Scymnus).

BTW Starling, and at the risk of sounding patronising, your enthusiasm, effort and commitment in digging these documents back out to the surface again is commendable. Good on you.

[Starling]

It's because they can't stand to see Olympus unambiguously in Macedonia rather than 'kinda on the border *shrugs*'. I've dealt with people claiming that "Olympus is the home of the Greek gods, it's in Macedonia, therefore Macedonia is Greek". That and how people are still indoctrinated into the idea of Greek myths and ancient Greece as a romanticized idea (why else did my school have a Greek myths segment where you had to present a god/goddess while acting them out in English class and a mock Olympics where you roleplayed the teams were the city-states?) At least Macedonia wasn't claimed to be among them, and the idea of the Olympics as a school or gym class event kinda makes sense though going with the ancient Greek ones instead of the modern model seems unnecessary and rather suspect when you know how full of shit hellenism is. I also still hear people proudly call themselves philhelenes while seemingly ignorant of the full implications of the term.

I noticed the shift in how people tend to refer to the Macedonian empire as well and I've been seeing it more often and I get harassed almost instantly when I try to correct it. Taking note of current propaganda patterns helps us know what we need to dismantle. Lately what's come up the most to me is Bulgarian propaganda and claims that the Macedonians were participating in Olympics, so more information addressing those claims would help a lot.

Anyway we need to push back harder against the Greek narrative on mythology, since it's a major part of what reels people into the lie in the first place and is practically a marketed brand at this point. It's very harmful and exposing it for the lie that it is will be a huge blow to their propaganda. The same applies with cultural appropriation in general as it's been done by others.

The Peloponnesian war map confuses me a bit because last time I read up on Macedonia's involvement a lot of flip-flopping between Athens and Sparta was involved. I think the smaller border there is where those propaganda maps downplaying Macedonia's original size come from, even though at the time the northern half was rebelling, Illyria and Thrace were invading and Macedonia was generally hitting a low point it didn't fully recover from until Philip II.

I have a hard time visualizing described boundaries on maps and I'm sure I'm not the only one so the difficulty in finding accurate maps is very disingenuous. They can't erase the quotes from existence so they instead opt to hide the truth behind fake maps and hope no one notices.

Nah, it's nice to help out. Every little bit matters and it helps with the frustration of everything that's going on right now. I've been getting a sense that some of the people here have lost hope or don't realize what they can still do from where they are. Even working on improving existing citations is a meaningful contribution. That's why I made a thread presenting some stuff we can do online, since in being here we all clearly have internet access and the internet is a very powerful tool for dispensing information. That's why net neutrality is so important and currently being butchered in the US. Another warning sign for dictatorships.

I'll probably make a general thread for linking books, sites, etc. to help with that.