King Philip Macedonian

[Soldier of Macedon]

Where's my little buddy Nikodim disappeared to now, hitting the books? What you are looking for cannot be found because it doesn't exist, while Athenians and Thebans took charge of the united Greeks, nearly all of Greece took part in the action against the Macedonians. That is a fact.

Why don't you educate us a little on the League of Corinth and why it was established, who were its members, etc, or would you like me to kick off that discussion before you make an idiot of yourself again? Let me know if you need help.

[King Makedon]

Where's my little buddy Nikodim disappeared to now, hitting the books? What you are looking for cannot be found because it doesn't exist, while Athenians and Thebans took charge of the united Greeks, nearly all of Greece took part in the action against the Macedonians. That is a fact.

Why don't you educate us a little on the League of Corinth and why it was established, who were its members, etc, or would you like me to kick off that discussion before you make an idiot of yourself again? Let me know if you need help.

that much to say

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?p=21306#post21306

Challenge the points pretender.

[Rogi]

I have a question, where were the Paeonians during the battle at Chaeronea? Or does everyone just count them as Macedonians in this battle?

[Soldier of Macedon]

By the time of Chaeronea, the Paeonians, Thracians and Illyrians had already been subdued and parts of their territory integrated in the Macedonian kingdom. I am not sure of their involvement, but if they were present in the battle at all, they would most likely have been identified with the Macedonians.

I found this on wiki, quite interesting, I wonder if there is something more elaborate:

An inscription, discovered in 1877 at Olympia on the base of a statue, states that it was set up by the community of the Paionians in honor of their king and founder Dropion. Another king, whose name appears as Lyppeius on a fragment of an inscription found at Athens relating to a treaty of alliance is no doubt identical with the Lycceius or Lycpeius of Paionian coins (see B. V. Head, Historia numorum, 1887, p. 207).

[NikodimMKD]

I have a question, where were the Paeonians during the battle at Chaeronea? Or does everyone just count them as Macedonians in this battle?

There is no mention of them in any of the ancient texts in this battle. The Macedonians were fighting with the Thessalians.

The Paeonians lived in the area presently occupied by the Republic of Macedonia.

[Rogi]

Nikodim, You are incorrect. Keep reading up.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Nikodim, are you blind, or did you not see the reference to Plutarch and the others quoted such as Justin and Pausanias?

The Paeonians lived only in the territory of the Macedonian republic of today? Lol.......yeah I know, the artificial borders of 1913 were marked in the ground 2,000 years ago.

[lvintra]

King II became three times Olympic champion. In the 106th Olympics in 356 BC horse-ran. In the 107th Olympics, in 352 BC Tethrippon. In the 108th Olympics in 348 BC, win in Synoris.The ''BARBARIAN" Philip.

[Bratot]

Yup, the pure Greek same as Roman Emperor Tiberius who won the chariot race in the 4C BC.

[Risto the Great]

All Greeks .... 2000 years later

[Soldier of Macedon]

Firstly, there is no evidence of any Macedonian claim to a Greek connection before the Persian war. After playing sides with both Persians and Greeks for years, Alexander I had finally attempted to enter the Olympics by way of tracing a lineage to a mythical ancestor, which would ultimately link him to Heracles. This is not at all unusual for an ancient monarch. Herdotous, for example, the same man that cites the story (for the first time in history) of Alexander I and the Olympics, also mentions a Scythian monarch who claimed descent from Heracles - If Scythia reached as far as the Peneus and they concocted some mythical tale then the Scythian kings could also qualify as 'Hellenes'.

There were outraged protests from the other competitors, who rejected Alexander I as a barbarian -- which proves at the least, that the Teminid [Greek] descent and the royal genealogy had hitherto been an esoteric knowledge. Ernst Badian, Harvard University)

The main point is obvious: As the knowledge about his story of mythical descent was limited to a narrow circle of a few 'enlightened' people (probably Herodotus and Alexander I at that time), Alexander I was rejected by the Greeks as a barbarian. How could the educated and culturally advanced Greeks have colonies in other continents but not be aware of a descendant of Heracles on their northern door step? The story was false, the whole scenario was a fiction, and one wonders wether the event at the Olympics actually took place at all in the manner suggested, are there any records of Alexander I in the Olympics?

No one had forgotten that Alexander I, known ironically as ‘the philhellene’, had been debarred from the Olympic Games until he manufactured a pedigree connecting the Argeads with the ancient Argive kings. (Peter Green, University of California)

Consider also that Macedonian kings were allowed to enter the Olympics only as "descendants of Heracles" and not as Macedonians. After Alexander I "proved" his mythical descent, it should have been easy for Macedonian kings to enter the Olympics, yet, it wasn't, and Archelaus created his own Macedonian Olympics at Dion.

When did Macedonians participate as Macedonians in the Olympics?

How many Macedonian kings participated in the Greek Olympics from the time of Alexander I until Phillip II? 1? Why?

It was Phillip II that again involved Macedonia in the affairs of the Greeks, and who began to claim the so-called 'rights' (apparently) once held by his ancestor Alexander I. Although Macedonians, Thracians, Illyrians and others had already utilised and shared aspects of Greek culture where it concerned trade and religion, Phillip II began the trend of Macedonian kings and (later) nobility participating in the Olympics, one that was followed centuries later by the Romans. It appears that the Romans, as rulers of the Greeks, behaved in much the same way as the Macedonians before them, and it was largely the existing literature they had in their own tongue that would ensure the continuity of their Latin origins in record.

Other non-Greeks that partook in the games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games

Tiberius (steerer of a four-horse chariot)[15]
Nero (steerer of a ten-horse chariot)
Varastades, Prince and future King of Armenia, last known Ancient Olympic victor (boxing) during the 291st Olympic Games in the fourth century [16]

Emperor Nero, 37-68 AD

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_14#20

In Nero's fourth consulship with Cornelius Cossus for his colleague, a theatrical entertainment to be repeated every five years was established at Rome in imitation of the Greek festival.....

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_5_06.html#§7

Nero who had thrice won the prize at Olympia......

Here are some good parallel 'Greek' figures in the Romans.

Marc Antony, 83-30 BC

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0078;query=chapter%3D%23184;layout=;loc=Ant.%2024

At his first coming into Greece, he was not hard nor bitter unto the Grecians, but gave himself-only to hear wise men dispute, to see plays, and also to note the ceremonies and sacrifices of Greece, ministering justice to every man: and it pleased him marvellously to hear them call him Philellen (as much to say, a lover of the Grecians), and specially the Athenians, to whom he did many great pleasures. (Plutarch, Marc Antony)

Emepror Hadrian, 76-138 AD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian

Hadrian was schooled in various subjects particular to young aristocrats of the day, and was so fond of learning Greek literature that he was nicknamed Graeculus ("Greekling").

Cicero, 106-43 BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

Cicero is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary, distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher........During this period in Roman history, if one was to be considered "cultured", it was necessary to be able to speak both Latin and Greek. The Roman upper class often preferred Greek to Latin in private correspondence, recognizing its more refined and precise expressions, and its greater subtlety and nuance, in part due to the greater range of Greek abstract nouns.........

Titus Pomponius, 112-32 BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Pomponius_Atticus

He so loved Athens and its culture that he took upon himself the nickname "Atticus", or "Man of Attica", which is alluded to in the fifth book of Cicero's De Finibus (section 4).

Another text from Plutarch, this time on Titus Flaminius, again demonstrates the sentiment of Greeks towards rulers that show favour upon them.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=848

And all who came near Titus, could not choose but say as much of him, at their first view. For they who had been told by the Macedonians of an invader, at the head of a barbarian army, carrying everywhere slavery and destruction on his sword’s point; when in lieu of such an one, they met a man, in the flower of his age, of a gentle and humane aspect, a Greek in his voice and language, and a lover of honor, were wonderfully pleased and attracted; and when they left him, they filled the cities, wherever they went, with favorable feelings for him, and with the belief that in him they might find the protector and asserter of their liberties. And when afterwards, on Philip’s professing a desire for peace, Titus made a tender to him of peace and friendship, upon the condition that the Greeks be left to their own laws, and that he should withdraw his garrisons, which he refused to comply with, now after these proposals, the universal belief even of the favorers and partisans of Philip, was, that the Romans came not to fight against the Greeks, but for the Greeks, against the Macedonians. Accordingly, all the rest of Greece came to peaceable terms with him.

A Greek in his voice and language, Flaminius must be the Roman Alexander

These are just brief overviews, even the Wiki articles have supportive information in the ancient sources that corroborate the well-known fact of Philhellenism among the Romans. They were the new Macedonians, when they were good to the Greeks they were Philhellenes, when they were bad to the Greeks they were barbarians.

[Risto the Great]

I am a bit of a Philhellene. But I simply cannot generalise and feel the same way about Greeks.

[Rogi]

After the oracle declared him as such, didn't Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) then claim to be the "son of Amun" (Amun Ra)? Does this mean to suggest that he was actually of Egyptian descent?


I want to know about the Macedonians before the Argead dynasty...

The argument that the ancient Macedonian Kings of the Argead dynasty were "argive Greeks", is based on what? A story that they had some mythical origins from "Temenus"? And that they left Argos and settled in Macedonia?

Even in that story however, it says that Macedonia was already inhabited.

The story based on myth (As opposed to fact) that the ancient Macedonian Kings were "Greeks", still does not explain who the Macedonian people were... the ones who lived there from long before.

It says that they (Perdiccas, etc) passed the land of the Illyrians and then settled in Upper Macedonia first (which included Pelagonia), then fled to Lower Macedonia and eventually became the Kings of all of Macedonia. Kings of whom though? Of the pre-existing Macedonian population.

Even if it were true that the Ancient Macedonian Kings were in fact from Argos, (which is based purely on myth and I am only considering for the sake of argument), why is there nothing about the Macedonians who lived there before 700BC when Perdiccas and his brothers allegedly settled?

[Soldier of Macedon]

The Macedonian kings were indeed from Argos, which was a place in Macedonia near present-day Kostur. The mythical descent from Peloponnesian Argos is dismissed by several writers on the subject, it is more than obvious that it is a fictitious story, anybody that has an objective take on the matter will confirm this.

Unfortunately it was a story that stuck and was built upon by Macedonians and non-Macedonians as the generations passed, the temptation of claiming mythical descent from the gods was too great for many monarchs in the ancient period, in fact, it would seem that it was common-place in many areas.