Marcus Justinus - Epitome of Phillip (2nd Century AD)

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  • Philosopher
    replied
    Originally posted by osiris View Post
    i cant remember where i read the obervation that given the preponderance of "slavic" place names in the peloponese the writer wondered if they predated the middle ages slavic invasion of the peloponese and could those placenames actually be pelasgian. in my opinion its all coming togther, and eventually it will be proven the pelasgians may very well have spoken a langauge if not proto slavic then very closely related to the slavic group.
    Osiris has retired from this forum, hasn't he? I recall Osiris, even from the old Maknews forum, and it has been a long time.

    Leave a comment:


  • TheNikoWhiteIch
    replied
    Originally posted by Philosopher View Post
    A bit too strong, as Herodotus does not state the Macedonians were not Hellenic, though that is the logical inference.
    Actually, you're correct. Though plenty of others have stated exactly that. In any case, I was just looking to put my 2 cents in about the distinction between the Dorian "makednos" and the Macedonian "Makedonikon."

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  • Philosopher
    replied
    A bit too strong, as Herodotus does not state the Macedonians were not Hellenic, though that is the logical inference.

    Leave a comment:


  • TheNikoWhiteIch
    replied
    Originally posted by Sovius View Post
    There was one citation that really brought this period into focus for me.

    Marcus Justinus regarded the Macedonians as Pelasgians, a term used by Hellenic settlers for the indigenous populations of Southeastern Europe, such as the architects of Athens, a people who greatly influenced this influx of populations from around the Mediterranean region, who even came to worship many of their deities, supporting the view that the Southern Illyrian Peninsula came to be inhabited by many diverse populations, not conquered in the formal sense. It was observed and recorded that these populations spoke a different language than the language that the Hellenes spoke. Herodotus even reported that a number of Pelasgian urban centers remained uncosmopolitanized linguistically. He was also confident that the Dorians were a Macedonian population. Rodus, a Dorian stronghold (Rhodes/Rod), retains meaning in the Illyrian linguistic group (Laconia/lagonija), but, by the time of Herodotus, the Dorians were speaking what can be referred to as the Doric version of the creole language that had developed out of the admixture of these populations.
    Great analysis Sovius, but here's a point I wanted to touch upon. Generally, those who support the position that the ancient Macedonian were Greeks, cite Herodotus, who called the Dorians a "makednon ethnos" while they lived about Pindus. However, as Nicholas G. L. Hammond points out:
    it has been assumed sometimes that when Herodotus wrote of the Dorian family (genos) living in Pindus and being called "Makednon" (a term he resumed at 8.43 with the word ethnos), he meant Macedonian and proposed that the Dorians and Macedonians were in some sense fused. But when Herodotus meant Macedonians, he said Macedonians and he used the adjective "Makedonikon" (7.131). His own usage shows that "Makednon" had an altogether different meaning.

    This is especially important to take not of, because according to Herodotus himself, the Dorians were of the Hellenic race. Thus, considering Hammond's point, it's not likely that the Dorians were Macedonians as Herodotus himself says they're Hellenes, while the Macedonians were not Hellenes themselves. Taken from "9th Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica - free ninth edition online encyclopedia Britannica » Volume 7 [DEA - ELD]: 01'1110permitime to Dorogobush."

    There are these important points:
    Herodotus then, in speaking of the Athenians and Spartans as standing at the head severally of the Dorian and Ionian races, states positively that the Ionian was a Pelasgic, the Dorian a Hellenic people; that the former had always been stationary, while the latter had many times changed its abode.

    and:
    Further, there is the extreme unlikelihood that the tribes afterwards known as Dorians should for a certain period have been called Macedonians, or rather, as Herodotus implies, that they should more than once change their name. The assertion that they were called Macedonians involves a fresh contradiction, for elsewhere Herodotus asserts that the Macedonians were not Hellenic at all

    source: http://www.libraryindex.com/encyclop...ic-tribes.html

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  • Karposh
    replied
    Alexander's Generals

    I came across an interesting document recently attributed to Marcus Junianus Justinus in which he describes Alexander’s generals in such glowing terms and in such a gushing sense of awe that I just had to share a part of it with everyone on this forum. What caught my eye in particular was Justin’s description of them as belonging to a “single nation”. Reading this it’s hard to overlook the repeated theme in the writings of all these historians, from Justin to Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius and others where the Macedonians are described as belonging to a unique “nation”, “race” and “ethnicity”.

    Here it is:

    “Alexander’s generals were worthy to aspire to his throne, for they possessed such courage and inspired such respect that it would be easy to take them all for kings. Such was the beauty of their forms, the greatness of their stature and the extent of their wisdom that if one did not know them one might believe that they had been chosen, not from a single nation but from all the universe. Never before had Macedonia or any other country seen the blossoming of so many illustrious men. First Philip, and then Alexander, had selected them with such care that they seemed to have sought out not companions in war so much as successors to their power. Who then could wonder that with such servants Alexander conquered the world, given that the Macedonian army was led not by so many chiefs but by so many kings? They would have been without peers if they had not fallen to fighting among themselves, and the province of Macedonia would have had many Alexanders had fortune-inspiring rivalry in courage among them-not armed them for their mutual ruin”.

    Marcus Junianus Justinus
    Epitome of the Philippic History,
    XIII.1.10-15; 2.1-14,
    3rd Century AD

    Also, I just want to add my two cents regarding keeping the language being posted at a respectable level. I have to agree with Soldier of Macedon in this case. It doesn't help our cause to mimic the abuse that some Greeks often dish out at us.

    Leave a comment:


  • osiris
    replied
    i cant remember where i read the obervation that given the preponderance of "slavic" place names in the peloponese the writer wondered if they predated the middle ages slavic invasion of the peloponese and could those placenames actually be pelasgian. in my opinion its all coming togther, and eventually it will be proven the pelasgians may very well have spoken a langauge if not proto slavic then very closely related to the slavic group.

    Leave a comment:


  • indigen
    replied
    Excellent selection of quotable quotes, SOM!
    I recommend the following as an optional addition:

    Justin 13.5.7

    This being reported to Alexander, he gave orders that a thousand ships of war should be raised among his allies, with which he might carry on war in the west; and he intended to make an expedition, with a powerful force, to level Athens with the ground.
    If Alexander III of Macedon had lived a little longer, not only would he have conquered "the whole inhabited world for the Macedonians" [Plutarch the Age of Alexander, book 7.47] but would have have leveled Athens to the ground, as he did to Thebes.

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  • Soldier of Macedon
    replied
    Thanks Bratot. And why would we mind? The more articles and literature promoting the objective truth of Macedonian history the better.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bratot
    replied
    If you don't mind I will write an article in the next number of Macedonian Nation magazine on Macedonian language. It's worth the strong echo and I will give my best.

    All credits to SOM and rest od the MT crew! Thank you guys.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sovius
    replied
    The Hesiodic Myth of Macedonian and Greek Ethnogenesis

    From Carlos Parada’s website:



    Notions typically regarded as dating back to the 8th Century BC:
    Pandora 2 consorted with Zeus and gave birth to Latinus 3, after whom the Latins were called, and to Graecus, after whom those who followed Hellenic customs were called Greeks.
    Thyia 1 consorted with Zeus and gave birth to Magnes 1, after whom the district of Magnesia was called, and to Macedon, after whom Macedonia was called.

    Hesiod regarded all four peoples as sharing a common descent. The Macedonians were thought of sibling peoples to the Magnesians and more distantly related to the Latins (Ladinci/ledyani) and Greeks (Graikoi). Magnes were essentially eastern Thessalians in a geographic sense.
    _____________________________________________

    Homer

    According to the tale of the Odyssey, the Pelasgians inhabited the regions between Crete and Thessaly, bordering the Thracians to the north. Around this time, populations who came to be regarded as Hellenic or Hellenized, such as the Myrmidons, also inhabited the Thessalian plain. The Illiad extends the lands of the Pelasgians into what came to be referred to as Epirus far to the west of the Thessalian Plain, where these southern Illyrian peoples maintained Dodona (ch), which was a matriarchal temple before it adopted a new patriarchal belief system. Hellas was a region in southern Thessaly, as well, within the kingdom of Peleus, the banner under which Achilles the Skythian fought. Between this region and that which would become the heart of the Macedonian Empire was Mount Olympus.

    According to the records of the historian Ephorus, Hesiod also wrote of the Pelasgians in Arcadia.

    Pelasgians were also recorded as inhabiting the Troad, the Peloponnesus and other regions between the northwestern region of Asia Minor, Epirus and Crete to the South.

    It’s important to remember that Rhea (Rhaetia) was considered the mother of Zeus and that Rhesus was regarded as a Thracian proper name in the Illyiad when contemplating the significance of Dodona to what colonial historians considered native populations and the reach of indigenous Southeastern European belief systems during the Ancient Period.

    _________________________________________

    Herodotus

    Two passages have traditionally been used to demonstrate the relationship between the indigenous populations of Southern Illyria and the region’s colonial or culturally diverged populations. The P37.2 genetic marker provides greater clarity as to the specific nature of this relationship and its significance to modern populations throughout the peninsula. Even the Hellenes, as the term can be specifically applied in a tribal sense, were speakers of an Illyrian language at one point in time, according to this historian.


    “What language however the Pelasgians used to speak I am not able with certainty to say. But one must pronounce judging by those that still remain of the Pelasgians who dwelt in the city of Creston above the Tyrsenians, and who were once neighbors of the race now called Dorian, dwelling then in the land which is now called Thessaliotis, and also by those that remain of the Pelasgians that who settled at Plakia and Skylakē in the region of the Hellespont, who before that had been settlers with the Athenians, and of the natives of the various other towns which are really Pelasgian, though they have lost the name. If one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language. If, therefore, all the Pelasgian race was such as these, then the Attic race, being Pelasgian, at the same time changed and became Hellenic, unlearnt also its language. For the people of Creston do not speak the same language with any of those who dwell about them, nor yet do the people of Plakia, but they speak the same language as each other. By this it is proved that they still keep unchanged the form of language which they brought with them when they migrated to these places.”

    “As for the Hellenic race, it has used ever the same language, as I clearly perceive, since it first took its rise; but since the time when it parted off feeble at first from the Pelasgian race, setting forth from a small beginning it has increased to a great number of ethnic groups, and chiefly because many Barbarian races have been added to it besides. Moreover, it is true, as I think, of the Pelasgian race also, that so far as it remained Barbarian it never made any great increase.”

    The historical record demonstrates that the Hellenes and the Macedonians were both regarded as Pelasgian populations and that the Hellenes came to take on so many different populations, similar to New York or London, that their language eventually changed to reflect a diverse linguistic environment, having incorporated the elements of other cultures who came to redefine many of the cultural attributes that had once defined the Hellenes.

    Herodotus also reported that the Hellenes had driven many Pelasgians into exile and gave accounts for a number of military engagements, demonstrating a pattern of ethnic conflicts and intolerance.


    _________________________________________

    Thucydides

    “Before the time of Hellene, son of Deucalion, ... the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not until Hellene and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all.”

    The Egyptian Danaids of Aeschylus' play The Suppliants may very well provide literary evidence for the actual migration of M35 and M172 defined populations into the region, but migratory waves could have occurred far earlier and later, when we consider such toponyms as Thebes and European (Minoan) colonies such as Avaris in Egypt, indicating economic activity between these two regions going back to at least 1,500 BC.

    Beyond simply providing additional validation for previous mentions of the Pelasgians in relation to the Hellenes and other populations, these passages provide posterity with an explanation as to how this anthropologically observable change swept across the region.

    _________________________________________

    Thucydides also reported that the Hellenic Athenians lived in other parts of the region of Attica before converging on Athens, which was already inhabited by Illyrian populations. Colonial animosity towards Illyrians is preserved in another of his passages that noted that a parcel of land below the Acropolis had been deemed "Pelasgian" and was regarded as having been cursed.

    We see that linguistic divergence was not uniform in all areas and this divergence was centered around areas that existed like Islands amid a vast area that these transformative periods did not alter.


    _________________________________________

    Researchers, such as George E. Bean during the 1960’s, have reported that at least 19 different mountains were named Olympus during the Ancient Period and, again, we find that the most revered mountain rose above the valleys and plains of Macedonia and Magnesia. In Arcadia, another region inhabited by Pelasgians we find another mountain of the same name. The lands of Phrygia, Pamphlagonia (Pov Lagonija) and Lycia all had sacred mountains dedicated to the Southern Illyrian pantheon. The island of Skyros, where we find another mountain that bares this name, was once referred to as Pelasgia.

    Why did the Macedonians take this specific island over in 340 BC? Why would a Macedonian not want to enter a contest honoring the gods of his people? Why would a Macedonian claim to be a descendent of Heraklea? A possible explanation, of course, is that which requires no additional explanation.
    _________________________________________

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  • Soldier of Macedon
    replied
    Originally posted by Sovius
    According to archeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, the Macedonians would have been viewed as kindred populations by “Greeks” of Pelasgian descent and regarded as entirely unrelated by “Greeks” of Phoenician or Egyptian ancestry, yielding an advanced understanding of the ancient period that was beyond the grasp of Victorian Age nationalist scholars who constructed the unrealistic model of an ethnically homogenous land known as “Greece”. While the anachronistic and errant use of the term continues to pollute translations, there are obviously ways to circumvent this misleading terminology in order to arrive at a greater appreciation of the re-conquest of the Southern Macedonian lands.
    Interesting assessment. Perhaps it should be built upon with some relevant citations that make reference to any perceived differences in existence during that period, beginning with the likes of Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides.

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  • Risto the Great
    replied
    Excellent and logical conclusions Sovius.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sovius
    replied
    There was one citation that really brought this period into focus for me.

    Marcus Justinus regarded the Macedonians as Pelasgians, a term used by Hellenic settlers for the indigenous populations of Southeastern Europe, such as the architects of Athens, a people who greatly influenced this influx of populations from around the Mediterranean region, who even came to worship many of their deities, supporting the view that the Southern Illyrian Peninsula came to be inhabited by many diverse populations, not conquered in the formal sense. It was observed and recorded that these populations spoke a different language than the language that the Hellenes spoke. Herodotus even reported that a number of Pelasgian urban centers remained uncosmopolitanized linguistically. He was also confident that the Dorians were a Macedonian population. Rodus, a Dorian stronghold (Rhodes/Rod), retains meaning in the Illyrian linguistic group (Laconia/lagonija), but, by the time of Herodotus, the Dorians were speaking what can be referred to as the Doric version of the creole language that had developed out of the admixture of these populations.

    If Phillip’s ancestors built Attica and the Temple of Delphi (Apollo/Opolo), why wouldn’t the Macedonians have not wanted them back? Cultural transformations in the region would have likely fragmented pre-existing regional political boundaries, confusing ethnic relationships and oversimplifying the complex dynamics of the events occurring in the region in the written record, due to a multitude of different perspectives for these same events.

    Archeologically, there was a slight distinction between the Early Aegean and Anatolian Painted Ware cultures, which arose out of Eastern Akija and Southwestern Anatolia, and the Illyrian Painted and Impressed Pottery cultures. By the Bronze Age, the entire southernmost region of the Illyrian Peninsula and the Western coast of Anatolia had come to reflect varying degrees of differentiation between the Illyrian Bronze Age cultures in various areas within this zone of habitation.

    According to archeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, the Macedonians would have been viewed as kindred populations by “Greeks” of Pelasgian descent and regarded as entirely unrelated by “Greeks” of Phoenician or Egyptian ancestry, yielding an advanced understanding of the ancient period that was beyond the grasp of Victorian Age nationalist scholars who constructed the unrealistic model of an ethnically homogenous land known as “Greece”. While the anachronistic and errant use of the term continues to pollute translations, there are obviously ways to circumvent this misleading terminology in order to arrive at a greater appreciation of the re-conquest of the Southern Macedonian lands.

    Leave a comment:


  • Soldier of Macedon
    replied
    Thanks guys.

    RtG, Justin isn't exactly the greatest source for a Greek to use against Macedonians, but I am happy to discuss any of the points made above. I am confident that Justin, along with other writers such as Pausanias (who is very likely a contemporary or near-contemporary), make sufficient distinction between Macedonians and Greeks in their writings to class them as different people. One of the primary objectives here is to demonstrate the complete fallacy of Greek assertions that "all of the ancient writers considered the Macedonians to be Greek" - This is simply not the case, and the texts of people such as Justin, Pausanias, Curtius Rufus, etc, all from the Roman era, testify to that fact.

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  • Risto the Great
    replied
    Well ... I hope this promotes debate and dialogue with our modern Greek friends.
    It should be approached logically and I submit the following method that may be of assistance:

    1. Verify the quotes of Marcus Justinus. (Deep down you know SoM is watertight and fear his posts)
    2. Interpret the quotes.
    3. Compare the interpretation with Soldier of Macedon's interpretations.
    4. FAIL when you persist with the fallacy of Macedonia being Greek.


    Job (well) done.

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