Ancient Historians considered Macedonians as separate & distinct entity!

[indigen]

Do you know older record of "Zurna" than the year of 1100???

FYI, in the quote you responded to it CLEARLY says that it predates the "arrival of the Slavs". What more info do you want/need?

The zurla and the drum are not Turkish, as often believed. You find them in frescoes preceding the Turks. They arrived in the Balkans before the Slavs.

The info below provides a plausible reason for similarity of dances:

Simple Dances: Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Lead?
by Laura Shannon

Many of the most common folk dances belong to a single family, whose basic step provides an ancient and archetypal template for many of the simple dances in our repertoire. There are so many different variations on the basic theme that we tend to overlook their interrelation and treat them as completely separate dances, and it can be surprising to find out how many dances derive from the same root pattern. This discovery suggests that something essential and unchanging is common to dances of many different cultures, and also, paradoxically, illuminates the process of evolution through which dance forms continually change.

The ancient dance family of which I speak is the group of three-measure dances such as the Macedonian Pravo Oro, where the first two measures travel and the third measure mirrors the second. Another way to describe it is `step, step, step, do something, step, do something'. Still another way is `three steps forward (pause), one step back (pause).'

[.....]

http://www.laurashannon.net/articles...pleDances.html

With repect,
I.

[Pelister]

Macedonian Music

Not only distinctively and uniquely Macedonian, but also very ancient.

Serious musicologists ... deal almost exclusively with Macedonian folk music. That fact is not surprising in view of the interest aroused by Macedonian folk music among musicologists, owing to its originality and characteristic place in folk music of the Balkan region.

The indigenous folk music of Macedonia, a product of ... various influences of the ethnic groups which had inhabited the Balkans before the arrival of the Slavs - offers excellent opportunities for the scholarly investigation ... "

Dragoslav, Ortakov., "Approaches to the Study of Macedonian Musical History" in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 6, No.2 (Dec, 1975), pp. 307-317

[sf.]

Alexander And The Macedonians
The “Opis Mutiny”
Waldemar Heckle: “At Opis on the Tigris River, Alexander prepared to dismiss a large number of his Macedonian veterans, bringing into the camp at the same time new recruits from the Iranian satrapies known as the Epigoni. This, although it was not the only cause of discontent, triggered an angry reaction within the camp, one which Alexander suppressed by arresting and executing the most outspoken of the mutineers, as well as by offering words of conciliation.

The appeal for “Concord” (Homonoia) gave rise to the idea that Alexander was trying to promote a “Brotherhood of Mankind”, an idea which has been thoroughly discredited and is discussed today merely as a footnote to Alexander scholarship.

Here we are confronted not with dreams of unity but with the reality of opposition within Alexander’s army.”(Page 266)

For fair use only.

Let's see if we can discuss this without busting each other's balls.

I haven't read the book and am assuming you have. That sentence is slightly ambiguous without the context provided by the surrounding text.

So, are the authors saying that Alexander never had any motivations to promote a "brotherhood of mankind" in the universal sense, or that he never attempted to create a new order in his conquered territories.?

Or, are they saying that this particular incident, i.e. his appeal to his soldiers in this instance, was not used to promote "brotherhood of mankind."

If it's the former, is this the only argument/example that they use? How do they address Alexander's actions later on?

[sf.]

That's fine, and this will be my last post on this matter here. Just know that you've presented a somewhat ambiguous statement (Re concord) that has no relation to the thread title, without its wider context, prefaced with the academic qualifications of its authors. Considering the space in your post dedicated to this preface, suggests you would like this statement to be accepted on the basis of their academic authority.

The problem is, what are we expected to accept and what does this statement mean to you?

Feel free (or not) to cite my previous post and answer my questions in the other thread. Also, given your response here, I would now like to know if you have actually read the book.

[indigen]

That's fine, and this will be my last post on this matter here. Just know that you've presented a somewhat ambiguous statement (Re concord) that has no relation to the thread title, without its wider context, prefaced with the academic qualifications of its authors. Considering the space in your post dedicated to this preface, suggests you would like this statement to be accepted on the basis of their academic authority.

I hope the following Borza elaboration will suffice to clear up any misconceptions you may hold:

Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexander’s Court Makedonika 1995 (pp.149-58) by Eugene Borza

In the more than half a century since William Woodthorpe Tarn proclaimed the “Brotherhood of Mankind,”1 there has been a narrowing interpretation of Alexander the Great’s vision. Recent scholarship has replaced most of Alexander’s Grand Plans with “minimalist” interpretations.

Tarn’s conception of homonoia was never accepted by some scholars, and within five years of its publication in the Cambridge Ancient History, Ulrich Wilcken attacked it as unsupported by the evidence.2 Despite Wilcken’s criticism, Tarn’s views of Alexander as a social philosopher settled into the public consciousness, and into some scholarly opinion, as well.3

It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the full force of criticism turned on Tam. The “revisionist” school of Alexander historiography, led by Ernst Badian, was characterized by severe source criticism and proved that the “homonoic” vision of Alexander was mainly a product of Tarn’s unacceptable squeezing of sources. An analysis of the language of Arrian at 7.11.9-the famous prayer of reconciliation at Opis-shows that, in comparison with uses of similar constructions elsewhere in Arrian, the “concord” or “harmony” referred to in Alexander’s prayer4 is limited to the Persians and Macedonians and is not inclusive of the whole human race.5

What was left of Alexander’s Grand Plan was an idea introduced by Wilcken in 1931 to replace Tarn’s World Brotherhood.6 Wilcken argued that, while the king had no intention of uniting all the races of Europe and Asia into a great concord, he did, in fact, attempt to join the ruling peoples of those continents – the Macedonians and Persians-into a commonality of shared power. This view-called “Fusion” has persisted for more than a half century, generally accepted at one time by many persons, myself included.

But in 1978 A.B. Bosworth presented a paper at a meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, the full version of which appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (1980) under the title “Alexander and the Iranians.” Bosworth argued persuasively that there was little evidence even for a fusion between Persians and Macedonians. In an analysis of Alexander’s activities toward the end of his life-where most of the evidence for Fusion has seemed to reside-Bosworth showed, for example, that nearly all the Iranian auxillaries incorporated into the army were kept as separate units. The Asians were used mainly as a political counterweight to threaten Macedonians who were disaffected from their king. Other evidence for uniting the races of Europe and Asia must be seen as ad hoc solutions to immediate problems, not as a part of a general Policy.7

I accept the views of Bosworth on this issue. But what are we left with? Has the position about Alexander’s Grand Scheme become so minimalist as to leave nothing but a piece of military history and a serendipitous adventure story?

1 1.Tarn in CAH 6 (1926), Proc. Of the British Academy (1933), and Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1948), esp. 2: 399 ff. Earlier versions of the present paper were presented at the 1989 annual meeting of the Friends of Ancient History in Baltimore, and at the 1990 meetings of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association in Salt Lake City. I wish to thank Ernst Badian, Ian Morris, and Edward Anson, who were commentators at those meetings, for their suggestions, criticism and encouragement. What appears here is part of a continuing larger study of ethnicity in the administration of Alexander. I am pleased to offer it in its present form as a tribute to my teacher, Stewart Oost, who neither admired Alexander nor believed he had any impulse beyond conquest.

2 E.g., Alexander der Grosse (1931), English trans. By G. C. Richards, notes by E. N. Borza (New York, 1967), 22 1.

3 E.g., C.A. Robinson, “The Extraordinary Ideas of Alexander the Great,” AHR 62 (1957) 326-44.

4 The publication by Stadter and Boulter of a microform concordance to Arrian has greatly simplified textual analysis of this type.

5 The version Arrian gives us probably is verbatim or near-verbatim of what Alexander actually said. Of course, one must consider seriously that whatever Alexander said may not have been what he intended, which is one of the main points of the present paper.

6 Alex. The Great (1967) 246-56.

7 Bosworth’s views have not persuaded everyone, especially those for whom old habits die hard; e.g. N.G.L. Hammond in Alexander the Great. King, Commander and Statesman (1980) and elsewhere

[…..]

The conclusion is inescapable: there was a largely ethnic Macedonian imperial administration from beginning to end. Alexander used Greeks at court for cultural reasons, Greek troops (often under Macedonian commanders) for limited tasks and with some discomfort, and Greek commanders and officials for limited duties. Typically, a Greek would enter Alexander’s service from an Aegean or Asian city through the practice of some special activity: he could read and write, keep figures or sail, all of which skills the Macedonians required. Some Greeks may have moved on to military service as well. In other words, the role of Greeks in Alexander’s service was not much different from what their role had been in the service of Xerxes and the third Darius.

If one wishes to believe that Alexander had a policy of hellenization-as opposed to the incidental and informal spread of Greek culture-the evidence must come from sources other than those presented here. One wonders-archaeology aside-where this evidence would be.

We have seen that not only has the idea of World Brotherhood been put to rest and the idea of a Fusion of Persian and Macedonian ruling classes made doubtful, but that the value of Greeks to Alexander for policy reasons cannot be sustained by evidence. In short, there is no World Brotherhood, no Fusion, and no evidence of a policy of hellenization, if that hellenization were intended to be accomplished through the medium of ethnic Greeks.

http://www.historyofmacedonia.org

For fair use only.

what does this statement mean to you?

It means there was no plan by Aleksandar for any kind of "Brotherhood of Mankind"!

Also, given your response here, I would now like to know if you have actually read the book.

Yes, I have read the book!

Over and out!

[George S.]

If aristotle was banished from athens for being a non greek & macedonia was excluded from fighting in troy as it was not greek,then that tells you that macedonia is different to greece.If someone is a phillhellene that is lovers of greek culture that does not make them greek.Both phillip the 2nd & alexander the great were phillhellenes.Also In the battle of charonea why did the macedonians fight each other if they were the same people.Clearly they were different race of people.Another point is after alexander there were numerous anti macedonian wars staged by greece to shake off the yoke.Greece never liked to be under macedonia & resented that wholeheartedly.Proof off that is demosthenes hated the macedonians so much that he wishedalexander to be killed,
Also if macedonia was greek why was it a roman province as well as greece as a province seperately.Another missed point is that the greeks practised slavery & the macedonians didn"t.The Macedonians were proud to be free men.THe greeks have their make beleive "myths" that the macedonians were a lost greek tribe there is no evidence for that.When the greeks "colonised"greece in the past they found that the macedonians were there allready before them long ago.

[indigen]

Macedonian rituals with ancient roots.

Peasants generally have elaborate rituals for all occasions. Let us try and simplify some of the Macedonian rituals.

Up to thirty years ago, Christmas was considered the biggest holiday of the year in Macedonia. The Christmas customs covered a span of nearly two months; they were rooted in old pre-Christian winter celebrations, dedicated to birth of the sun, the solstice, and were later grafted onto the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Christianity adopted the pagan celebrations and transformed them into festival of the birth of Christ – Christmas. (page 231)

[…..]

The custom of colouring and ornamenting eggs for Easter originated in pagan times. In Macedonia, this custom has been particularly practices by women. The ancient pagans believed that red was the colour of life and coloured the eggs accordingly. Christianity adopted this custom.

Macedonia: Its People and History (Macedonia: Past Meets Present, 159-236)
Pribichevich, 1982 (page 233)


----------------
Evidence Of Ancient Macedonian Culture Surviving In The Living Culture Of Modern Indigenous Macedonian Nation:

“...The Macedonian dances ...belong among the oldest recorded dances in the world....

....West Macedonian dances.......slow motion dances, danced only by men, with long, measured steps. The only accompaniment is the drum and a high-pitched wind instrument. One of these dances is the “Teshkoto”. Now it is called a shepherd’s dance, of nimble leaps from rock to rock, watching for possible beast or bandit.

Actually, it is an archaic Macedonian dance from pre-slav times, dramatizing the difficult life of the Macedonians, recalling border warfare and raids, the unending battle to defend the flocks, the land, the tribe.

YouTube - Teskoto-Ansambl TANEC.avi

In the beginning , says Dr. Mane Chuchkov, Macedonian musicologist and economic geographer, people had nothing but body movements to show how they lived. …

There are also ancient Macedonian dances performed to the beat of drums only. And there are silent dances with no instruments or singing or hand-clapping at all. They are the eeriest, sometimes interspersed with weird cries. In “silent” dances rhythm and beat are supplied either by a measured repetition of an accented dance step or by the jingling of the coins and trinkets with which the women’s dresses are adorned, or by periodic shouts. It is these strange and haunting “dumb” dances, where the feet thud in precise unison without a sound of song or music and men every once in a while leap high into the air, which more than any other stir the spectator in a profound way.

The instruments accompanying the Macedonian dances are usually the drum and various wind instruments. Among the latter is the kaval, an ordinary pipe. The longer the pipe, the more sonorous its sound.
The kaval has no “tongue” or whistle-head. You blow it as you do a pencil cap, across the edge of the opening. The zurla, a wood instrument similar to the oboe, has a double mouthpiece and two whistle-heads is a double-reed instrument. In London the zurla player of the dance group of Tanec, Slave Tashevski, created a furor. You could ask him to play this song or that or “just nothing,” that is, to improvise. He could not read music. The zurla and the drum are not Turkish, as often believed. You find them in frescoes preceding the Turks. They arrived in the Balkans before the Slavs. The Macedonian bagpipe has a seventh little hole with a straw, not for producing a tone but for ornamenting it: it does the murmuring. It is therefore called mrmorec— the “murmurer”— and is only one-and-a-half millimeters wide.

.....According to some musicologists, there is so much archaism in Macedonian music, as well as in costumes, dances, customs, for the reason that this region has lived so long in servitude which precluded foreign influences. ....

In the wild Mariovo region in southern Macedonia (RM) matriarchy still reigns, costumes and customs are still archaic and civilization has only begun to arrive with a road built recently...”.

[Pribichevich: Macedonia – Its People and History, 1982.]

----------

Pece Atanasovski x2 - Macedonian folk dances

II. Pece Atanasovski - Macedonian folk dances
Tracklist w. notes transcribed from cover:

TESHKOTO - this dance originates from the Western part of Macedonia and it is well-known as the most expressive representative of the Macedonian folklore. It is danced only by men. Rhytham 4/4.

[...]

----------

Simple Dances: Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Lead?
by Laura Shannon

Many of the most common folk dances belong to a single family, whose basic step provides an ancient and archetypal template for many of the simple dances in our repertoire. There are so many different variations on the basic theme that we tend to overlook their interrelation and treat them as completely separate dances, and it can be surprising to find out how many dances derive from the same root pattern. This discovery suggests that something essential and unchanging is common to dances of many different cultures, and also, paradoxically, illuminates the process of evolution through which dance forms continually change.

The ancient dance family of which I speak is the group of three-measure dances such as the Macedonian Pravo Oro, where the first two measures travel and the third measure mirrors the second. Another way to describe it is `step, step, step, do something, step, do something'. Still another way is `three steps forward (pause), one step back (pause).'

[.....]

http://www.laurashannon.net/articles/SimpleDances/SimpleDances.html

[indigen]

Continuity of Ancient Macedonian Customs and Beliefs

Continuity of Ancient Macedonian Customs and Beliefs

Doiran (probably Prasias), beneath the southern declivity of the Belasitza mountains
fisheries. The lacustrine habitations of the Paeonians on Lake Prasias described by
Herodotus (v. i6) find a modern counterpart in the huts of the fishing population on
Lake Doiran

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/LUP_MAL/MACEDONIA.html

Dojran (Macedonian Cyrillic: Дојран, Turkish: Doyuran) is a city located on the western shore of Dojran Lake in the south-eastern part of the Republic of Macedonia.

Dojran was first settled in pre-historic times, and the first written record of the city was in the 5th century in which the Greek historian Herodotus, wrote about the Paionians, ancient...people, who started and expanded the city. Herodotus notes how the Paionians, lived in settlements accessible only by boats, settlements which still exist today on the west and the north shores of Dojran Lake, in between the cane zones and the lake itself. The economy of Dojran has always been primarily dependent on fishing and success in the business is attributed to the traditional ancient fishing method used by the fishermen.

http://wikimapia.org/5095416/Doiran-...istorical-city

Ancient Customs and Beliefs

ON Lake Doiran people still catch fish not only with trained birds but, since time immemorial, with the aid of migratory birds. Every fall and spring flocks of various water birds from Russia, Poland, Germany on their way south and north stop to feed and rest at Lake Doiran, which is not more than 33 feet deep and is possibly the European lake with the greatest abundance of fish. The birds scare off the fish which then make for the reedy shallows which in the fall also serve as their refuge from the deeper, colder waters. Nearly all the fishing is done at or near the village of New Doiran, where several miles of reeds, sometimes ten feet or more in height, grow along the shore. The fish traps, called mandras, are made of reeds, their openings facing the lake. The mandras are subdivided into several underwater compartments or pens, each smaller as they approach the shore. Out in the lake, in front of the mandras, huts on stilts are constructed of boards and reeds and mud, three to five feet above the surface, for the fishermen to control the bird fishing. Herodotus, who in the fifth century B.C. Visited Lake Doiran, then called Prasias, and described the bird fishing, gave the following picture of the pile dwellings. You reached them by a bridge from the shore. In each pile dwelling there was a trapdoor opening onto the water. Small children were roped by the leg so as not to tumble down. There was so much fish that when you lowered a creel on a rope through the trapdoor you could soon pull it out full of fish.

As the fish crowd into the first compartment of the mandras, the fishermen from the top of the pile dwellings frighten off the birds by waving their arms, shouting, throwing stones, rattling various objects. They pull a network of strings with old tins attached which stretches over the water. Men in canoes also patrol the reeds and prevent the birds from invading by shouting, banging, swinging their oars. The birds are allowed to fly only over the “white waters” - the open lake.

Now it is the turn for other birds to help the fishermen catch red perch, carp and pike. These are the so-called “working birds” - wild birds, especially cormorants and certain ducks, caught in nets by the fishermen who clip their wings so they cannot fly. When the first compartment of the mandra is full, these birds are placed on a perch above it, from which they dive after the fish. Frightened, the fish scamper through the opening into the second pen. The process is repeated until the fish find themselves in the last and smallest compartment of the mandra at the shore, from which they can he scooped out with a net. By April the wings of the “working birds” have grown again and they are released. Each season between four and six hundred “working birds” are used.

The Doiran fishing boats are also of a type that is centuries old; they have a flat stern and sides narrowing toward the gunwales so that the bottom is broader than the top; this creates stability. The fishing season takes place between October and March Of the yearly fish kill, it is estimated that one-half is devoured by birds. Of the rest, one-half is caught by nylon nets. Fishing with migratory birds also survives in Japan. Bird fishing in China is different. There it is done with cormorants; rings have been slipped around their throats so they cannot swallow the fish and they have been trained to bring the fish back to their masters.

Of late, new methods have been introduced in Doiran fishing. Boats with dynamos glide swiftly over the waters. Two metal rods are connected with the dynamo. The electrodes are placed in the water and the current is switched on. The electrocuted fish float up to the surface immediately Although the state of shock lasts only a few minutes, this is long enough for the fish to be scooped up into the boats. This has greatly increased the annual catch.

Macedonia: Its People and History
Pribichevich, 1982



LakeDoiranPhoto.jpg


pribichevich_doiran_01.jpg



pribichevich_doiran_02.jpg

------------------------------

The boats of the Ohrid fishermen...design not altered for two thousand years.

The fishing village of Kaneno is situated below a steep rock, with houses one above the other, unapproachable by land and often visited by painters. The fuel and other necessities are brought by boat. The boats of the Ohrid fishermen are huge, clumsy, tall affairs with logs along the gunwales, perpetuating a design that has not altered for two thousand years. They are now being replaced by light modern boats.

Macedonia: Its People and History (Macedonia: Past Meets Present, 159-236)
Pribichevich, 1982 (page 166)

For fair use only.

[Epirot]

One of the famous slogans held by 'Greek' propaganda over internet is that todays Macedonia encompass only a small part of original Macedonia. That's far of being true because there was no any sharp line between tribes that lived in todays Macedonia and those one who live in Southern Macedonia. Furthermore, Romans when they re-organized conquered lands, called todays Macedonia as MACEDONIA SALUTARIS:

[indigen]

Culture and heritage nurtured by modern Macedonians p1

Contemporary Macedonian Nation with Ancient Heritage and Roots!

Some images:


Macedonian Sun from 5500 BC

Neolithic inhabitation of the so called Porodin group on Pelagonija show a specific sign on living and burial. The archaeological material found in the many tombs near the Black river (map 4) show an exceptional knowledge of organising space, and semantic shaping of the Neolithic pots which are a clear testimony of the respect for the cult of the sun and the cult of the cosmos, (space, universe) and a longer cultural continuity with the oldest (up to now) registered solar symbols and diverse cosmographies, cosmogonies and cosmologies from around 5.500 B.C..

Macedonian Rally in Sydney (Martin Place) from 1993.


World Macedonian Congress (USA) Logo from 1992 publication.


Macedonian "Coat of Arms" used by a number Macedonian
community organisations in Australia since the mid 1990s.


Post card depicting a "coat of arms" with all the elements of
the Macedonian heritage. (Sydney, Australia - early 1990s).


Sydney Carnevale 1996

[Pelister]

Amazing thread Indigen.

Your posts about our ancient Macedonian dances was a joy and a pleasure to watch and read.

[indigen]

Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend

Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend
by Richard Stoneman
Yale £20

Archive
Reviews since 2001
Peter Jones, Literary Review, March 2008

[...]

In India, Arabia, Russia, Malaya, Spain, Armenia, Syria, Ethiopia, Israel, the Balkans, even in Iceland and Ireland, tales of Alexander were told and retold down the millennia. In some of these he met and discussed philosophy with naked Indian Brahmans. In Wells cathedral there are scenes of Alexander’s flight to heaven. When Marco Polo (1254-1324) visited Afghanistan, his hosts still spoke of the marriage of Alexander to Roxane; further on, he was shown horses descended from Alexander’s horse Bucephalus. Hebrew legend made him a preacher and prophet, Christian [“Byzantine”] legend an obedient servant of god; in the European middle ages he became a chivalrous knight; for Persians, alternatively, he was an arch-devil, Satan himself, because he destroyed the fire altars of the Zoroastrian religion.

Because of his adventures in the east...Amazing stories sprang up about him: he came across men without heads, three-eyed lions and killer crabs with claws six feet long; he became a miracle-working hero, a superman, his name linked with submarines and flying machines; one of the wise men who attended the birth of Jesus was said to have brought gold from Alexander’s treasury. There are still Afghan chieftains who claim descent from his blood.

For the past twenty years Richard Stoneman has been working on this extraordinary phenomenon. Its root is The Alexander Romance, a wonderfully lunatic collection of history, myth and legend about Alexander that survives in three major versions, each containing material radically different from the other two (Stoneman translated it for Penguin in 1991). Its date is controversial, but Stoneman thinks it may have been put together as early as 200 BC, largely as a result of the image generated by Alexander’s official historians who, ramping up his achievements, portrayed him as a visionary and superman, thus encouraging others to elaborate even more imaginatively. The result was a world-wide mushrooming of stories about Alexander, the weirder and more wonderful the better, from antiquity to the middle ages. It is this vast, almost uncontrollable mountain of disparate stuff that is the subject of Stoneman’s masterful work, which will not be superseded for a very long time.

Stoneman organises it all biographically, beginning with stories that accrete round Alexander’s birth and continuing with an analysis of the major themes that emerge in the material, e.g. his Persian adventures, the foundation of Alexandria, the Indian stories, his life as inventor and wise man, relationships with women, the search for immortality and so on, up to his death. He concludes with a survey of how the western middle ages and medieval [multi-ethnic Romaoi] and modern [ethnic fruit salad mix] Greeks responded to him.

For example, the last pharaoh of Egypt was Nectanebo (360-343 BC), who, defeated by the Persians, fled to Nubia and was never heard of again. Except in the Romance. Here, we are told, he escaped to Macedon and was received into the court of Philip. But he fell in love with Philip’s wife Olympias, and told her she must sleep with the god Ammon, when she would bear a child who would right all the wrongs Philip had done her. He then used magic to ensure she had a dream encouraging her to do this, at which point, donning his Ammon disguise, he leapt into her bed.

This, Stoneman points out, is all of a piece with the historical Nectanebo, who had a reputation as a magician - but why the seduction (a story picked up by John Gower via a tenth century Latin translation that spread the Romance all over Europe)? The answer surely is that, when Alexander drove out the Persians a few years later and became master of Egypt, it was essential to demonstrate to the Egyptians that he had a rightful claim to their throne. This story demonstrated his credentials for the job: he was indeed a son of the last Pharaoh and of the god Ammon. Further, Nectanebo was also present at the birth, the Romance tells us, and delayed it so that Alexander would be born at the most auspicious time possible and become ruler of the world.

But there is more to come, in the shape of a Persian account, in which the Shah marries a daughter of Philip and engenders Alexander, but then sends the pregnant girl back to Philip. The Shah’s next wife bears him Darius, whom Alexander conquers in his Persian campaigns – but the two men are half-brothers, and thus ‘the Persian myth that the Empire had never been conquered by an invader is preserved intact’!

Alexander’s spin doctors certainly earned their corn. As Stoneman concludes, Alexander became a universal brand, an Everyman: he captured the imagination not just of peoples with whom he came into contact but also of those who heard of and wondered at his story, enlarging on it over thousands of years. Eat your heart out, Alastair Campbell.

http://www.friends-classics.demon.co.uk/REV_Stoneman_01.htm

For fair use only.

[George S.]

Congrat's indigen that's quite a lot of material which proves the existence of macedonians seperate from greece.Even sources of ancient literature show that macedonia was not greekIt is only that the greeks choose to ignore the facts & create their own false propaganda to suit their purposes.Macedonia has a continuos existence througout the ages.Macedonia is recognised as a whole country for over 2 millenia.Examples on maps are too numerous.Also we have a lot of famous macedonians as well as archives in the world that hold the truth about macedonia in great abundance.

[George S.]

good one indigen.If greece & macedonia were the same people why did the macedonians need to conquer them & subjugate them.The fact is that they were enemies & had nothing in common.Also why didn't they call alexander the greek if he was not macedonian.The greek version does not make sense.

[Imagination]

I just want to say that at a British quiz show there was a question "What nationality was Alexander the Great?", the people answer "Greek" and it went red . Then it said "The correct answer was Macedonian". Here's the video : YouTube - What Nationality was Alexander the Great ?
Of course many people complained that it was not true, mainly Greeks.