Saturday, May 10, 2008

Herodotus

“Now that the men of this family are Hellenes, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm, is a thing which I can declare on my own knowledge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evident. That they are so has been already adjudged by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at Olympia“
[Herodotus, The Histories 8.43]


“Tell your king who sent you how his Hellenic viceroy of Macedonia has received you hospitably… “
[Herodotus V, 20, 4]


“Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Hellenes, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know”
[Herodotus V, 22, 1]


“Xerxes, having so spoken, held his peace. (SS 1.) Whereupon Mardonius took the word, and said: ….I myself have had experience of these men when I marched against them by the orders of thy father; and though I went as far as Macedonia, and came but a little short of reaching Athens itself, yet not a soul ventured to come out against me to battle. ……But, notwithstanding that they have so foolish a manner of warfare, yet these Greeks, when I led my army against them to the very borders of Macedonia, did not so much as think of offering me battle.”
[Herodotus Book VII ]


“…but the Dorians on the contrary have been constantly on the move; their home in Deucalion’s reign was Phthiotis and in the reign of Dorus son of Hellen the country known as Histiaeotis in the neighbourhood of Ossa and Olympus; driven from there by the Cadmeians they settled in Pindus and were known as Macedons; thence they migrated to Dryopis, and finally to the Peloponnese, where they got their present name of Dorians.”
[Herodotus, Book I, 56]


“…Three brothers of the lineage of Temenos came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gavganis and Aeropos and Perdikkas, and worked for the king that was there… When the king learned that when the queen baked the bread of Perdikkas, it doubled its size, than of the the other breads, he considered that as a miracle and ordered the 3 brothers to leave his kingdom. The brothers required their payment. Then the king told them to take the sun as a payment. Gavganis and Aeropos where taken by surprise and the youngest brother, Perdikkas, accepted the offer. He took out his sword, circled it 3 times and took the sun, which he placed in his underarm and left with his brothers…”
[Herodotus VIII,137]


“Now these were the nations who composed the Grecian fleet. From the Peloponnese, the following- the Lacedaemonians with six, teen ships; the Corinthians with the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians with fifteen; the Epidaurians with ten; the Troezenians with five; and the Hermionians with three. These were Dorians and Macedonians all of them (except those from Hermione), and had emigrated last from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis. The Hermionians were Dryopians, of the race which Hercules and the Malians drove out of the land now called Doris. Such were the Peloponnesian nations.”.”
[Herodotus, Book VIII ,43]


The whole nation of the Phocians had not joined the Medes; on the contrary, there were some who had gathered themselves into bands about Parnassus, and made expeditions from thence, whereby they distressed Mardonius and the Greeks who sided with him, and so did good service to the Grecian cause. Besides those mentioned above, Mardonius likewise arrayed against the Athenians the Macedonians and the tribes dwelling about Thessaly.
[Herodotus, Book IX ]
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Some remarks as about Herodotos. The earliest surviving memory of the Macedonian locates them in the Pindos.
Herodotos refers to it twice:
on the first occasion he informs us that the Dorian dwelt about Pindos and were then called Makedno the second he describes the Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, the Sikyonians, the Epidaurians ar Troizenians as of Dorian and Makednian stock, and their early origins to the Pindos.
Other authors knew the Dorians originally came from the Pindos specifically from that part of it known in antiquity Lakmos (its modern name in the vernacular is Ζygos). These authors refer neither to the Makednoi nor to the Makedones, but their statements accord perfectly with the tradition preserved by Herodotos.
However, critical analysis of the sources, together with a variety of evidence, leads to a slight correction of the tradition in the form in which it is preserved:
the Dorian peoples seem to have been formed about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. in central Greece from a number of different tribes, one of which was a section of the Makednoi or Makedones that had come from Lakmos at least as early as 1400 B.C. The ancestors of the Makednoi had entered the wider area of Macedonia and Epirus at an earlier date, about 2100 B.C., along with other Proto-Greek tribes.
The surviving tradition appears to be mistaken on a second point, too:
the home of the Makednoi could not have been limited to Lakmos; they will undoubtedly also have occupied territory lying at a lower altitude. Lakmos, like the entire Pindos range, is only suitable for the summer grazing of sheep and goats and as a source of wood. From October to April shepherds are obliged to graze their flocks in the plains. It is a reasonable hypothesis that the Makednoi had winter grazing grounds not only in Epirus, but also in south-west Macedonia since it was from here that they later expanded to the east and north. They very probably succeeded in occupying all the territory abandoned by the Proto-Arkadians when they migrated to the Peloponnese about 1900 B.C. One branch of the Makednoi, known later by the name Magnetes , spread into Pieria, from where they migrated to the region around Ossa and Pelion during the century of the great population movements between 1200 and 1100 B.C. To the north of the Makednoi lived the Boiotoi. The name points to Mt. Boion in the northern Pindos, but this tribe too will have also occupied some territory in the plains. Towards the end of the Bronze Age the Boiotoi migrated to south-west Thessaly, from where they moved shortly afterwards to the land that was named after them.
The vacuum created by the departure of the Boiotoi facilitated the expansion of Greek tribes from Epirus into those areas of western Macedonia known in the first millennium B.C. as Orestis, Lynkestis and Pelagonia.
These tribes were later absorbed by the Makedones.
The remaining areas of Macedonia were oc*cupied towards the end of the Bronze Age by the Paiones, the Bottiaioi, the Eordoi, the Almopes, the Derriopes or Deuriopes and the Pelagones. Towards the end of the period, and a little later, Macedonia was penetrated by Phryges, Mygdones, Thrakes and Pelasgoi, who destroyed, displaced or subjugated the Paiones. During the following centuries all the peoples mentioned above suffered a similar fate as a result of the expansion of the Makedones from the sites they had originally occupied to the south-western extremity of Macedonia, to the east, and to the north.
The above analysis is from Professor and member of the Athens Academy M.B. Sakellariou in Macedonia: 4000 Years of Hellenic Civilisation, pages 46-47




2 comments:

  1. για την ελληνικότητα της Μακεδονίας από τις αρχαίες πηγές έχω αφιερώσει το πρώτο μου θέμα στο μπλογκ μου. βλεπε www.vocula-loquax.blogspot.com.

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  2. Άαρων ποια ειναι η γνώμη σου για την ανάλυση που κάνει ο καθηγητής Σακελλαρίου και αφορά την καταγωγή της Μακεδόνων?

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