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  a royal monopoly. This was both economically and politically very

  important because the sea powers of the Greek world, particularly Athens,

  lacked their own forests and therefore were forced to import wood from

  Macedonia.8

  By the end of Philip II’s reign the Kingdom of Macedonia covered a

  territory of 43,000 km2, which was several times larger than even the

  largest of the ancient Greek states. Thanks to the conditions of its soil and

  climate Macedonia was able to produce abundant crops capable of feeding

  a large number of people despite obviously primitive agricultural methods.

  Although no sources provide enough data to adequately estimate the

  number of Philip II or Alexander’s subjects, the number of soldiers these

  rulers were able to deploy in Macedonia itself indicates that the

  demographic potential must have been large, though probably not over

  8 Geography of Macedonia principally after: Borza 1990, pp. 23-57, 287-299; also

  Corvisier 2002, pp. 37-41; Thomas 2007, pp. 23-32.

  Childhood, Family, Macedonia

  5

  two million as Hammond believed.9 Historians have tried to calculate

  ancient Macedonia’s population on the basis of 19th-century census

  records, assuming that under the backward and unindustrialised Ottoman

  Empire the population size would have been more or less the same as it

  had been in the same area in Antiquity when it was supported by cattle

  herding and primitive agriculture. According to such estimates

  Macedonia’s population at the start of Alexander’s campaign was

  approximately 1-1.5 million. However, there are other theories which

  suggest that populations in the pre-industrialised age did grow, though so

  slowly as to be indiscernible. Accordingly the population of Macedonia at

  the end of Philip II’s reign would have amounted to approximately

  660,000. Even if we take the lowest of these estimates, at the time of

  Philip and Alexander there would have been roughly three times more

  Macedonians than inhabitants of the largest Greek polis of Athens, with

  populations well under 300,000 and in that 100,000 citizens of both sexes

  at the most.10

  The matter of ancient Macedonians’ ethnicity is one of the most hotly

  discussed issues regarding those times. Ancient sources frequently

  mention speeches or simple remarks being uttered in Macedonian by

  Alexander or other Macedonians of his day or from the later times of the

  Diadochi. For years scholars have been arguing whether or not by stating

  that something was said in Macedonian meant that they were merely using

  a Greek dialect or in fact a quite separate language. The academic dispute

  has become even more heated on account of the more than century-old

  political conflict over territory and independence. Both sides of the

  political dispute have tried to gain a moral advantage over their opponents

  by resorting to ‘historical’ arguments as to the right to land on account of

  its ethnic past. At the turn of the 20th century Macedonia – the

  southernmost state of the Balkans at the time of the emergence of modern

  nationalisms – was ethnically a very complex country with a predominance

  of Slavic elements. That was when the Greeks started claiming there rights

  to the land on account of its ancient history. The reason the Greeks felt

  they had a stronger claim to Macedonia than for instance the Bulgarians

  was because, according to them, the Macedonian state had for so long had

  a Greek ethnicity and it was already clearly visible in Antiquity, especially

  during the reigns of its most illustrious rulers Philip II and Alexander the

  9 Hammond 1994, p. 40, n. 38.

  10 Billows 1994, pp. 198-206. Population of Attica: Hansen 1991, pp. 90-94. Low

  estimates for Attica (ca. 200,000) and Macedonia (660,000) are after Corvisier

  2000, pp. 32-44. Thomas 2007, p. 49 lists 700,000 for Macedonia under Philip II.

  6

  Chapter I

  Great. This ‘official’ Greek stance is shared by many Western historians.11

  However, the other, Southern Slavic (Macedonian and Bulgarian), side

  also willingly use ‘historic’ arguments. They stress the non-Greek ethnic

  character of ancient Macedonians and claim that they were the predecessors

  of today’s Southern Slavs. With such reasoning they have even tried to

  posthumously ‘Slavicise’ Alexander the Great.12

  Unfortunately, pre-Hellenistic Macedonians are one of the ‘mute’

  nations of history in that they have not left any traces of literature or

  monumental inscriptions. Even the quite numerous graves of Macedonian

  aristocrats contain no inscriptions. Only half of the 140 or so words

  claimed by ancient authors to be Macedonian are undeniably of Greek

  origin and even in these cases contemporary linguists do not discern a

  typically Greek evolution of particular words. Moreover, although all the

  ancient inscriptions discovered in Macedonia, especially in recent decades,

  are in Greek, this does not mean this was the everyday language of

  Macedonians. Indeed, the rulers of Thrace, Scythia and Illyria

  commissioned monuments with Greek inscriptions and yet we know that

  Thracians, Scythians and Illyrians had their own non-Greek languages. At

  the time Greek was simply the preferred language among the cultural

  elites of much of the Mediterranean area, as Latin later was in medieval

  Europe. It should be remembered that in the pre-Hellenistic age all Greeks

  spoke and wrote in their local dialects, not in the standardised form of the

  language, koine, which in fact developed only at the start of Hellenistic

  epoch. Ca. 6300 inscriptions found in Macedonia are predominantly in

  (Attic) koine, some in various Greek dialects of the coastal cities and only

  a tabula defixionum of Pella possibly in the local dialect close to North-

  West Greek. Obviously the Attic dialect or koine could not have been the

  native language of the local inhabitants. Indeed, the predominance of Attic

  dialect inscriptions may in fact indicate that for the local population Greek

  was a foreign language and that the ‘literary’ Attic form had been learned

  only at school. Ancient authors testify that the ordinary Macedonian did

  not fully understand Greek.13 This fact did not stop the most outstanding

  supporter of the claim that ancient Macedonians were actually Greeks,

  N.G.L Hammond, from espousing the quite curious view that the

  11 Presentation of Greek position: Kalléris 1954-1976; similar: Lane Fox 1973, p.

  30; Cawkwell 1978, pp. 22-23; Hammond 1979, pp. 39-54; Hammond 1999, pp.

  31-33; O’Brien 1992, p. 26; Corvisier 2002, pp. 49-50; Worthington 2004, pp. 7-8;

  Panayotou 2007. See: Borza 1990, pp. 3-12, 90-97.

  12 Mikołajczak, Stamatoski 2002; Moroz-Grzelak 2002; Danforth 2003.

  13 Borza 1990, pp. 90-94; Borza 1994; Borza 1999, pp. 41-43. See now Panayotou

  2007 for Macedonian as a Greek dialect.

  Childhood, Family, Macedonia

  7

  Macedonian language was, indeed, a Greek dialect but one unintelligible

  to the Greeks.14

  Although most of the evidence does suggest that in the 4th century

  Macedonian was a separate language to Gree
k, one cannot consider this

  issue closed. After all, there is no clear dividing line between a different

  dialect and a different language. For instance, many consider present-day

  Macedonian to be in fact a dialect of Bulgarian. However, ethnic identity

  is not only determined by language, it also depends on the awareness of

  belonging to a different ethnic group or nation. Belonging to an ethnic

  group depends on a subjective conviction that some common factors exist

  binding a group of people together and distinguishing them from other

  ethnic groups. Such factors may include: common ancestry, a common

  history, culture, association with a particular territory or a sense of group

  solidarity. Analysis of all extant sources unequivocally shows that in the

  5th and 4th centuries the Greeks did not regard Macedonians to be part of

  their ethnic group nor did the Macedonians themselves ever claim to be

  Greek. It was only in the Hellenistic epoch that Macedonians became fully

  Hellenised and it was only with the growing dominance of Rome in the

  Balkan Peninsula that a sense of affinity developed between the

  Macedonians and Greeks. It was then that Alexander the Great was

  belatedly included in the pantheon of Greek national heroes. By the time

  of the Roman Empire Plutarch was willingly using Alexander of

  Macedonia as an example of how Greek military prowess was equal to that

  of mighty Rome. However, in Alexander’s day the Macedonians had a

  separate ethnos. What is more, they were aware and proud of it. The

  undeniable closeness of Macedonian to Greek would have made the latter

  language partly intelligible to most Macedonians. A similar situation can

  be seen today among Scandinavian or Slavonic nations whose members

  can understand respectively another Scandinavian or Slavonic language

  even if they have never been taught it.15

  Even if 4th-century Macedonians distinguished themselves ethnically

  from their Greek neighbours they most probably had the same proto-Greek

  roots as members of the historic Greek tribes. Moreover, the Macedonian

  royal court was already becoming Hellenised in the 5th century and

  especially intensively during the reign of Archelaus – the patron of many

  Greek artists including Euripides. This state of affairs was partly due to a

  desire to have political influence in the Greek world, but no doubt also due

  14 Hammond 1995; now also Worthington 2008, p. 8.

  15 Weber 1968, p. 389; Badian 1982; Haarmann 1986, pp. 260-262; Borza 1990,

  pp. 90-97, 305-306; Borza 1992; Borza 1996; Hall 2000, pp. 19-26, 170-172, 177;

  Nawotka 2003, p. 27; Thomas 2007, pp. 32-37.

  8

  Chapter I

  to Macedonian awareness of the attractive aspects of contemporary Greek

  culture, which indeed fascinated many Mediterranean countries of that

  epoch. Naturally the ruling dynasty and aristocracy were the first to be

  Hellenised. The frescos and numerous artefacts found in recent decades in

  Macedonian graves from the second half of the 4th century show that the

  royal court favoured Greek and especially Attic art.16

  During the reign of Philip II Macedonia was still predominantly a rural

  country where cities, unlike in Greece, played a very peripheral role in

  both the political and economic sense. Despite efforts made by the

  administration (incidentally a fact much exaggerated by many historians),

  Philip’s kingdom remained poor. Before Philip’s reign there was virtually

  nothing that could be called a city in Upper Macedonia, though

  archaeologists have uncovered the remains of fortified settlements which

  must have been the commercial centres of the rural communities. In Lower

  Macedonia the only urban centre of note was the kingdom’s capital Pella,

  which was by no means the ‘poor and small town’ described by

  Demosthenes. In fact the length of its defensive walls at the time of Philip

  II (7-8 km) was comparable to the length of the walls of Athens (6.5 km),

  and although it might not have been as populous as Athens, Pella needs to

  be regarded as an important urban centre.17 The other towns of Edessa,

  Dion and Aegae were much less significant though the last of these, even

  after it ceased being the capital, still maintained its status as the burial

  place of Macedonian kings and the centre of their cults. Ancient sources

  do not clearly state when the royal residence was transferred from Aegae

  to Pella, but historians believe it occurred during the reign of the state’s

  reformer Archelaus. Pella had no natural defence advantages and this was

  a malarial region, but it was situated on an important trade route, along

  which at the time of the Early Roman empire the famous road via Egnatia

  was built. Furthermore, while the coastline remained under the control of

  the Greek colonies of Pydna, Methone and the Chalcidian League, Pella,

  with its access to the Aegean via the river Ludias was the Kingdom of

  Macedonia’s only seaport. This allowed Macedonia to export timber

  brought down the river Axios from the nearby mountains as well as no

  doubt minerals and agricultural products.18

  It was not their economic but their political significance that

  distinguished Macedonian cities most from those of Greece. In the Greek

  world the city and surrounding rural areas ( chora) generally constituted a

  16 Barr-Sharrar 1982.

  17 Diod., 18.66. Montgomery 1985; Montgomery 1997; Hammond 1994, p. 56;

  Thomas 2007, pp. 81-83.

  18 Greenwalt 1999; Corvisier 2002, pp. 53-57.

  Childhood, Family, Macedonia

  9

  separate state ( polis). Of course there were numerous exceptions to this

  rule. There were large poleis, such as Athens, which would include more

  than one urban settlement with inhabitants who had typically urban

  occupations. On the other hand, there were also many small states that did

  not have a single urban centre. Nevertheless, by the mid 4th century for the

  Greeks the polis was almost always associated with citizenship and the

  natural political centre. In accordance with contemporary convictions they

  would also naturally have a democratic system of government.19 In the

  Classical period no Macedonian urban settlement could be characterised as

  a polis. At most some had limited autonomy but still under the supervision

  of a royal prefect. Thus Macedonia avoided the political fragmentation so

  typical in Greece, while all the subjects considered themselves to be

  Macedonians first and only next the inhabitants of, for instance, Pella,

  Edessa or Dion.20

  This form of social organisation, different from the polis concept and

  called ethne, was also present in neighbouring Thessaly as well as to a

  large extent in Thrace. Moreover, these three countries, which were much

  larger than Greek states, also kept the tribal system throughout the

  Classical period. In Thrace it was still present at the time of the Roman

  empire. On account of the fact that everywhere this social structure was

  eventually succeeded by the polis, one cannot regard ethne to have been a

  viable alternative but instead an earlier stage in the evolution of society. A

  typical structure
for ethne societies, even in 4th-century democracy

  dominated Greece, was the oligarchy or aristocracy. The political

  significance of the ruling classes rested on their control of outlying

  territories or of smaller towns which, as in Greece, did not have the status

  of independent states.21

  The 4th-century Greek historian Theopompus states that in Macedonia

  during the reign of Philip II there were 800 aristocratic hetairoi whose

  revenues from landed property equalled that of 10,000 of the wealthiest

  Greeks.22 It is now impossible to verify this statement and it may be a

  rhetorical exaggeration. Significant, however, is the very fact that

  contemporary observers perceived Macedonia to be a country dominated

  by a wealthy aristocracy. Their wealth has been confirmed by the

  archaeological uncovering of some 100 warrior graves whose lavishness

  resembled more those of nobles from the Mycenaean age or those of

  contemporary Thracian aristocrats than those of Greeks of classical age.

  19 Arist., Pol. , 1286b20. See Gauthier 1984, p. 86; Quass 1979.

  20 Errington 1990, pp. 222-234.

  21 Archibald 2000.

  22 FGrH, 115 F225b.

  10

  Chapter I

  The most sumptuous sepulchres are the royal graves at Vergina, which

  shall be discussed in detail in Chapter III. The number of hetairoi during

  Philip II’s reign rose to approximately 1,800. This would have been so not

  only because of a natural rise in the number of Macedonian aristocrats

  resulting from the country’s prosperity, but also from a large influx of

  foreigners, especially Greeks. The closeness between the king of

  Macedonia and his aristocrats is apparent in their name, hetairoi, which

  simply means companions – the king’s companions. The hetairoi

  accompanied the king in battle as well as in hunting and feasting, yet in

  the monarch’s regular presence they were bound by none of the

  submissiveness and strict adherence to court ceremony that was so typical

  of ancient states of the East. The lack of an administrative or court

  hierarchy meant that both Philip II and Alexander ruled with the aid of

  their closest entourage, especially a group of seven to eight

 

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