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The Ancient Macedonians were the inhabitants of Macedon and adjacent regions in ancient times. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians — whether they spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language — were absorbed into the Koine Greek-speaking population in Hellenistic times. Whether the ancient Macedonians were an ethnically Greek people themselves continues to be debated by historians, linguists, and lay people.

Origins

According to a common reading of the passage, Herodotus considers the Macedonians a Hellenic tribe left behind during the Dorian invasion:

for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedonians, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians. (Histories, 1.53.1)

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Culture

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Language and writing

See main article: Ancient Macedonian language.

The discovery of the Veneti re-opened anew the question of the language spoken by the ancient Macedonians. In this connection, Charles Bryant-Abraham recorded Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC), King of Macedonia and Greece, who, at a gathering admonished one of his men, Philotas by name, to talk in his mother tongue and not in Greek (cf. The Augustan, Vol. XXXI, Nr. 3, Daggett, Calif. 1999, p. 21). His mother tongue could have been only Macedonian, which evidently was different from Greek.

What was Dura-Europos? It was a fortress on the Euphrates in present-day Syria, founded by Alexander the Great. Shipments from India were transported by sea and on the river Euphrates to the docks of this fortress. There, they where displayed, reloaded, and hauled over land to the Mediterranean coast. Thus, it was a very strategic post, which Alexander the Great entrusted only to his most reliable men. And, as the inscriptions in the "Slav" (Venetic) language confirm, they were his compatriots, the Macedonians. The garrison of Dura-Europos evidently survived the decline of Alexander's empire. The aforesaid inscriptions descend from the period of the Romans, who annexed the fortress in 165 AD, and were expelled by the Sassanians in 256 AD. Nevertheless, these inscriptions do not bear witness yet, that the then Macedonians were of Venetic origin.

In my researches concerning the Veneti, I found out, that in the pre-Roman period several peoples spoke nearly the same language: Illyrians, Thracians, Dacians, continental Celts, very probably also Phrygians,... But they were not of Venetic origin. Anyway, with regard to the Macedonians, an important indication of their Venetic origin is the quotation of Herodotos (ca. 480 - 425 BC), who also mentioned the presence of the Veneti in the Illyricum (I, 196), i.e., in the Balkans. But where was the territory of their settlement? I suppose, they were the ancestors of the Macedonians. Thus, because on the border of ancient Macedonia (in present-day northern Greece) I find even today a village called Veneton, situated on the Aegean coast (Thessaly) near Zagora. Further on, a tributary of the Aliakmon (Bistrica) River is still called Venetikos. I believe, these names bear witness of the places, where the very Venetic area ended. Other Venetic or Slav names are found inside all over the Greek peninsula and in the Peloponnese. But these are, in my opinion, a legacy of the Pelasgians, who spoke a similar language, even if they were not Veneti.

The Veneti had their origin in the Lusatian culture (ca. 1500 - 1100 BC), and their migrations into all directions of Europe were carried out around 1200 BC and after. Therefore, the so-called Vinca culture of ca. 4000 BC (Vojvodina), because of such a great distance of time and place, certainly did not pertain to the Veneti or proto-Veneti. The symbols it left behind are similar to the letters, but no one succeeded to individuate any words from them. In opposite to this, the Veneti evidently used the script.

An ulterior characteristic of the Veneti was their social organization, based on the village community called vas. This community was composed of family dwellings, among which the field was divided. The social organization of many other peoples, like Celts, Germans, Illyrians... was based on the great family - Sippe, clan,... with the common field. In the Balkans, such a great family, called "zadruga" (in Serbian) or "rod" in (Bulgarian), was preserved until the 20th century AD.

So, I am very anxious to know, whether or not in the tradition of Macedonians there are traces of such a (Venetic) village community and if in their language the word Vas exists? It is known to me, that in the Macedonian language exists the word Drzava (State), but the basis of it was formed by village communities.

It could be that the word Vas did not develop among Macedonians. But also the Drzava is an ancient Venetic tradition of social organization. Anyway, these noble and peaceful people descend from the ancient Veneti. Their spirituality and religious experience must be considered of Venetic origin. I will cite an example only: During the Turkish occupation, two brothers secretly chiseled a fantastic altar in the church of St. Salvator in Skopje . They evidently were inspired by an intuition, which I identify with the ancient Venetic spiritual message of the inside. Much more examples of such a spirituality and religious sentiment are found all over present-day Macedonia.

Concerning Alexander III the Great, King of Macedonia and Greece, we know, that he was educated in a splendid Greek civilization. But his soul evidently remained Macedonian, or Venetic. From his conquering of the world, one cannot imagine, that he was born with the desire to subjugate territories and peoples, but rather to bring peace and progress to them. Such a desire had also the ancient Veneti, who wanted to bring to the world their idea of salvation after death.

In his inner self, Alexander the Great experienced this message also, but because of his Greek upbringing, the message remained an intuition only, and did not mature in his consciousness and in his thinking.

The language spoken by the area's inhabitants prior to the 5th century BC, and continued into the early centuries of the Common Era by the rural population , is attested in some hundred words from various glosses (mainly those of Hesychius of Alexandria, 5th century AD), as well as placenames (toponyms) and personal names (anthroponyms). The majority of these words can be confidently identified as Greek . There are words, however, that are not easily identifiable as Greek, a number of which for example show voiced stops where Greek has voiceless aspirates.

There was either linguistic contact with speakers of Doric Greek (whom Herodotus considered akin to Macedonians) or the Macedonian language was a Doric dialect . A number of Doric inscriptions from classical Macedon are known, such as the Pella katadesmos, but no inscriptions in a non-Greek language have been found. It has been suggested by classical historians such as Eugene Borza and others that Doric Greek was used as the literary language in classical Macedon, but the actual Macedonian language may have been a non-Greek tongue. From the 5th century BC Macedonia was closely associated with Southern Greek cultural and political development, resulting in the adoption of the Attic dialect (see Koine Greek).

There is no clear consensus among linguists and historians that the Doric inscriptions represent the Macedonian language. The classification of the ancient Macedonian language is thus disputed, and it appears that Macedonian has not participated in at least one sound change common to every other known Greek dialect (the unvoicing of voiced aspirates, leading to *Pherenikē as opposed to Macedonian Berenikē). Eugene Borza (1999) concludes that the Macedonians were "a unique people in antiquity who gradually became Hellenized, and who are unrelated to any modern people".

On the other hand, Olivier Masson in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (1996) saw the phonological peculiarities mentioned above as "local pronunciations" due to Macedon's "marginal position" and concluded that Macedonian is "a dialect related to North-West Greek".

Hellenic controversy

The controversy whether or not ancient Macedonia should be considered a Hellenic state is addressed variously: based on ancient sources, and on linguistic evidence. Neither approach is conclusive, Herodotus seems to assert that the Macedonian aristocracy was of Achaean origin while Macedonian people were of Dorian stock. Linguistics seems to point inconclusively to either Macedonian as an archaic form of Greek, Macedonian as part of a Graeco-Macedonian subfamily of Indo-European, or Macedonian as an independent member of the Paleo-Balkan Sprachbund.

The Macedonians were sometimes spoken of as a tribe of Thrace, the land north-east of Greece (Sir William M. Ramsay). Rather than a Greek origin, some argue that the ancient Macedonians had an Illyrian or Thracian origin. It is also possible that the ancient Macedonians were originally a distinct people, later absorbing Greek, Illyrian, and Thracian elements (cf. Borza, et al.).

This controversy concerns the early kingdom before the time of Philip II exclusively. It is undisputed that Macedon was heavily Atticized from the time of Alexander the Great (see Hellenism).

A series of passages in book five of Herodotus' Histories (5:22) indicate to many classical scholars that the Macedonians were customarily excluded from panhellenic events such as the Olympic Games, entry to which apparently was confined to Greeks. The Macedonian aristocracy, however, clearly saw itself as Greek and Macedonian kings were permitted to participate on that basis. This was evidently somewhat controversial: when Alexander I attempted to compete at Olympia, Herodotus relates:

Now that the men of this family are Greeks, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm, is a thing which I can declare of 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. For when Alexander wished to contend in the games, and had come to Olympia with no other view, the Greeks who were about to run against him would have excluded him from the contest- saying that Greeks only were allowed to contend, and not barbarians. But Alexander proved himself to be an Argive, and was distinctly adjudged a Greek; after which he entered the lists for the foot-race, and was drawn to run in the first pair. Thus was this matter settled. (Histories, 5:22)

In book eight, Herodotus counts the allied Macedonians as part of the Greek fleet. Titus Livius (lived 59 BC-14 AD) in his Ab urbe condita (31.29) is quoting a Macedonian ambassador from the late 3rd century BC, implying that Macedonians had been a Greek-speaking tribe:

The Aetolians, the Acarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same language, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day.---

The late Nicholas G. L. Hammond, a classicist, also suggested that Macedonian was a Greek dialect:

"What language did these `Macedones' speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means `highlanders', and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', mean­ing 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos... At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a dis­tinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modi­fied Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive."

See also

• Macedon
• List of ancient Macedonians
• Lynkestis
• Molossians
• Chaonians
• Thesprotians
• Dorian
• Ancient Greece

• Ancient Macedon
• Ancient Greece