Macedonians

“ Macedonia is a land of poverty. It may rank with southern Greece as the poorest land in the Balkan peninsula. Of little fertility, extensively deforested and without particularly good pasture land, the country cannot support its relatively numerous population, and therefore an important occupation with the Macedonians is the taking of service in menial capacity in foreign countries—“Petchalba,” as it is called.
The language of the Macedonians is intermediate between Serbian and Bulgarian. Its affinity with the latter, however, is sufficiently pronounced to have led generally to merging. ”

“ Start-------- MACEDONIA AND MACEDONIANS, The. "The Macedonians of the fourth century B. C. acquired, from the ability and enterprise of two successive kings, a great perfection in Greek military organization, without any of the loftier Hellenic qualities. Their career in Greece is purely destructive, extinguishing the free movement of the separate cities, and disarming the citizen-soldier to make room for the foreign mercenary whose sword was unhallowed by any feelings of patriotism—yet totally incompetent to substitute any good system of central or pacific administration. ”

“ The Macedonians being thus encompassed with difficulty on all sides, fled for refuge into one of the small islands in the river, where they were entirely surrounded by the Scythians and the cavalry of Spitamenes, and all killed with arrows, except a few of them, whom they reduced to slavery. ”

“ The prospect of a booty such as passed all the dreams of avarice, the hope of ransacking the treasuries into which all Asia had poured its wealth for generations, had drawn adventurers from all points of the compass. The only difficulty that the recruiting officers had was in choosing. The king was determined that the strength of his army should be his own Macedonians. A sturdy race, untouched by the luxury which had corrupted the vigour of more civilized Greece, they supplied a material of the most solid value. ”

“ There are many Macedonian intellectuals, and there will be more, who are ready to give their lives for their country and their people and who will ask themselves: what is most important for Macedonia the interests of the Bulgarians, the Serbs, the Greeks, or the Macedonians? ”

“ The Macedonian highland is peopled by shepherds and woodcutters. The lowlanders are husbandmen. All are generally bilingual, speaking either Greek and Bulgarian or Bulgarian and Serbian. A knowledge of Turkish usually prevails among all classes. Occupation generally affords a reliable national clue. As a rule the Macedonians, and by this term we shall hereafter denote the Bulgarian-speaking element of Macedonia, are tillers of the soil. ”

“ As the soldiers of Alexander died off, fresh levies of home-born Macedonians could be raised only by the chief who held the motherland. The other chiefs had to supply themselves with Macedonians from the numerous colonies planted before the break-up of the empire in Asia or Egypt, and from such Macedonians they continued for the next two centuries to form their phalanx. ”

“ The history of Macedonia, the power she won under Philip the son of Amyntas, and her fall under the later Philip, were foretold by the inspired Sibyl. This was her oracle:
7.8.9 Ye Macedonians, boasting of your Argive kings, To you the reign of a Philip will be both good and evil. The first will make you kings over cities and peoples; The younger will lose all the honor, Defeated by men from west and east. ”

“ MACEDONIA, a kingdom of Greece, having Thrace to the north, Thessaly south, Epirus west, and the Ægean Sea east. Alexander the Great, son of Philip, king of Macedonia, having conquered Asia, and subverted the Persian empire, the name of the Macedonians became very famous throughout the east; and it is often given to the Greeks, the successors of Alexander in the monarchy. In like manner, the name of Greeks is often put for Macedonians, 2 Maccabees iv, 36. When the Roman empire was divided, Macedonia fell to the share of the emperor of the east. ”

“ No one could have believed that there could have been gathered together so great, so splendid a host. And I can well believe that there is no people in Asia but would see it with fear and a very just fear too. But the Macedonians and the Greeks are a very different race. You have nothing here that can be matched for a moment with the solidity of their array, with their discipline, with the speed and order of their movements. If you want my advice, my lord king, it is this: It is only in Greece that you can find men [135] who can stand against Greeks. ”

“ He added that their foes were similar to them neither in strength nor in courage; for the Macedonians, who had long been practised in warlike toils accompanied with danger, were coming into close conflict with Persians and Medes, men who had become enervated by a long course of luxurious ease; and, to crown all, they, being freemen, were about to engage in battle with men who were slaves. ”

“ By these means, united to the reports of those whom he employed to survey his conquests, "all the native commodities which to this day form the staple of the East Indian commerce, were fully known to the Macedonians." The principal castes in India, the principles of the Bramins, the devotion of widows to the flames, the description of the banyan-tree, and a great variety of other particulars, sufficiently prove that the Macedonians were actuated by a thirst after knowledge, as well as a spirit of conquest ”

“ It can be said of the Macedonian rule that it as little resembled that of Asiatic despotism as its people were far removed from the bondage of slavery. “Macedonians are free men,” says an ancient writer. Not penestæ like the mass of the populations of Thessaly, not helots like the Spartans, they were a peasant race, holding independent and hereditary property and possessing a common system of laws and local courts, but all bound to give military service when called upon by the king of the land. ”

“ From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of whom perished, though a few of them still live round Physca, and the Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians also conquered places belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs--Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.
100These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as the country possessed. ”

“ They belong to the Koreo-Japanese stock of the Northern Mongolic family.
Lushais. A warlike race of Tibetan stock inhabiting the Lushai Hills on the confines of Assam, Bengal and Burma.
Mabas. See WADAI GROUP.
Macedonians. A warlike people of ancient Greece, who attained their greatest power under Alexander the Great. They were not true Hellenes, but a race of wild mountain tribes probably of Hamitic origin. Modern Macedonia is peopled by an extremely mixed race of Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, etc., among whom some descendants of the ancient Macedonians may no doubt be found. ”

“ They, nevertheless, fought in defence of the Greeks against the Phocæans, who had plundered their common temple. Reduced by this war, and by the Macedonians, at the time they invaded Greece, they lost their city, which was afterwards restored to them, and rebuilt by the Macedonians themselves, who had razed it.331 From that period to our own [Pg 95] times their affairs have continued to decline, nor do they retain the appearance even of a considerable village. ”

“ There are other reasons for the formation of this society: the need, for instance, to turn our intellectual powers to the examination of ourselves as members of a people and of a country. In order to achieve this aim it was necessary to form a society of those for whom the study of Macedonia in the ethnographic, geographic and historical sense would be of prime importance; we Macedonians are such people. ”

“ Our homeland has become an orphan. Her victorious banner, in front of which the whole world once trembled, today exists no more as a banner of a separate nation. The name of Macedonia is today written on the maps as some memory, and her victorious graves lie in the great graveyards of oblivion, thanks to the pernicious intrigues of those who have been cruising through our land for several years imbuing our people with discord and open hatred. These bodies are gravediggers of our once glorious Macedonia. ”

“ We must perhaps pass over as doubtful those which are said to have come—surprising the Macedonians and the Greeks by the novelty and strangeness of their names and garb—from the European Scythians, from Celtic and Iberian tribes, from Ethiopia, from Carthage, from Libya, and from at least three of the Italian nations, the Bruttians, Lucanians, and Tyrrhenians. ”

“ But when they discovered from their equipment and speech that it was the Macedonians and Demetrius the son of Philip, they were filled with great fear, when they considered the Macedonian training in warfare and the good fortune which they saw that they enjoyed in all their ventures. ”

“ It was decided that the Macedonians should be introduced first. Their address dealt with various points. They began by disclaiming all responsibility for the depredations on the friendly countries of which the Roman envoys had complained to the king. ”

“ The fourth common feature for people who make up a separate nation is the national character. This applies to the Macedonian nation too. Equal are their narratives, customs, games, songs, dances, and other folklore that are more or less different from those of the Serbian, Bulgarian, and other Slavic nations. The elements of the independent national character of the Macedonians are so strong that despite the national oppression in Macedonia, they have never stopped appearing. ”

“ The Macedonians were always looked upon by the Greeks as barbarians, although their royal family—Temenids, as they were called, from their legendary ancestor, Temenus—came from Argos, and the people themselves perhaps had some distant affinity to the Hellenic race. ”

“ But, as if frantic with pain, rushing forward at friends and foes alike, they pushed about, trampled down and killed them in every kind of way. However, the Macedonians retired whenever they were assailed, for they rushed at the beasts in a more open space, and in accordance with their own plan ”

“ The small Balkan states would without the least ceremony move into the conquered parts of Macedonia, exploit them for their own use and turn the Macedonians into beggars once they had begun to lose their national identity and this would be the first thing to happen. ”

“ Macedonians.| It was after this Council that the Semi-Arians, separating themselves from the Communion of the Pure Arians, began to form a distinct Sect, and to be called Macedonians; which Name was given them from Macedonius, late Bishop of Constantinople, but deposed by the Pure Arians, in the Council they held in that City in 360. to make room for their great Champion Eudoxius, translated formerly from Germanicia to Antioch, and now from Antioch to Constantinople. ”

“ In consequence of this propaganda and of Turkish persecutions, a large number of active and intelligent Macedonians migrated into Bulgaria, where they occupied many important positions in the country. A large part of the political men, diplomats, consuls, high officials, professors, school-masters, officers and merchants in Bulgaria are Macedonians, and they have long dominated the internal and19 foreign policy of the country, directing it naturally towards Macedonia. On the whole, Bulgarian feeling predominates over Serbian or Greek feeling throughout almost the whole of Macedonia. ”

“ This done he went on, making so skilful a division of the country in order to the methodizing of the people, and casting them into the form of popular government, that the Macedonians, being first surprised with the virtue of the Romans, began now to alter the scene of their admiration, that a stranger should do such things for them in their own country, and with such facility as they had never so much as once imagined to be possible. ”

“ When the enemy who were occupying the commanding heights perceived the Macedonians approaching, they descended into the plain, being emboldened by their superiority in number and despising the Macedonians, because they were seen to be few. ”

“ The Molotti also were Epirotæ, and were subjects of Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and of his descendants, who were Thessalians. The rest were governed by native princes. Some tribes were continually endeavouring to obtain the mastery over the others, but all were finally subdued by the Macedonians, except a few situated above the Ionian Gulf. They gave the name of Upper Macedonia to the country about Lyncestis, Pelagonia, Orestias, and Elimia. ”

“ 10.3.3 The Phocians were deprived of their share in the Delphic sanctuary and in the Greek assembly, and their votes were given by the Amphictyons to the Macedonians. ”

“ The customs of some of their tribes enjoined that the man who had not yet slain an enemy should be distinguished on some occasions by a badge of discredit. [16]
The original seats of the Macedonians were in the regions east of the chain of Skardus (the northerly continuation of Pindus) —north of the chain called the Cambunian mountains, which connects Olympus with Pindus, and which forms the north-western boundary of Thessaly. But they did not reach so far eastward as the Thermaic gulf; apparently not farther eastward than Mount Bermius, or about the longitude of Edessa and Berrhoia. ”