Macedonian Quotes
Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, - there are always new worlds to conquer.
Humphry Davy
It is difficult to know whether an independent Macedonian state would have come into existence had Tito not recognised and supported the development of Macedonian ethnicity as oart of his ethnically organised Yugoslavia. He did this as a counter to Bulgaria, which for centuries had a historical claim on the area as far west as Lake Ohrid and the present border of Albania.
Eugene N. Borza
The terms for the Phocians were mild by Greek Standards (one Greek state proposed the execution of all the men) disarmament, division into village-settlements, payment of all indemnity to Apollo and expulsion from the Amphictiony. In their place the Macedonians were elected members. The two votes of Phocis on the council were transferred to the Macedonian state.
N.G.L. Hammond
His strange appearance made the people turn round, and this led Alexander to look at him. In astonishment he gave orders to make way for him to draw near, and asked who he was. "Dinocrates," quoth he, "a Macedonian architect, who brings thee ideas and designs worthy of thy renown. I have made a design for the shaping of Mount Athos into the statue of a man, in whose left hand I have represented a very spacious fortified city, and in his right a bowl to receive the water of all the streams which are in that mountain, so that it may pour from the bowl into the sea."
Vitruvius
At the end of the bronze age a residue of Greek tribes stayed behind in Southern Macedonia[...] one of these, the "Makedones" occupied Aegae and expanded into the coastal plain of lower Macedonia which became the Kingdom of Macedon; their descendants were the Macedonians proper of the classical period and they worshipped Greek gods. The other Greek tribes became intermingled in upper Macedonia with Illyrians, Paeonians and Thracians[...] in the early 5th century the royal house of Macedon, the Temenidae was recognised as Greek by the Presidents of the Olympic Games. Their verdict was and is decisive. It is certain that the Kings considered themselves to be of Greek descent from Heracles son of Zeus. "Macedonian" was a strong dialect of very early Greek which was not intelligible to contemporary Greeks.
N.G.L. Hammond
As a Macedonian [Philip] was looked down upon by the more refined Athenians, but they shared the same Hellenistic culture. How deep this went is evident in aesthetically the least spectacular, but politically the most explosive, of the finds in Vergina. In the Great Tumulus above Philip's tombs, which was raised by the invading Galatians in 274 BC, the archaeologists found fragments of no fewer than seventy-five funeral monuments, or stelai. The names on these were entirely Greek, save two which appeared to be Hellenised versions of Thracian and Phoenician names. The implication is that Philip's Macedonia was thoroughly Hellenised, an outpost of classical Greek culture.
Robert Fox
The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia emanating from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav partisan and other sources with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected State. This Government considers talk of "Macedonian Nation", "Macedonian Fatherland", or "Macedonian National Consciousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic or political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece.
Edward R. Stettinius
That the Macedonians were of Greek stock seems certain. The claim made by the Argead dynasty to be of Argive descent may be no more than a generally accepted myth, but Macedonian proper names, such as Ptolemaios or Philippos, are good Greek names, and the names of the Macedonian months, although differed from those of Athens or Sparta, were also Greek. The language spoken by the Macedonians, which Greeks of the classical period found unintelligible, appears to have been a primitive north-west Greek dialect, much influenced by the languages of the neighboring barbarians.
J.R. Hamilton
Clearly the Macedonians were in many respects Hellenized, especially on the upper levels of their society, as demonstrated by the excavations of Greek archaeologists over the past two decades. Yet there is much that is different, e. g., their political institutions, burial practices, and religious monuments.I will argue that, whoever the Macedonians were, they emerged as a people distinct from the Greeks who lived to the south and east. In time their royal court--which probably did not have Greek origins (the tradition in Herodotus that the Macedonian kings were descended from Argos is probably a piece of Macedonian royal propaganda)--became Hellenized in many respects, and I shall review the influence of mainstream Greek culture on architecture, art, and literary preferences.
Eugene N. Borza
