I noticed that there is a war of words on the internet between Greece & FROY M over who really is the descendant of ancient Macedonia & who can claim it as part of their posterity So here are a few thoughts: if the Macedonians were not Greek, why did they spread the Greek language & culture, including in the Diadochi kingdoms of Ptolemy, Seleucus & Antigonus? If they were Alexander's Macedonian generals, why didn’t they rule purely Macedonian kingdoms, instead of Hellenic ones? Why did these conquerors, spread the language & culture of one of their recently defeated adversaries? Could it be, because they were Greek? But spoke a dialect that was hard to understand by the rest of Greeks, sort of like Cockney or Brooklynese are now to American English-speakers, would that be why they needed translators? & then there was their form of government, a territorial kingdom, as opposed to a city-state, like Athens or Sparta? Could this be why they were considered “barbarians”, barely Greek, still foreign? I would consider present day Macedonians related to ancient Macedonians if they fulfilled these requirements: 1) Oral histories of your ancestors exploits with Alexander, against Rome, as part of the Roman & then Byzantine empires, against the Arabs & Turks 2) Knowledge of when the Slavs & Bulgarians first appeared in the Balkans, & knowing them as the “other”, not “us” 3) Knowledge of when a Slavic-based language was adopted by the Macedonians, as their ‘lingua franca’ 4) DNA tests that prove that the majority of modern Macedonians are not of Slavic or Albanian blood. 5) historical & archaeological data & finds that correlate present & continuous occupation of the Macedonian homeland by present day Macedonians, & not interlopers 6) logical, evidenced-based discussions on who were & who are the Macedonians of the past, and who has the right to claim Phillip, Alexander & the rest as their antecedents 7) use of modern & ancient sources to correlate confusing & often contradictory data, starting here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonian_language http://historyofmacedonia.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/the-heracleid-origin-of-ancient-macedonians/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae Greece & its people greatly influenced the Western World & parts of the Eastern, Greek ideas, ideals, concepts, myths, history, literature, architecture & words were spread by several direct successor empires namely; the Hellenic Diadochi, Roman, & their off-spring , Byzantine, Arab Caliphate (ideas, philosophy, science), Holy Roman, Spanish, Hapsburg & British. (& by inference; the US, Australia, Canada, NZ) The Greek influence was by superior ideas, a history of discourse & debate & a language that finely expressed them in a clear & precise way, and was also helped by both Christianity & islam, both of which spread portions of Greek culture far & wide. Then let us not forget Greece’s mental’ off-spring, namely science, philosophy & literature. When science chose Greek as part of its nomenclature system, they chose well. Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_and_Greek_words_commonly_used_in_systematic_names Alexander’s empire has been split into the modern-day countries of; FYRO*M, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, & Pakistan, but Hellenic ideas survived him & his empire, having crossed the globe and being adapted by many countries far removed from ancient Greece & Macedonia for Greek side, see here:http://truth.macedonia.gr/fyrom.html for Slavic side, see here:http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/
