for all of you that never heard abouth my country, herea Short history of Macedonia:
Although Macedonia is a state which became independent in 1991, its roots run deep in the history. The name "Macedonia" is in fact the oldest surviving name of a country in the continent of Europe. Archaeological evidence shows that old European civilization flourished in Macedonia between 7000 and 3500 BC. Macedonia is located in the center of the Southern Balkans, north of ancient Greece, east of Illyria, and west of Thrace. The ancient Macedonians were a distinct nation, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally different from their neighbors. The origins of the Macedonians are in the ancient Brygian substratum which occupied the whole of Macedonian territory and in Indo-European superstratum, which settled here at the end of the 2nd millennium.
Ancient Macedonia
The history of the ancient Macedonian kingdom begins with Caranus, who was the first known king (808-778 BC). The Macedonian dynasty Argeadae originated from Argos Orestikon, a city in located in south western Macedonia region of Orestis (App.,Syr., 63;Diod. ,VII, 15; G. Sync., I, 373). Alexander I "Philhellene" (498-454 BC) expended the kingdom and by the 5th century BC the Macedonians had forged a unified kingdom. Alexander was a Persian ally in the Greek-Persian wars. As Macedonia appears on the international scene, the first coins with the king's name on them are made. Around the year 460, Herodotus sojourns in Macedonia and gives an interpretatio macedonica of the Greek-Persian wars (Her.5.17-22, 9.44-45).
Alexander’s son Perdiccas II (453 - 413 BC) worked on starting a war between the Athens maritime power and Sparta which lead the Peloponnesian League (Thucydides.Pel.I.57) and initiated the creation of an Olynthian league from the Greek colonies neighboring Macedonia on Chalcidice, for a war against Athens (Thucyd.I.58). During the Peloponnesian War, Perdiccas is one moment on the side of Athens and the next on the side of Sparta, depending of Macedonia’s best interests, not wanting either of them to become too powerful, while keeping its country’s sovereignty at the expense of the Greek quarrel.
It was Archelaus (413-399 BC) who made Macedonia a significant economic power. Archelaus made straight roads, built fortresses, and reorganized the Macedonian army (Thucyd.II.100). He moved the Macedonian capital Aigae to Pella and founded Macedonian Olympian Games in Dion (the holy city of the Macedonians), among other reasons also because of the fact that the Greek Olympic Games were forbidden to the barbarians, including the Macedonians as well (Her.V.22). In the year 406 the Macedonian poet Adaius wrote an epitaph for the grave stone of Euripides (Anth.Pal.7,5,1; A. Gellius, Noct. Att, XV, 20, 10) who was staying in the Macedonian palace of Archelaus. Euripides besides the apologetic work "Archelaus" also wrote the well known play "Bachae" inspired by the Macedonian cult for the God Dionysus. The Macedonian council refused to give Euripides' body to his birthplace Athens (Gell.Noct.Att.XV.20). During the years 407/6 Archelaus from Athens received the titles proxenos and euergetes.
Amyntas III reigned 393-370/369 BC and led a policy of exhausting and weakening of the Greek city states. His two of his sons, Alexander II and Perdiccas III, reigned later only briefly. Alexander II however, had an expansionist policy and invaded northern Greece. In Thessaly he left Macedonian garrisons in the cities and refused to evacuate them. The Thebans who were at the time the most powerful militarily intervened and force the removal of the garrisons. Alexander II's youngest brother Philip was taken as hostage to Thebes. After the death of Alexander II, his other brother Perdiccas III took the throne. But Perdiccas III was killed with 4,000 of his Macedonian soldiers in a battle with the Illyrians, and Amyntas' third son, Philip II now became the next Macedonian king.
Philip II (359-336 BC) the greatest man that Europe had ever given (Theop.F.GR.H. f, 27) liberated and unified Macedonia and turned it into the first European Power in the modern sense of the word - an armed nation with a common national ideal. He subdued all of Macedonia's neighbors (Illyrians, Thracians, and Greeks), and made Macedonia the most powerful kingdom in the Balkans. He was especially brutal towards the Greek cities at the edge of Macedonia. He razed them all to the ground, including the major Greek center of Olynthus, and Stageira, Aristotle's birthplace, and sold the inhabitants to slavery. In 338, the Greeks unified to prevent Philip from penetrating southern Greece, but the Macedonians defeated the Greeks at the battle at Chaeronea. Philip became a hegemon to the Greeks who had no choice but to ratify his peace agreement koine eirene. The Greeks had to swear that they would obey the conditions and that they will not rebel, not only against Philip, but also against his successors as well. The four Macedonian stratigical garrisons at Corinth, the Theban Cadmeia, Chalcis on Euboea and Ambracia, were a guarantee the Macedonian hold of Greece. This mutual peace - koine eirene dictated by the conqueror, was not a league at all (it did not have the word symachia), but a fiction which was to disguise Macedonian dominance in Greece, a temporary institution for including the Greek polis in the monarchy much more easily. But the conqueror of Greece was assassinated before he could lead the Macedonians in the conquest of the Persian Empire during the wedding celebrations of his daughter Cleopatra.
His son Alexander III the Great (356-323 BC), succeeded his father at the age of 20, and immediately put down the rebellions of the Thracians, Illyrians, and Greeks, who revolted upon hearing of Philip's death. In Greece, he razed the major center of Thebes to the ground after a slaughter of 6,000 people and sold its 30,000 inhabitants to slavery, as warning to the Greek what would happen if they were to rebel again. Next, at the head of Macedonian and allied Greek, Illyrian, and Thracian troops, he invaded Persia. The Greek soldiers did not participate in any of the battles because they were hostages for peace and a guarantee for safety of the Macedonian occupation forces in Greece. Not only did they not have an important role in any of the battles but there were no Greek commanders either since the Macedonians commanded their ranks. Alexander's victories at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela put an end to the Persian Empire, which was then replaced by the Macedonian Empire stretching between Europe, Egypt and India. From this time until the arrival of Rome, the Macedonians will shape the events in this vast space for almost 3 centuries.
Alexander's death brought the Macedonian leading generals into a terrible conflict over the rule of the Empire. But first, the rebellions of the Greeks were put down with the massacres of the 23,000 Greek mercenaries in Asia (Diodorus, 18.7.3-9), and the bloody end of the Lamian (Hellenic) War in which the united Greeks failed to win freedom yet again (Diodorus, 18.10.1-3, 11, 12, 15, 17.5). By 300 BC, the Macedonian Empire was carved up between the dynasties of Antigonus I "One-Eye" (Macedonia and Greece), Ptolemy I (Egypt), and Seleucus I (Asia). Under Antigonus II Gonatas (276-239), the grandson of Antigonus I, Macedonia achieved a stable monarchy and strengthened its occupation of Greece. His grandson Philip V (222-179 BC), clashed with Rome which was now expanding eastwards, and fought the two "Macedonian Wars" against the Romans. After the Roman army defeated Philip in Thessaly, Macedonia lost the whole of Greece and was reduced to its original borders. In the third "Macedonian War", Rome finally defeated the Macedonian army under the last king the Philip's son Perseus (179-168 BC) and at the Battle of Pydna, 20,000 Macedonian soldiers died while defending their land. Perseus died prisoner in Italy, the Macedonian kingdom ceased to exist, and by 146 Macedonia became a Roman province.
By 65 BC Rome conquered
Unknown "Runaway"
- 16 years, 9 months, 25 days ago
