History Of Macedonia – Modern Historians about Macedonia

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Paul Cartledge

in Modern Historians / by Admin / on March 15, 2007 at 12:41 pm /

Quote:

“While Alexander’s posthumous presence is ubiquitous, there are 5 areas of particular influebnce & contention. The was a politico-ethnic issue in his own day as to whether or not counted, wholly or in part, as a ‘Greek’ under the act. This aspect of his legacy exploded again, very recently in the early 1990’s with the disolution of the former Yugoslav establishment, on part of it’s ruins, a new state: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but known unofficially (by it’s government) as just Macedonia.
This name is shared with the province of Macedonia in today’s contemporary Hellenic Republic, which was once part of ancient Macedon.
The new, putative Macedonians compounded thier heinous – in official & unofficial Greek eyes – offence by appropriating major symbols drawn from thier name sake.
For example, the iconic (originally Venetian or Turkish) White Tower of Thessaloniki, a city founded soon after Alexander’s death, was pressed into service, as was the 16-pointed star that appears conspicuously on the gold-coffin found in the ‘tomb of Philip’ at Vergina.”

Paul Cartledge ‘Alexander the Great’, Chapter12

Quote:

“Demosthenes (384-322) called him a ‘barbarian’. or non-Greek speaker,… But even in the narrowest linguistic terms of Greek culture, this was strictly inaccurate. Philip was perfectly capable of conversing in standard Greek and reading Greek literature, even though the local Macedonian dialect was so interlarded with non-Greek (especially Illyrian) linguistic forms that it could be unintelligible to standard Greek-speakers.”

Alexander the Great, Paul Cartledge p.64

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