The Heracleid origin of ancient Macedonians

 

Most of us already know there is a part of modern historians attributing the connection of ancient Macedonians – most importantly the Argead royal house – with Heracleids and Dorians as propaganda invented of Alexander I ‘Philhellene’.
This claim is easily refuted if anyone analyzes ancient Macedonian names, especialy royal names, prior to the time of Alexander I. Some of the most common ancient Macedonian names are:

AEROPOS It could be found also as Eeropos.Aerope -its female form – was the wife of King Atres of Mycenae. Aeropos was also the son of Aerope, daughter of Kepheus:

‘Ares, the Tegeans say, mated with Aerope, daughter of Kepheus (king of Tegea), the son of Aleos. She died in giving birth to a child, Aeropos, who clung to his mother even when she was dead, and sucked great abundance of milk from her breasts. Now this took place by the will of Ares.’

(Pausanias 8.44.)

Another case is the one of Eeropos, father of Ehemos, king of Peloponessians.

“then our general and king Echemus, son of Phegeus’ son Eeropus, volunteered and was chosen out of all the allied host; he fought that duel and killed Hyllus.“

[Herodotus 9.26.5]

ARCHELAOS He was king of Sparta and excercized kingship along with Charilaos in early 8th BCE (Plutarch.Lyc.5)

ARGAIOS In Greek mythology this name belongs to both the man who built the Argo and a man with a hundred eyes. One of its meanings could be “the one coming from Argos”.

AMYNTAS The name Amyntas means “defender”. In Ionic dialect its called Amyntis (Herodotus 5.19 “Αμύντης” ) but as we know in the strongly related Doric and Macedonian dialects the names ending in -is are transformed into -as.

ALKETAS Here we can observe the traditional doric name ending in -as. Interestingly it is a common name in Sparta. An example is the Spartan Alketas who arrested in Oreos of Thebes, 2 Theban triremes carrying wheat and 200 prisoners.

ANTIOCHOS Quite interesting and revealing the fact Antiochos was the name of an Heracles’ son.

“While these were kings the Dorians took the field against Corinth, their leader being Aletes, the son of Hippotas, the son of Phylas, the son of Antiochus, the son of Heracles.”

[Pausanias 2.4.3]

ALEXANDROS According to Eusebius, first one in the greek world, was the king Alexandros of Corinth who was the 10th king of this city and he must have lived around the late 9th c. BC.

PEUKESTAS Another Macedonian name related to Heracles. One of the names of Heracles is Peukes. The ending -tas is doric.