Macedon was a region which had lagged behind the rest of the Greek world socially, economically, and culturally, failing to develop the polis or city-state institutions characteristic of the most advanced regions of Greece, but remaining instead a tribal society ruled by kings and dominated by a land-owning aristocracy.⁹ Indeed, there is some question as to whether Macedon should at this time be counted as part of the Greek world at all, for it has been doubted whether the Macedonians were a Greek-speaking people, on the basis of a few passages in ancient sources that appear to speak of a Macedonian “language.”¹⁰ These passages can equally well be understood to refer to a Macedonian “dialect,” however, and though it cannot at present be formally proved that the Macedonians were Hellenic in race and language, I think it highly likely that they were, for three reasons: the overwhelming majority of personal names known to have been used by Macedonians were good Greek names; the names of the months in the Macedonian calendar were basically Greek in form; and the religion of the Macedonians was largely the same as that of the Greeks, with Zeus, Herakles, and Dionysos being particularly prominent.

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