Hellenic Migrations and Katadesmos:A Paradigm of Macedonian Speech – Historical Background
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Hellenic Migrations and Katadesmos:
A Paradigm of Macedonian Speech
Marcus A. Templar
Historical Background
The Deluge
It is a valid argument that Deucalion’s deluge was the cause for the migration of Hellenic tribes in the middle of the second millennium BC. Deucalion’s deluge took place in 1527 BC forcing King Deucalion and his family to move from Lycoria on Mt. Parnassus.1 It is believed that the deluge was the result of an earthquake that tore asunder Mt. Olympus and Mt. Ossa opening a gate between them, called the Tempe Vale, freeing the waters to the Aegean Sea.2 Until then, Thessaly was a lake. The earthquake exposed approximately 8,000 to 10,000 sq km additional arable land, which later became the cradle of the Hellenic civilization.
Deucalion and his family moved north to Dodona where they inhabited the area under the name Graeki. At that location, the Graeki changed their name to Hellenes (`Ellines = Greeks) after Deucalion’s son, Hellen (`Ellin).3 The migration of Hellen’s clan to the new land of Thessaly took place after the old lakebed dried up.4 In Thessaly they built the city of Hellas, which was located approximately 11.5 kilometers from the present day town of Old Pharsalus and less than two kilometers from Melitaea on the other side of the Enipeus River.5 It was built by Hellen, not the son of Deucalion, but by the son of Phthius, son of Achaeus and of Chryssipe, daughter of Irhus.6 Early on Thessaly was divided into four parts: Phthiotis, which occupies the southern parts; Hestiaeotis, which occupies the western parts and lands between Pindus and Upper Macedonia; Pelasgiotis, which borders on Lower Macedonia; and finally, Thessaliotis.7 Aristotle also divided Thessaly into four parts.8 At that time, by Thessaly one meant only the dry lake not the mountain of Pelion, while Thucydides considered the mountains west of Thessaly as Pindus.9
Ancient historians i.e., Herodotus, Thucydides, Pausanias, etc. offer some information on the whereabouts of various migrations starting with the Hellenes who moved from the area of Phthia to Hestiaeotis or Histaeotis10 on the western slopes of Olympus. Pushed by the Cadmeians, they moved west to the Pindus Mountain range near their ancestral land.11 Herodotus’ appellation of the Makednoi as Dorians makes both the same ethnos. Their Doric speaking neighbors called them Makednoi or highlanders12 because of their mountainous habitation.
The time of the migration of the Dorus Hellenes to Pindus had to have taken place early enough to allow for the move and the concentration in the area of Doris, probably circa 1350 – 1300 BC leaving a branch of Hellenes (Mirmidones) in Phthia. 13 When the Trojan War started Homer says they were in Phthia.14 Had both the Hellenes of Dorus and the Mirmidones of Achilles departed at the same time to move north to Histaeotis, Achilles’ Mirmidones would have been with the Hellenes and all of them would have known as Makednoi. But it did not happen. On the other hand, if the Hellenes of Dorus had stayed back with the Mirmidones of Achilles, both would have left for Troy. That did not happen either.
The invasion of the Peloponnese by the Dorians took place at two different times and from two different geographic areas. The story about the leadership of the first invasion is a follows:Aegymios (Αἰγύμιος),15 the king of the Dorians, had two sons, Pamphylos (Πάμφυλος) and Dymas (Δῦμας), but after Heracles’16 death, Aegymios adopted Hercules’ son Hyllus (Ὓ+λλος). The above story is collaborated by Strabo who divides the Makednian tribe, previously known as Makednoi, into three tribes: Hylleis (Ὑλλείς), Pamphyloi (Πάμφυλοι), and Dymanes (Δύμανες).17 It is generally accepted that the Trojan War started in 1193 BC, and Troy was taken ten years later in 1183 BC. Having that date as our starting point, Hyllus was killed circa 1113 BC in the battle of Helos (Ἓλος)18 by Echemus (Ἒχεμος), son of Aeropus (Ἀέροπος) in a one-on-one battle at the latter’s request.19 His followers promised not to return for 100 years and they migrated north. 20
They returned later about 80 years after the fall of Troy, circa 1003 BC, and their return is known as the “Returned of the Heracleides.”21Heracleides were a clan descending from Heracles or Hercules who was an Achaean, not a Dorian. Their connection to the Dorians is historic going back to the help they provided to the Dorians under Aegymios in Thessaly against the Lapiths in exchange for one third of the land as their reward.22 The first invasion of Peloponnesus by a group led by Hyllus took place 20 years before the campaign against Troy in 1193 BC. Homer affirms the location of Helos, which at that time was an Achaean town on the coast,23 as «οἱτ’ ἂρ’ ἈμύκλαςεἶχονἛλοςτ’ ἒφαλονπτολίεθρον» (these had their home in Amyclae,24 and in Helos the town by the seaside).25 Temenos, grandson of Hyllus, son of Hercules, led the second invasion of the Makednian tribe into Peloponnesus 80 years after the fall of Troy26 assisted by his younger brothers Aristodemos and Kresphontes.27 Upon passing into Peloponessus at the point of Rhium – Antirhium,28 the Makednoi received their exonym Dorians, probably from the invaded inhabitants of Peloponnesus.29 Before the Dorian invasion, Aeolic speakers inhabited various parts of Greece such as Thessaly,30 Boeotia,31 Corinthia,32 and South Aetolia.33 Then things changed. Herodotus states that the Doric speaking Thesprotians, an Epirotan tribe, under the leadership of Thessalus, son of Heracles or Hercules,migrated from Thesprotia to Arne, near present-day Sofades, Thessaly, Greece34 displacing the Boeotians to Cadmeis, later called Boeotia.35 Thucydides reinforces Herodotus’ statement by explicitly stating that 60 years after the Trojan War, the Boeotians were pushed out of Arne. The migration of the Dorians created various mixed dialects swaying toward Doric or Aeolic influence depending on the tenacity of the invaders and the resistance of the invaded residents. However, the invasion of the Dorians to Arne affected only Thessaliotis.36 Histaeotis, Pelasgiotis, and Phthiotis remained Aeolic37 After returning from Troy around 1183-2 BC, the Mirmidones under the leadership of Achilles’ son Neoptolemos, on their way to Epirus, had to be co-located with at least one branch of the Hellenes who by now were called Makednoi. Among the Hellenic tribes, and especially Epirotan and Northwestern Dorian, the name termination determined the proximity of their habitation.38
Expanding the above to the remaining of the Greek tribes, the Makednoi must have had the name termination changed to Makedones while in their physical proximity with Mirmidones and Pelagones39 on Mt. Pindus. While the Myrmidones moved west to the area of Northern Epirus, the Makednoi, now under the exonymMakedones, moved north to Lebaea. 40 Note that the presence of the Makedones in Epeirus has been confirmed by Stephanus Byzantius who informs us of a town in the area of Dodona named Macedon,41 which probably was the point in which the term Makedones (or Macedonians) was coined.
W.A. Heurtley’s excavations brought to light pottery with similar geometrics. He discovered pottery that was less sophisticated and of low quality dated 2300 BC and also the most sophisticated, high quality pottery dated circa 900 BC. Pottery found in Thessaly circa 2300 BC progressively extended to South Greece even to the island of Lefkas, in Lianokladi, near Phthia, and is dated as about 2000-1600 BC. Similar pottery that was found in Central Macedonia and Chalkidiki (dated about 1650 BC) and in Thermon, Aetolia (dated circa 1600 -1400 BC) is probably the debris left on the route that Makednians/Dorians followed or from their staging areas. The pottery found in Lebaea ofMacedonia has been dated circa 1150 BC and in northern Thessaly about 1050 BC. This pottery shared geometric designs even while the quality got better as time passed. Because of the migration pattern of people, it is obvious that these people were constantly moving, however keeping in contact with other Greek tribes. 42
Caranus (or Karanos) along with his brother Pheidon lived at the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 8th centuries BC.43 Paterculus states that Caranus was eleventh in descent from Hercules, while “Alexander the Great was descended in the seventeenth generation, and could boast that, on his mother’s side, he was descended from Achilles, and, on his father’s side, from Hercules.”44 Caranus became the first king of theMacedonians and the founder of the Temenidae Macedonian dynasty before the first Olympiad (776 BC). 45 Herodotus states that Perdicas had three sons: Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas.46 Considering the possibility that the names Caranus and Gauanes in Greek ΚΑΡΑΝΟΣand ΓΑΥΑΝΕΣ through the change of K for Γ and Ρ for Υ are practically identical and since Gauanes was the first of the bothers it is natural to be considered as the founder of the Temenid Macedonian dynasty.47
Circa 800 BC the Dorian tribes whom Heurtley identified as Macedonians moved from Lebaea to the area of the Pierian Mountains, aka Macedonian Mountains48 where they used its rich pastures and slowly expanded north.49 Archaeological evidence indicates that Doric tribes moved between Macedonia to Thessaly, and even to Aetolia.50 Such movements give rise to the school of thought that the Macedonian tribes were nomadic tribes just as were the Vlachs and the Sarakatsans. All literary and linguistic evidence points to the same conclusion.51 In addition, the Makedones and the Thessalian Magnetes (East Greek speakers) and Aenianes (West Greek speakers) in historic times engaged in a vigorous war dance in full armor called καρπαία by the Thessalians and καρπέα by the Macedonians. 52 Additionally, the Makedones and the Magnesians both had cults of Zeus Hetaireios and engaged in the same war dance.53
Traditional Sarakatsan Hut made by the Archaeologist and Director of the Museum of Aiane, Dr Georgia Karamitrou-Mentesidi. Macedonian Huts must have been built in a similar manner (July 14, 2007)
Daskalakis surmises the beginning of the Macedonian Kingdom: “Caranus, evicting Midas, who owned part of Macedonia, and dethroning some other kings, united the kingdoms of Macedonia into a single realm, and laid firm foundations for his expanding power.”54
The migration pattern we see in general indicates that before the Trojan War the invaders were incapable of defeating the local tribes of Aeolians, Achaeans, or Pelasgians until after these states were weakened by the Trojan War. Successful invasions took place only during or after the Trojan War not only because of social discontent and military weakness, but also because of the shift that took place in the society of the invaders from pastoral or rural ways to a more sophisticated urban mentality that enabled them to understand the use of and the manufacturing of iron weapons. The Bronze Age in Greece was over.
The Macedonians, continuing their wandering over Pindus and then east to the north part of Thessaly behind Pieria, delayed their development into a solid urban and military force until the reign of Philip II, as Alexander the Great put it in his speech in Opis:
vagabonds and destitute of means, most of you clad in hides, feeding a few sheep up the mountain sides, for the protection of which you had to fight with small success against Illyrians, Triballians, and the border Thracians. Instead of the hides he gave you cloaks to wear, and from the mountains he led you down into the plains, and made you capable of fighting the neighboring barbarians, so that you were no longer compelled to preserve yourselves by trusting rather to the inaccessible strongholds than to your own valor.55
Characteristic of the above part of Alexander’s speech is that he calls Illyrians, Tribalians, and Thracians neighboring barbarians. The present-day Hellenic nation is the result of the social, civic, and linguistic amalgamation of more than 230 tribes speaking more than 200 dialects56 all claiming descent from Hellen, son of Deukalion.
Popular belief presumes that the concept of democracy sprang from Greece and, although it is true in a general sense, it applies only to one tribal state of the Greek world, Athens. Democracy as a concept formulated in Athens because traditionally no citizen of the city was worthy to replace Athens’ last king Kodrus (killed circa 1091 – 1088 BC) who sacrificed his own life for his city.57 The Athenian polity did not change overnight, but it was the result of a continuous evolution that took centuries to materialize. Other tribal states of Dorian or Aeolian background continued their monarchic polity (in some cases their dual monarchy. i.e. Sparta and Elimaea) and that is exactly what was happening in Macedonia.
Wilcken, reflecting on the above, feels that taking into consideration the way of life of the Macedonians, their political institutions, religion, and morals, his conviction that the Macedonians were a Greek tribe strengthens. Any differences in development are due to the geographic position of the Macedonian Homeland.58 Historians have assessed the Macedonian state of affairs in a similar fashion. TheMacedonians were as Greeks as the Spartans, Elians, Locrians, and others belonging to the Western Greek ethnic group.59
Borza, agreeing with Hammond states, “[f]irst, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond’s general conclusion that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Hellenic speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age is acceptable.“60 The reason Borza does not consider the Macedonians being Greeks is because they left from the main corpus of the Greeks very early in the history of Greece, at the beginning of the Iron Age; Buck alludes to the same. To the contrary, the fact is that both Macedonians and Arcado-Cyprians were part of the same pool of proto-Hellenic tribes although the Arcadians migrated to Cyprus during the Bronze Age and the Macedonians during the Iron Age. Besides, Buck basing his opinion on 200 Greeks names found in Asia Minor states, “we may accept now as a matter of record the existence of a Greek colony in Asia Minor as early as the fourteenth century BC”61 However, if the Arcado-Cyprians were Greeks, although they left earlier than the Macedonians, and the 200 Greek names alone establish the presence of the Greeks in the 14th century BC in Asia Minor, how is it possible that the Macedonians who left a couple of hundred years later could not be considered Greeks? In addition, the Macedonians constantly came in contact with the rest of the Greeks something that one cannot state for those Greeks who migrated to Cyprus and Asia Minor.
Most importantly, the first name of the Macedonians was Hellenes or Greeks?62 Thucydides explains what happened to the previous inhabitants of Macedonia, TheMacedonians incorporated the territory of the native people into Macedonia and forced the Pieres, a Thracian tribe, out of the area Bottiaia to Mt. Pangaeum and the Bottiaiei. They further expelled the Eordi from Eordaia and the Almopes from Almopia and they similarly expelled all tribes (Thracian, Paeonian, Illyrian) they found in areas of Anthemus, Crestonia, Bysaltia and other lands. The Macedonians absorbed the few inhabitants of the above tribes that stayed behind. They established their suzerainty over the land of Macedonia without losing their ethnicity, language, or religion.63
Strabo’s description about the inhabitants of Upper Macedonia is that they were Epirotans, speaking a Northwest Greek Molossian dialect based on inscriptions stating, “and in fact the regions about Lyncus, Pelagonia, Orestias, and Elimeia, used to be called Upper Macedonia.”64 The inhabitants of LowerMacedonia were the Macedonians par excellence and the evidence thus far shows they spoke some type of Aeolic, the exact characteristics of which are yet to be determined.Regarding the term barbarian, the fact is that it had a dual meaning in the ancient times.
Although it started with the word barbarophonos or “speaker of incomprehensible speech, ” aside from meaning a non-Greek speaker, the term barbarian has been used by Greek tribal states or people to ridicule and scorn other Greek tribal states or people for political reasons or because they deemed them unsophisticated in their use of the Hellenic language and culture. 65 When Demosthenes verbally attacked Philip II of Macedon, he deemed “Philip and his present conduct, though he is not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honor, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave.”66 Thucydides claimed that the Euritanes “were most unintelligible in speech and are said to eat raw meat,” making another Greek tribe barbarian.67 Demosthenes was using a political attack on his personal enemy and was not referring to the Macedonian speech. In response to Demosthenes’ political accusations, Aeschines reminded the Pnyx68 that Philip’s father, Amyntas, was invited as a Greek to sit at the Peace Conference of Greek States of 371 BC which took place in Sparta because as a Greek “he was entitled to a seat.” Amyntas participated through an ambassador and actually voted in favor of Athens. The relevant text is as follows:
For at a congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this, I presented from the public records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted.69 There is no record whatsoever that anyone in Pnyx or anywhere else, not even Demosthenes, refuted Aeschines’ claim, which makes Aeschines’ response that the Macedonians were Greeks an undisputable fact. To this day nobody has disputed Amyntas’ participation at the Pan-Hellenic Peace Conference. If the father and his state were considered Greek, his offspring were also Greek.
At that time, the state of Macedonia was too insignificant and contemptible to demand respect or require appeasement. The above invitation of the Spartans to the Macedonians to participate to a Peace Conference intended solely for Greeks without anyone’s objections means that the other Greek tribal states considered theMacedonians as Greeks. In addition, the Persians considered the Macedonians as Yauna or Greeks as attested in the inscriptions of Behistun dated circa 521 BC and in Naqsh-i Rustam dated circa 490 BC along with the Daiva inscription dated circa 479-478 BC 70
1 Eusebius, Chronicles, 71 & 183.
2 Herodotus, Histories, 7. 129, 1-4; Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1.7.2; Strabo, Geographies IX, 5.2.
3 Aristotle, Meteorologika, I, 13.
4 Scholiastes on Pindar, Pythia, III. 59.
5 Strabo, IX. 5. 5-6.
6 Stephanus Byzantius, Ethnica, s.v. Hellas.
7 Strabo IX, 5. 3.
8 Harpokration, Words of Ten Orators s.v. Tetrarchy (Αρποκρατίων, ΛέξειςτωνΔέκαΡητόρωνs. v. Τετραρχία)
9 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, VII, 129.
10 Greek: Ἑστιαιώτις or Ἱσταιώτι
11 Herodotus I, 56.
12 From the Aeolic and Doric word for length, but also height.
13 Herodotus I, 3.
14 Homer, Iliad 2. 683.
15 Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Aegymios
16 Aka Hercules, or Ἡρακλῆς.
17 Herodotus V, 68, 2; Compare to Stephanus Byzantius s. v.
18 Pausanias, Description of Greece, III, xxii, 3. Pausanias gives the location of the area which I believe it is located in coordinates 36°49’57”N 22°41’54”E, present day Prefecture of Laconia. Helos’ inhabitants captured by the Spartans gave rise to the word Helotes rendering slaves.
19 Pausanias, VIII, xli, 3.
20 Herodotus in IX. 26 states, “one hundred” years and Thucydides I. 12 suggests about the same number of years. Diodorus Siculus in book IV.58.3, states 50 years.
21 Thucydides I, 12; Herodotus IX, 26; Pindar Pythian Odes I 63; X, 2 Spartans and Thessalians
22 Diodorus Siculus IV, 37, 3; IV 58,6.
23 Pausanias, III. ii, 7; III. xx, 6, 7; III. xxii, 3.
24 Pindar Pythian Odes 1.65
25 Homer, Iliad, II, 584.
26 Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, I. 21.
27 Strabo VIII, 3, 33; compare to Pausanias VIII. 5, 6.
28 Pausanias VIII. 5, 6.
29 Herodotus, I. 56. The Greek text states “after it [Makednian tribe] passed on to Peloponnesus it was called Dorian.” The passive voice indicates that their name was given to them by probably their new neighbors or the Greek tribes they subjugated.
30 Herodotus, VII 176.
31 Thucydides, VII 57.
32 Thucydides, IV 42.2.
33 Thucydides, III, 102.
34 Thucydides, I, 12; compare I, 3 and IV 42.
35 Herodotus, VII 176.
36 N.G.L. Hammond, “Pre-historic Epirus and the Dorian Invasion,” BSA 32 (1931), 131-179.
37 Herodotus VII. 176; Thucydides VII. 57; IV 42.2; III. 102.
38 N.G.L. Hammond, “Pre-historic Epirus,” 131-179.
39 Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 255.
40 Strabo, VII. 6; Herodotus VIII. 137-139. Lebaea aka Boubousti is the modern day Platania, Prefecture of Kozani, Macedonia, Greece.
41 Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Makedon.
42 W. A. Heurtley, “A Prehistoric Site in Western Macedonia and the Dorian Invasion,” The Annual of the British School at Athens, 28 (1926/1927), 158-194, passim.
43 Strabo VIII, 3,33; Eusebius in Chronicles states that they lived circa 800 BC; Pausanias VI, 22.
44 Marcus Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome, I, 6, 5.
45 Eusebius, 227: “Before the first Olympiad, Caranus was moved by ambition to collect forces from the Argives and from the rest of the Peloponnese, in order to lead an army into the territory of the Macedonians. At that time the king of the Orestae was at war with his neighbours, the Eordaei, and he called on Caranus to come to his aid, promising to give him half of his territory in return, if the Orestae were successful. The king kept his promise, and Caranus took possession of the territory; he reigned there for 30 years, until he died in old age.”
46 Herodotus, VIII. 137.9.
47 William Ridgeway, “Euripides in Macedon,” The Classical Quarterly, 20, 1. (Jan., 1926), 1-19, 3-5.
48 N.G.L. Hammond, The Establishment and Consolidation of the Kingdom of Macedonia, Collected Studies II (Amsterdam: Hakkert) 1993, 131. First published in Macedonia, ed. M. B. Sakelariou (Athens, 1983), 64 .
49 The northern area of Thessaly and the area of Dium are only about one day ride on horseback from Aegai, the first capital of Macedonia.
50 Marcus Templar, Interview with Dr. Georgia Karamitrou-Mentesidi, July 14, 2009.
51 W. A. Heurtley, Prehistoric Site, 192-3.
52 N.G.L. Hammond, The Macedonian State (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 2001), 38.
53 Hammond, Establishment and Consolidation, 64.
54 Justinus, Historiae Philippicae, VII, 1, 7-12 in Apostolos Daskalakis, The Hellenism of the Ancient Macedonians, “The Argaeo-Temenids and the Origin of the Macedonian Royal House” (Thessaloniki:Institute for Balkan Studies) 1965, 172 .
55 Arrian, Anabasis, VII, 9. Greek Ὦπις, Akkadian Upi or Upija, later Ctesiphon.
56 Aristotle’s Works, passim.
57 Pausanias, I, 19,5; Ι, 10,1.
58 Urlich Wilcken, Alexander the Great (New York: Norton), 1967, 22.
59 Stephen G. Miller, Letter to President Obama by more than 346 Classicists.
60 Eugene Borza,Makedonika, Ethnicity and Cultural Policy at Alexander’s Court (Claremont: Regina Books), 149.
61 Carl D. Buck, “The Language Situation in and about Greece in the Second Millennium B.C” Classical Philology, 21, 1(Jan. 1926), 1-26, 13, 22.
62 Herodotus, I. 56.
63 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, II, 99.
64 Strabo, Geographies, 7, VII, 8.
65 Liddell & Scott s.v. βάρβαρος.
66 Demosthenes, Philippic III, 31.
67 Thucydides, III, 94. Original use of the word barbarian defines the person who sounds barbarophonos or someone whose speech is so unintelligible it sounds like bar-bar-bar. The Homeric Dictionary by Georg Autenrieth defines the barbarophonos as rude (outlandish) of speech, which does not necessarily mean a foreigner, a non-Greek. See Homer Iliad, II.867.
68 Athenian Parliament.
69 Aeschines, On the Embassy, 32.
70 Behistun is situated at 34° 35′ north latitude and 47° 25′ east longitude, about 32 km east of Kermānšāh (now Bāḵtarān). According to Heinz Luschey “Studien zu dem Darius-Relief von Bisutun,” AMI, N.S. 1, 1968, 63-94, the tablets of Behistun are dated circa 519 BC. Daniel T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam (Cambridge : C. U. P. 1999), 314-317 follows the same logic. However, Josef Wiesehofer: Ancient Persia (London : I. B. Tauris, 2006), 13-18 very convincingly dates the tablets circa 521/520 BC.
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