22. Since the Macedonians evidently belonged to some one of these four races, our present object is to ascertain which. Now in the first place the Greeks may be excluded, since, although it is certain that a large portion of the Macedonian nation was of Grecian origin, the Macedonians were always considered by the Greeks as barbarians.—Alexander the Philhellene,[2029] the father of Perdiccas, represented [pg 472] himself to the Persians (according to Herodotus)[2030] as a Greek, and satrap over Macedonians; the same person who was driven off the course at Olympia for being a barbarian, until he proved his Argive descent.[2031] The mouth of the Peneus, or the Magnesian mountain of Homolè, was on the eastern side considered as the boundary of Greece,[2032] unless Magnesia also was excluded. Fabulous genealogies, representing Macedon as the son of Zeus and Thyia the daughter of Deucalion, or of a descendant of Æolus, are of no weight against the prevailing opinion of the Greeks; nor are they necessarily of greater antiquity than the fortieth Olympiad (620 B.C.),[2033] at which time Danaus and Ægyptus, and other races equally unconnected, were made the members of the same family, when the Scythians were derived from Hercules,[2034] and even the whole known world was comprised in extensive genealogies. It would be unreasonable to suppose, on the credit of these genealogies, that there was any other migration of Greeks into Macedonia except that of the Temenidæ.
23. Secondly, with regard to the Pæonians: it may be shown that the Macedonians did not belong to that nation.[2035] The possessions of the Macedonians in Pæonia are accurately described by ancient writers; these were, until the time of Perdiccas, only a narrow strip of land;[2036] Pelagonia and Pæonia on the Axius were subdued at a later date. As the Pæonian race was not aboriginal in this district, its [pg 473] peculiarities were probably easy to be recognised in the time of Thucydides, and hence this national name occurs more frequently than those of the separate provinces. For this reason great importance should be attached to the circumstance that the ancients never refer the Macedonians themselves to the Pæonian race; and it should perhaps be considered as decisive. On the other hand, with aboriginal races having a large territory and numerous connexions, such a separation hardly warrants this inference, since otherwise the Macedonians, whom both Herodotus and Thucydides mention together with Thracians and Illyrians,[2037] could not have belonged to either of those two tribes, and therefore to no great national division of the human race. It is, however, plain that the ancients frequently used the national name in a limited sense, merely for the chief mass of the people, and did not apply it to particular portions of it which had acquired a character different from that of the rest of their nation,[2038] without by this meaning to express a diversity of origin. We have therefore now only to ascertain whether the Macedonians were of Thracian or Illyrian descent.
24. We shall gain one step towards a conclusion by inquiring in what region were the original settlements of the Macedonians; a question which should carefully be distinguished from the former investigation as to the first station of the Temenidæ. Now in pursuing this inquiry, we soon perceive that even of Macedonia Proper, from which Bottiæa, Pieria, and Eordæa were conquered, a large part was not always in the possession of the Macedonians. Homer, for example, places Emathia, not Macedonia, between Pieria and Chalcidice.[2039] Several writers state in general that Macedonia [pg 474] had anciently been called Emathia;[2040] but, as will be presently shown, they do not so much mean the highlands as the country about the mouths of the three rivers and near Edessa.[2041] The fabulous name was renewed in later times; and Ptolemy[2042] even mentions the district of Emathia, in which were the towns of Cyrrhus,[2043] Eidomenæ, Gordynia, Edessa, Berrhœa, and Pella. According to Thucydides[2044] and others, Eidomenæ and Gordynia must have been situated in the region near the Axius, in the early subdued country of Pæonia;[2045] whence it may be understood how Polybius[2046] could say that Emathia, at a distance from the coast, had in early times been called Pæonia. For the ancient name of Emathia had evidently been extended to a tract of land belonging to Pæonia, which had, perhaps, previously to the Pæonian conquests, once borne the name of Emathia.
25. Now although the country round Edessa, and nearer to the sea, was not originally called Macedonia, yet we find traces of the existence of the name of the Macedonians under its ancient forms of Μακέται and Μακεδνοὶ, in the hill-country near the ridge of Pindus. Herodotus says that the Doric race, having been driven from Hestiæotis, and dwelling under mount Pindus, was called the Macedonian nation.[2047] By this statement he plainly means that the Dorians were first known by that name in Peloponnesus;[2048] and indeed his other notions on the progress of this people are only [pg 475] suited to the childhood of history. But notwithstanding the erroneous conclusions of the narrator, it is allowable to infer from his statement that the Macedonians had once dwelt at the foot of Pindus—i.e., probably in one of the districts of Upper Macedonia; of which provinces Orestis may be considered (on the faith of a conjectural emendation) as the ancient Maceta.[2049] For it cannot be a Thessalian district that is alluded to, since Maceta was, as we know from certain testimony, in fact a part of Macedonia. This hypothesis is also supported by the ancient patronymic surname of the Macedonian kings, “Argeadæ;” if it is rightly derived by Appian from Argos in Orestis.[2050]
The fact that the ancient country of the Macedonians was near the ridge of mountains on the confines of Illyria, and was at a considerable distance from Thrace, renders it probable that the Macetæ were of Illyrian blood; but this probability would yield to arguments drawn from the language, costume, and manners of the three nations. The question therefore is, whom did the Macedonians in the points most resemble, the Illyrians or the Thracians?
26. There is a passage in Strabo[2051] which, on account of its importance, I will give nearly at full length, omitting only those parts which are not necessary to the context. It contains an account of the population of Epirus.
“Of the nations of Epirus the Chaonians and Thesprotians inhabit the coast from the Ceraunian mountains to the Ambracian gulf; behind Ambracia is Amphilochian Argos. The Amphilochians also are Epirots, together with the tribes lying more in the interior, and joining the mountains of Illyria—viz., the Molotti, the Athamanes, the Æthices, the Tymphæi, the Orestæ, the Paroræi, and [pg 476] the Atintanes, some dwelling nearer to the Macedonians, and others to the Ionian sea. With these the Illyrian nations were mixed which dwelt to the south of the hill-country, as well as those beyond the Ionian sea. For between Epidamnus and Apollonia and the Ceraunian mountains there are the Bylliones,[2052] the Taulantii,[2053] the Parthini,[2054] and the Brygi,[2055] and at a short distance, about the silver mines[2056] of Damastium,[2057] the Perisadies have established their dominion; the Enchelii[2058] and Sesarasii[2059] are also named as dwelling in these parts; and besides these, the Lyncestæ, the land of Deuriopus, the Pelagonian Tripolis,[2060] the Eordi, Elimea, and Eratyra.[2061] Now in early times these tribes had severally rulers of their own; the Enchelians were governed by the descendants of Cadmus, the Lyncestæ were under Arrhibæus, and of the Epirots the Molotti were ruled by Pyrrhus and his descendants, while all the other nations of that tribe were governed by native princes. In process of time, however, as one nation obtained the dominion over others, the whole fell into the Macedonian empire, except a small tract beyond the Ionian sea. Also the country about Lyncestus, Pelagonia, Orestias and Elimea was once called Upper Macedonia, and at a later period the Independent. Some persons, moreover, give to the whole country as far as Corcyra the name of Macedonia, assigning, as their reason, that the inhabitants nearly resemble one another in the mode of wearing the hair, in their dialect, in the [pg 477] use of the chlamys, and in other points of this kind: some of them likewise speak two languages.”
27. Now, although the historical accounts of Strabo, collected at a time when these regions had been ravaged by conquest, and had undergone manifold changes, have not the value which the statements of Herodotus and Thucydides possess, yet it is possible to extract from them much information. In the first place it should be observed that the Epirots and the Illyrians are not considered as two wholly distinct nations. The Epirots, although in early times allied by blood with the Greeks, were always considered as barbarians,[2062] and Ambracia as the last city in Greece;[2063] which fact, since the original inhabitants were the same as in Arcadia, that is, Pelasgians, can only be explained by supposing that there had been a mixture of Illyrians. Hence it might be at that late time difficult to distinguish between the Epirots and the Illyrians; and thus Strabo includes the Atintanes, who according to Scylax[2064] and Appian[2065] were Illyrians, among the Epirot nations. It is more singular that he should consider the Orestæ, whom Polybius[2066] recognises as a Macedonian people, as Epirots; but it may be probably accounted for by the circumstance of their separation from the cause of the Macedonian kings, which procured them their independence in the year of the city 556.[2067] But the other inhabitants of Upper Macedonia, the genuine Macedonians, such as the Lyncestæ and Elimiots (who probably, from being mountaineers, had preserved their national distinctions more than the civilised tribes of the lowlands), were considered by Strabo, as the context plainly shows, as original Illyrians; and it can hardly be doubted that they still bore the characteristic marks of that nation.
28. “Some again,” as Strabo says, “give to the whole country as far as Corcyra the name of Macedonia.” What country this is, is accurately known both from the testimony of other writers, and even of Strabo himself. The Romans called the whole region which opened to them the way to Macedonia[2068] by the name of Macedonia; and made it reach from Lissus (now Alessio) on the river Drilon (now the Drin) either to the Egnatian road,[2069] which begins between Dyrrhachium (or Epidamnus) and Apollonia, or, as Strabo states in the passage quoted in the text, for a short distance beyond.[2070] The inhabitants of this tract of country were beyond all question Illyrians (Taulantii, Parthini, Dassaretii, &c.[2071]); and it is of their dress and language that Strabo here speaks. The importance of these points for the discovery of national affinity is easily perceived. Indeed, many Grecian tribes might be distinguished merely by their mode of wearing the hair.[2072] The chlamys had come to the Greeks from the Thessalians, and Sappho was the first Grecian writer who mentioned it:[2073] afterwards it became a military dress, and supplanted the ἱμάτιον, as in Italy the sagum took the place of the toga, which was originally girt up for military use.[2074] From this passage of Strabo we learn that it was the national habit of the Illyrian tribes above Epirus. In like manner the broad-brimmed, low, flat fur-cap, known by the name of causia, which was equally unlike the conical[2075] κυνέη of the Bœotians and the low, tapering[2076] πέτασος, was worn by these northern nations; it was the [pg 479] ancient dress of state among the Macedonians, and worn by their kings;[2077] and it was likewise the dress of the Ætolians[2078] and Molossians.[2079] But the most remarkable circumstance is, that the same cap which is borne by the riders on the tetradrachms of the first Alexander also adorns the head of the Illyrian king Gentius.[2080] Lastly, the similarity of dialect is a decisive proof. Now that all these things should have been introduced by the Macedonian kings seems highly improbable, when it is remembered that their rule did not even extend over the whole of this tract, that it was also often interrupted, and in general not of a nature to alter the character, language, and costume of the natives.[2081]
From these facts it may, I think, be safely inferred that the Macedonians, viz., the people originally and properly so called, belonged to the Illyrian race.