On the mixture of the Macedonians with other, particularly Greek, races.
29. It is, however, certain, notwithstanding the result which has been established, that the Macedonians in their advance from the highlands dislodged, and partly incorporated other, and particularly Grecian, tribes.
The first to fall in their hands was the ancient Emathia, near Edessa, and downwards to the sea, which Herodotus [pg 480] includes in his Macedonia. The name of the country appears to be Grecian;[2082] and since Justin[2083] distinctly affirms that the ancient inhabitants of Emathia were Pelasgians, and as Æschylus, a poet greatly versed in traditional lore, also makes the kingdom of the Pelasgians extend through Macedonia as far as the Strymon,[2084] it must be considered that, according to ancient tradition, the early inhabitants of this country were of the Pelasgic race. It is likewise fair, by the guidance of several parallel cases in the Greek mythology, to interpret the legend that Lycaon the Arcadian hero had once ruled in Emathia, and was the father of Macedon,[2085] as signifying merely the succession, according to order of time, of the Pelasgians and Macedonians in the occupation of this country; which the language of mythology expressed by placing the respective races in a genealogical connexion. So Thessalus is called a son of Jason, although the Thessalians belonged to a different race from the early rulers of the country, the Minyæ of Iolcus, of whom Jason was one. Hence it is highly probable that at the first conquest of this tract of land, viz., of Macedonia Proper, nations akin to the Greeks were mixed with the Illyrians.
30. One of the earliest conquests of the Macedonians was the country of their neighbours[2086] the Phrygians; i.e., according to the most exact statements, the district about mount Bermius, where in the ancient gardens of king Midas, the son of Gordias (in which Silenus had been once taken prisoner), the hundred-leaved rose still flourished at the time of Herodotus.[2087] It is exceedingly probable that, as Herodotus states, this district had been occupied by the Macedonians before the arrival of the Temenidæ;[2088] with [pg 481] which the tradition of an ancient migration of the Phrygians coincides:[2089] yet it is also stated that Caranus the Temenid expelled Midas.[2090] That the Phrygians or Brygians were entirely incorporated in the Macedonian nation cannot be supposed, as we hear quite in late times of a tribe of Brygians (Βρύγοι) in these regions, who then dwelt near the Illyrian mountains beyond Lychnidus, not far from the Erigon, together with the Dassaretians.[2091] The tribe of Mygdonians, which was allied to the Phrygians,[2092] must have been lost in other nations at an early period, since their territory had been occupied by the Edones before it became a part of the Macedonian empire.
31. In their further extension the Macedonians fell in with Grecian, with Pæonian, and with Thracian tribes, which they either subdued or dislodged; but no expulsion was probably so complete that some part of the former population was not left behind. Among the tribes thus driven out were the Bottiæans, who were reported to have come from Athens and Crete;[2093] a tradition which could hardly have arisen, if they had not been a Grecian people. Notice should also be taken of the Grecian and Pelasgic names of the cities on the Axius, viz., Ichnæ, Eidomenæ, Gortynia, Atalante, and Europus,[2094] which cannot have been [pg 482] given by the Pæonians, and therefore must be referred to the ancient Greek population of this region. Beyond the Axius, according to Herodotus,[2095] was Creston, a settlement of Thessalian Pelasgians, whence they do not appear to have been expelled by the victorious Macedonians; which fate befell the Almopians, an ancient branch of the Minyæ.[2096] It has been already shown that the common population of Leibethrum and Pieria was at least nearly related to the Greeks: the names of Λείβηθρα, for a well-watered valley, Πίμπλη for a full fountain, and of Ἑλικὼν for a winding stream, are evidently Grecian.[2097]
As to the Eordians, the ancient foes of Macedon, it is uncertain whether they should be considered as belonging to the Illyrian or the Pæonian race;[2098] of this latter tribe, in earlier times, a small, and, in later, a considerable portion obeyed the Macedonian kings. And, lastly, the subjection of the Bisaltæ, who even in the time of Perseus formed one of the chief parts of the kingdom of Macedon,[2099] joined to that nation a people of purely Thracian descent; and the Macedonians, in the political meaning of the word, ceased more and more to be a regular nation, or a body of men of the same origin and language.[2100]
On the customs and language of the Macedonians.
32. In order to trace the national character and origin of the Macedonians, it is necessary to distinguish three things; first, their Illyrian descent; secondly, their extension [pg 483] over other, for the most part Grecian countries; and thirdly, the introduction by the ruling family, of the civilisation and refinements of the Greeks; which must have gained great ground when Alexander the Philhellene offered himself as a combatant at the Olympic games, and honoured the poetry of Pindar;[2101] and when Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas,—the same person who first established many fortresses and roads in his dominions, and formed a Macedonian army,[2102] nay, even had it in view to procure a navy,[2103]—had tragedies of Euripides acted at his court under the direction of that poet. These changes must have chiefly affected the regions near the sea; for they could not have equally extended to the Macedonians of Lyncus, &c., who, even in the time of Strabo, had the greatest resemblance to the Dassaretians, Taulantians, &c., and, until the overthrow of the Macedonian monarchy, preserved their ancient savage habits; which Livy only partially accounts for by their intercourse with neighbouring barbarians.[2104]
33. Since the Illyrian tribes were never distinguished for that original invention which imagined new gods and established new modes of worship; while, on the other hand, they readily adopted strange deities;[2105] we find among the Macedonians more traces of foreign than native religion. Certain deities which the Greeks compared with the Sileni they called Sauadæ,[2106] as the Illyrians called them Deuadæ;[2107] a native Macedonian god of health was named Darrhon;[2108] there was also a god called Deipatyrus among the neighbouring [pg 484] Stymphæans.[2109] The wide extension of the worship of Bacchus must be ascribed to the vicinity of, and early intercourse with Pieria: the Macetian women were celebrated as wild and raging Bacchantes.[2110] The worship of Zeus appears to have been early introduced among the Macedonians from mount Olympus.[2111] Hercules, the heroic progenitor of the royal family, was worshipped in their first residence at Edessa:[2112] he was called in Macedonia Aretus.[2113] The worship of Apollo, which was prevalent in Macedonia at an early period,[2114] probably was introduced from Pythium on mount Olympus:[2115] that of Pan, at Pella, was perhaps derived from the Pelasgians.[2116]
34. Many barbarous customs of the northern nations, as, for example, that of tattooing, which prevailed among the Illyrians and Thracians,[2117] must have fallen into disuse in Macedonia at a very early date: for the Greeks would not have forgotten to mention such evident proofs of barbarian descent. Even the usage of the ancient Macedonians, that every person who had not killed an enemy should wear some disgraceful badge, had been discontinued in the time of Aristotle.[2118] Yet at a very late date no one was permitted to lie down at table who had not slain a wild boar without the nets.[2119] It is greatly to be lamented that we know much less of the ancient customs of the Illyrians than of the Thracians, of whose singular and almost Asiatic usages we are sufficiently well informed. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul in the worship of Zalmoxis, the lamentations of the Trausi at the birth of a man,[2120] and the slaughter [pg 485] of the dearest wife on the grave of her husband among the Sintes and Mædi,[2121] point to a particular view of human life, foreign to the Grecian character, but familiar to many eastern nations.[2122] The prevailing custom of polygamy,[2123] the buying and inheriting of women, the selling of children as slaves,[2124] and the delight in intoxication,[2125] are traces of a genuine barbarian character; no one of which, as far as I am aware, can be discovered among the Macedonians: with whom, moreover, the Thracian names (e.g., Cotys, and those ending in cetes and sades) never occur.