16) GREEK CLAIM:
What was the origin of ancient Macedonians? "The name of the ancient Macedonians is derived from Macedon, who was the grandchild of Deukalion, the father of all Greeks. This we may infer from Hesiod's genealogy. It may be proven that Macedonians spoke Greek since Macedon, the ancestor of Macedonians, was a brother of Magnes, the ancestor of Thessalians, who spoke Greek." (Professor N G L Hammond, University of Cambridge, UK, 1993)"This was Macedonia in the strict sense, the land where settled immigrands of Greek stock later to be called Macedonians" (Professor W J Woodhouse, University of Sydney, Australia, 1917)
REPLY:
This view of the supposed Greek origin of the Macedonians, which originated in Droysen in the 19th century and later advertized by others including Hammond and Woodhouse, had been proven incorrect many times in the extensive studies on the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians by Professor Eugene Borza and Harvard’s Department of History chair person Ernst Badian, and rejected on such basis. Hammond had been proven to be incorrect not only in the case of the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians, but also on other matters regarding the history of Macedonia in Makedonika and In the Shadow of Olympus by Borza. Here is what Borza had written on Hammond’s conclusion:
"Hammond's firm conclusion that the Macedonians spoke a distinctive dialect of Aeolic Greek is unconvincing to me, resting as it does on an interpretation of a bit of myth quoted by Hellanicus, who made Aeolus the father of the legendary progenitor Macedon". "The handful of surviving genuine Macedonian words - not loan words from a Greek - do not show the changes expected from a Greek dialect. And even had they changed at some point it is unlikely that they would have reverted to their original form". (In the Shadow of Olympus p.92-93)
"As a question of method: why would [Macedonia] an area three hundred miles north of Athens - not colonized by Athens - used an Attic dialect, unless it were imported? That is, the Attic dialect could hardly be native, and its use is likely part of the process of Hellenization. To put the question differently: if the native language of the Macedonians is Greek, what is its Macedonian dialect?"
The Temenidae [the Greek origin] in Macedon are an invention of the Macedonians themselves, intended in part to give credence to Alexander I's claims of Hellenic ancestry, attached to and modifying some half-buried progenitor stories that had for a long time existed among the Macedonians concerning their own origins. The revised version was transmitted without criticism or comment by Herodotus. Thucydides (2-99.3; 5.80.2) acquired the Argive lineage tale from Herodotus, or from Macedonian-influenced sources, and transmitted it. His is not an independent version. [There is no hard evidence (pace Hammond, HM i: 4) that Thucydides ever visited Macedonia, but it makes no difference; Thucydides is reflecting the official version of things.] What emerged in the fifth century is a Macedonian-inspired tale of Argive origins for the Argead house, an account that can probably be traced to its source, Alexander I (for which see Chapter 5 below). The Temenidae must disappear from history, making superfluous all discussion of them as historical figures. (In the Shadow of Olympus)