Ancient/Modern Sources about Thessalonica

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and in his own name and that of the people of Thessalonica he offered the city to the Venetian signoria, asking only that it should be governed “according to its usages and statutes”; that the orthodox metropolitan of Thessalonica be confirmed in his ecclesiastical charge; that the greek inhabitants should retain their local rights of jurisdiction..

“The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571 Vol. 2: The Fifteenth Century” By Kenneth Meyer Setton, page 19-20

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On 14 July 1429, the Senate gave formal replies to a detailed petition presented by an embassy representing the Greek population of Thessalonica, showing that the inhabitants had become disenchanted with Venetian rule as they years had passed.

The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571 Vol. 2: The Fifteenth Century By Kenneth Meyer Setton, page 28

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It was a business transaction carried through with every regard for the welfare of Thessalonica and its greek inhabitants; and it was done with the full knowledge and assent of the emperor Manuel II.

Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, By Donald M. Nicol, Page 361

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The Mission to Thessalonica.—The Christian inhabitants of Thessalonica were mainly Greeks by birth and training who had been won over from paganism by the efforts of Paul, Silyanus (Silas) and Timotheus (Timothy)..

“The Expositor’s Greek Testament” By W. Robertson (William Robertson) Nicoll, Alexander Balmain Bruce, Marcus Dods, R. J. (Richard John) Knowling, James Denney, George G. (George Gillanders) Findlay, J. H. (John Henry) Bernard, Frederic Rendall, S. D. F. (Stewart Dingwall Fordyce) Salmond, Harry Angus Alexander Kennedy, Arthur S. (Arthur Samuel) Peake, James Moffatt, Newport John Davis White, W. O. E. (William Oscar Emil) Oesterley, J. H. A. (John Henry Arthur). Hart, Robert Harvey Strachan, David Smith, Joseph B. (Joseph Bickersteth) Mayor

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But when Hadrian reorganized the empire with a more genuine partnership of Italians and Hellenes, he improved on one aspect of the plan of Augustus for the participation of colonies- Hadrian established a synedrion which united elected representatives of old Greek cities. Greek federal stales, and Greek colonies. Just as the Italians of the colonies which Augustus sought to attach more closely were, on the one hand, men who lived in cities organized on a peculiarly Roman pattern, and, on the other hand, men of Italic stock and culture or natives who had completely assimilated themselves, so the cities which joined in forming the Panhellenion were cities of a peculiarly Hellenic type, the polis. the cities which could claim colonists of old Hellenic stock. If the majority of the population were Hellenes or completely assimilated to Hellenes, the Eastern colonia (Corinth or Thessalonica) might be treated either as a colony or a mother city of Hellenes. Roman Corinth, for instance, appear as a mother city in I.G., VII. 24 and Corns/A. VIII, lit, 269* Certainly their interests had to be weighed with those of neighbouring cities.

“Marcus Aurelius: Aspects of Civic and Cultural Policy in the East” By James H Oliver, page 136

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Here we notice thai in Acts the term “Hellenes” (or “Greeks”) is used with noteworthy propriety: the people of Thessalonica, of Berea, of Ephesus, of Iconium. and of Syrian Antioch are spoken of as Hellenes. Those were all cities which had no claim to be Roman, except in the general way of being parts of the Roman provinces Macedonia, Galatia, and Syria. They were counted Greek cities, and reckoned themselves as such.

“Historical Commentary on First Corinthians” By William Ramsay, page 34

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By the time of Paul the population of Thessalonica was cosmopolitan. The original Macedonian population had long been assimilated with Greek immigrants from the South, giving the city a distinctively Greek character.

“The Epistles to the Thessalonians: Commentary on the Greek Text” By Charles Wanamaker, page 4

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“Paul the Apostle, was summoned to Macedonia by a Macedonian in the form of a vision speaking to him in Greek“

(Act Apost. XVI 9,10)

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“The Apostles Paul and Silas met Greek men and women in Thessaloniki and Beroea“

(Act Apost. XVII 4, 12).

Ac 17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came
to THESSALONICA, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
Ac 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath
days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
Ac 17:3 Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and
risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is
Christ.
Ac 17:4 And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of
the devout GREEKS a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

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The growing riches of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for the wild men from the east and north and unfortunately the Greek citizens were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputesand their leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the defence of their country.

The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkey (1916) By Nevill Forbes, page 13

Ancient writers about Macedonia – Dionysius Halicarnasus

The Battle of Asculum (279 BC), between the Greeks forces of Pyrrhus of Epirus and the Romans under publius Decius Mus, from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, p387, Excerpts from Book XX

 

• “Having agreed through heralds upon the time when they would join in battle, they descended from their camps and took up their positions as follows: King Pyrrhus gave the Macedonian phalanx the first place on the right wing and placed next to it the Italiot mercenaries from Tarentum; then the troops from Ambracia and after them the phalanx of Tarentines equipped with white shields, forced by the allied force of Bruttians and Lucanians; in the middle of the battle-line he stationed the Thesprotians and Chaonians; next to them the mercenaries of the Aetolians, Acarnanians and Athamanians, and finally the Samnites, who constituted the left wing. Of the horse, he stationed the Samnite, Thessalian and Bruttian squadrons and the Tarentine mercenary force upon the right wing, and the Ambraciot, Lucanian and Tarentine squadrons and the Greek mercenaries, consisting of Acarnanians, Aetolians, Macedonians and Athamanians, on the left. The light-armed troops and the elephants he divided into two groups and placed them behind both wings, at a reasonable distance, in a position slightly elevated above the plain. He himself, surrounded by the royal agema, as it was called, of picked horsemen, about two thousand in number, was outs the battle-line, so as to aid promptly any of his troops in turn that might be hard pressed.*
  

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Cosmas Indicopleustes

BOOK II

This Ptolemy is one of those Ptolemies who reigned after Alexander the Macedonian, concerning whom the prophet Daniel prophesied in different passages, and especially in the dream of Nabuchodonosor and in the vision of the four beasts that rose up from the sea which Daniel himself saw; namely in the image, a head of gold, but in the vision a lioness, by which he signified the kingdom of the Babylonians, that is Nabuchodonosor. Then, [145] in the image, the breast and the arms of silver, but in the vision, a bear—-namely, the empire of the Medes, which was inferior to that of the Babylonians, whereby he means Darius the Mede. Next again in the image—-the belly and the thighs of brass, but in the vision a leopard, the kingdom namely of the Persians, by which he signifies Cyrus, whose empire was no less splendid and renowned than that of the Babylonians. Then again in the image, the legs of iron, and in the vision, a beast terrible and dreadful, with claws of brass and teeth of iron, by which he indicates the Macedonian empire—-that is Alexander—-breaking kingdoms in pieces and subduing them. Then again in the image, the feet and toes partly of iron and partly of clay; and in the vision, ten horns corresponding in number with the toes, by which he means the empire of Alexander broken up after his death, which, in the vision also of the ram and the he-goat was, he says, broken up towards the four winds of heaven. For, when Alexander was approaching his end, he divided his empire among his four friends, of whom one reigned in Europe, that is, in GREECE, another in Asia, another in Syria and Babylonia, and |69 the fourth in Egypt, Libya and the southern parts.118 Unto these four were many sons born, who filled their thrones after them and brought manifold evils upon the world, as has been recorded in the book of the Maccabees. Now the little horn speaking great things, that was in the midst of the ten horns, signifies Antiochus Epiphanes, who warred against the Jews in the days of the Maccabees. He speaks therefore of all these things as partly of iron and partly of clay, to show them as conquering each other and being conquered in turn, and not mixed together, just as iron and clay do not commingle.

Book III

Even in Taprobanê, on an island in Further India, where the Indian sea is, there is a Church of Christians, with clergy and a body of believers, but I know not whether there be any Christians in the parts beyond it. In the country called Malê, where the pepper grows, there is also a church, and at another place called Calliana there is moreover a bishop, who is appointed from Persia. In the island, again, called the Island of Dioscoridês, which is situated in the same Indian sea, and where the inhabitants speak Greek, having been originally colonists sent thither by the Ptolemies who succeeded Alexander the Macedonian, there are clergy who receive their ordination in Persia, and are sent on to the island, and there is also a multitude of Christians. I sailed along the coast of this island, but did not land upon it. I met, however, with some of its Greek-speaking people who had come over into Ethiopia. And so likewise among the Bactrians and Huns and Persians, and the rest of the Indians, Persarmenians, and Medes and Elamites, and throughout the whole land of Persia there is no limit to the number of churches with bishops and very large communities of Christian people, as well as many martyrs, and monks also living as hermits. So too in Ethiopia and Axôm, and in all the country about it; among the people of Happy Arabia—-who are now called Homerites—-through all Arabia and Palestine, Phoenicia, and all Syria and Antioch as far as Mesopotamia; among the Nubians and the Garamantes, in Egypt, Libya, Pentapolis, Africa and Mauretania, as far as southern Gadeira,there are everywhere churches of the Christians, and bishops, martyrs, monks and recluses, where the Gospel of Christ is proclaimed. So likewise again in Cilicia, Asia, Cappadocia, Lazica and Pontus, and in the northern countries occupied by the Scythians, Hyrcanians, Heruli, Bulgarians, Greeks and Illyrians, Dalmatians, Goths, Spaniards, Romans, Franks, and other nations, as far as Gadeira on the ocean towards the northern parts, there are believers and preachers of the Gospel confessing the resurrection from the dead; and so we see the prophecies being fulfilled over the whole world.
Book XI

And yet He has not left them without a witness to Himself, that He was working for their good and taking thought for it beforehand, for He manifested to them some tokens of His goodness, some four hundred years or more before the coming of Christ, in the days of Alexander the Macedonian, long after the Trojan war, when the Greeks were still flourishing. Let me give an instance of this: When Alexander the Macedonian was passing by Jerusalem in prosecution of his war against Darius, the High Priest of the Jews, arrayed in the robes of his office, came forth to meet him, whereupon Alexander dismounted from his horse and in a very kindly manner embraced him. And when his attendants reproached him for so doing and said: Why hast thou done so? he excused himself and said: When I set out at first from Macedonia, a man dressed in this style was seen by me in a dream who said to me: Go forth and conquer. The result was that the King himself offered sacrifices to God and bestowed many gifts on the Temple, and accorded many privileges to the country of the Jews.In subsequent times Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus, after having made careful inquiry from Tryphon the Phalerean about the Jewish books, and learned the truth concerning them, earnestly solicited them from the High Priest Eleazar, to whom as well as to the Temple he sent many presents. These books he received along with seventy elderly men, who translated them from the Hebrew into the Greek tongue, and he deposited them on the shelves of his own library. This also was a work of divine providence, that the translation had been prepared before the coming of Christ, lest, if it were done afterwards in the days of the Apostles, it would be exposed to general suspicion, as if they had interpreted what had been said of old by the prophets both concerning Christ and the calling of the Gentiles in a way to suit their own predilections

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Quintus Curtius Rufus

• “They recalled that at the start of his reign Darius had issued orders for the shape of the scabbard of the Persian scimitar to be altered to the shape used by the Greeks, and that the Chaldeans had immediately interpreted this as meaning that rule over the Persians would pass to those people whose arms Darius had copied. “

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 3.3.6)

• “For his part Alexander responded much like this: ‘His majesty Alexander to Darius: Greetings. The Darius whose name you have assumed wrought much destruction upon the Greek inhabitants of the Hellespontine coast and upon the Greek colonies of Ionia, and the crossed the sea with a mighty army, bringing the war to Macedonia and Greece. On another occasion Xerxes, a member of the same family, came with his savage barbarian troops, and even when beaten in a naval engagement he still left Mardonius in Greece so that he could destroy our cities and burn our fields though absent himself.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 4.1.10)

• “Mutiny was but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers to give their opinion. They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they themselves knew, to the common soldiers. Instead, they declared that the sun represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 4.10.1)

• “Alexander called a meeting of his generals the next day. He told them that no city was more hateful to the Greeks than Persepolis, the capital of the old kings of Persia, the city from which troops without number had poured forth, from which first Darius and then Xerxes had waged an unholy war on Europe. To appease the spirits of their forefathers they should wipe it out, he said.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5.6.1)

• “One of the latter was Thais. She too had had too much to drink, when she claimed that, if Alexander gave the order to burn the PErsian palace, he would earn the deepest gratitude among all the Greeks. This was what the people whose cities the Persians ahd destroyed were expecting she said. As the drunken whore gave her opinion on a matter of extreme importance, one or two who were themselves the worse for drink agreed with her. the king, too, was enthusiastic rather than acquiescent. “Why do we not avenge Greece, then and put the city to the torch?” he asked.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5. 7. 3)

• “From here he now moved into Media, where he was met by fresh reinforcement from Cilicia: 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, both under the command of the Athenian Plato. His foraces thus augmented. Alexander determined to pursue Darius”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5. 7.

• “As for Alexander, it is generally agreed that, when sleep had brought him back to his senses after his drunken bout, he regretted his actions and said that the Persians would have suffered a more grievous punishment at the hands of the Greeks had they been forced to see him on Xerxes’ throne and in his palace.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 5.7.11)

• “In pursuit of Bessus the Macedonians had arrived at a small town inhabited by the Branchidae who, on the orders of Xerxes, when he was returning from Greece, had emigrated from Miletus and settled in this spot. This was necessary because, to please Xerxes, they had violated the temple called the Didymeon. The culture of their forebears had not yet disappeared thought they were now bilingual and the foreign tongue was gradually eroding their own. So it was with great joy that they welcomed Alexander, to whom they surrendered themselves and their city. Alexander called a meeting of the Milesians in his force, for the Milesians bore a long-standing grudge against the Branchidae as a clan. Since they were the people betrayed by the Branchidae, Alexander let them decide freely on their case, asking if they preferred to remember their injury or their common origins. But when there was a difference of opinion over this, he declared that he would himself consider the best course of action.

When the Branchidae met him the next day, he told them to accompany him. On reaching the city, he himself entered through the gate with a unit of light-armed troops. The phalanx had been ordered to surround the city walls and, when the signal was given, to sack this city which provided refuge for traitors, killing the inhabitants to a man. The Branchidae, who were unarmed, were butchered throughout the city, and neither community of language nor the olive-branches and entreaties of the suppliants could curb the savagery. Finally the Macedonians dug down to the foundations of the city walls in order to demolish them and leave not a single trace of the city.”

• “The gist of the passage was that the Greeks had established a bad practice in inscribing their trophies with only their kings’ names, for the kings’ were thus appropriating to themselves glory that was won by the blood of others.”

(Quintus Curtius Rufus 8.1.29)

• “and he [alexander] demonstrated the strength of his contempt for the barbarians by celebrating games in honour of Aesclepius and Athena.”

(Curtius Rufus 3, 7, 3)

• “he consecrated three altars on the banks of the river Pinarus to Zeus, Hercules, and Athena,…”

(Curtius Rufus 3, 12, 27)

• “About this time there took place the traditional Isthmian games, which the whole of Greece gathers to celebrate. At this assembly the Greeks – political trimmers by temperament – determined that fifteen ambassadors be sent to the king to offer him a victory-gift of a golden crown in honour of his achievements on behalf of the security and freedom of greece.”

(Curtius Rufus 4, 5, 11)

• “they also occupied Tenedos and had decided to seize Chios at the invitation of its inhabitants.”

(Curtius Rufus 4, 5, 14)

• “Then Alexander’s horses dragged him around the city while the king gloated at having followed the example of his ancestor Achilles in punishing his enemy.”

Curtius Rufus 4,6.29)

• ” Moreover, as a reward for their exceptional loyalty to him, Alexander reimbursed the people of Mitylene for their war expenses and also added a large area to their territories.”

(Curtius Rufus 4.8.13)

• ” Furthemore, appropriate honours were accorded the kings of Cyprus who had defected to him from Darius and sent him a fleet during his assault on Tyre.”

(Curtius Rufus 4.8.14)

• “Amphoterus, the admiral of the fleet, was then sent to liberate Crete, most of which was occupied by both Persian and Spartan armies”

(Curtius Rufus 4.8. 15)

• “He did not want her tainting the character and civilized temperament of the Greeks with this example of barbarian lawlessness“

• “Alexander advanced from there to the river Tanais, where Bessus was brought to him, not only in irons but entirely stripped of his clothes. Spitamenes held him with a chain around his neck, a sight that afforded as much pleasure to the barbarians as to the Macedonians.”

(Curtius Rufus 7.5.36)

• ” Meanwhile a group of Macedonians had gone off to forage out of formation and were suprised by some Barbarians who came rushing down on them from the neighbouring mountains.”

(Curtius Rufus 7.6.1)

• “Menedemus himself, riding an extremely powerful horse, had repeatedly charged at full gallop into the barbarians’ wedge-shaped contingents, scattering them with great carnage.”

(Curtius Rufus 7.6.35)

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Velleius Paterculus

“”In this period, sixty-five years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido. About this time also Caranus, a man of royal race, eleventh in descent from Hercules, set out from Argos and seized the kingship of Macedonia. From him 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. “”

Velleius Paterculus, Book I

Ancient writers about Macedonia – Titus Livius

“Aetolians, Acarnanians, Macedonians, men of the same language“

(T. Livius XXXI,29, 15)

“General Paulus of Rome surrounded by the ten Commissioners took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowds of Macedonians…Paulus announced in Latin the decisions of the Senate, as well as his own, made by the advice of his council. This announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus Octavius the Praetor-for he too was present.”

(T. Livius,XLV)

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Pausanias

Pausanias, “Description of Greece”

• “They say that these were the clans collected by Amphictyon himself in the Greek assembly… The Macedonians managed to join and the entire Phocian race… In my day there were thirty members: six each from Nikopolis, Macedonia, and Thessaly – and from the Boeotoi that were the first that departed from Thessalia and that’s when they were called Aioloi – two from each of the Phokeis and Delphi, one from the ancient Dorida, the Lokroi send one from the Ozoloi and one from the ones living beyond Evoia, one from the Evoeis. From the Peloponnesians, one from Argos, one from Sikion, one from Korinthos and Megara, one from Athens…”

(Pausanias, Description of Greece, Phocis Book VIII, 4)

• “…later they added sinorida (race between two-horse-chariots) and horse-riding. In sinorida Velistichi from Makedonia, a woman of the sea, and Tlipolemos Likion were proclaimed victors, he at the 131st Olympiad and Velistichi, in sinorida, at the third Olympiad before that (128th)…”

(Pausanias, Description of Greece, Iliaka, VIII, 11)

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Aeschines

• “at the congress of the Lakedaimonian allies and the rest of the Hellenes, 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 rest of the Hellenes in voting…”

(Aeschines, On the Embassy 32)

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Callisthenes

• “Alexander came by the statue of his father and spoke loud: `Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for AS Hellenes WE should not be slaves to barbarians.” 

< `Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 1.15.1-4> 

• “Even though Xerxes had a huge host with him, he was a barbarian and was defeated by the prudence of the Hellenes; whereas Alexander the Hellene has already engaged in 13 battles and has not been defeated once.” 

< `Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 2.3.4.-5; Oration of Demosthenes> 

• “And, now, is justly the barbarian praised by the Athenians for capturing Hellenes? As for Alexander who is a Hellene and captured Hellenes, not only did he not imprison his opponents, but enlisted them and made them his allies instead of enemies… “ 

< `Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 2.4.5; Oration of Demosthenes> 

• “No king of the Hellenes had ever conquered Egypt with the exception only of Alexander, and that he did without war…” 

< `Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 2.4.7-8; Oration of Demosthenes> 

• “…so said the military leaders to the camps: `We have made enough war in Persia and conquered Dareios who claimed taxes from the Hellenes, but what are we accomplishing by marching against the Indians, in scary lands and doing things IMPROPER FROM HELLAS? If Alexandros has become full of himself and wishes to be a warrior, and subjugate barbarian peoples why do we follow him? Let him move on alone and engage in wars. Having heard these Alexander separated the Persian host from the MACEDONIANS AND THE OTHER HELLENES and addressed them…” 

(`Pseudo-Kallisthenes’ 3.1.2-4)  

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Ancient writers about Macedonia – Plutarch

Plutarch – Moralia, “On the Fortune of Alexander”  

• “
  

  Alexander lived many hundred years ago. He was king of Macedon, one of the states of Greece. His life was spent in war. He first conquered the other Grecian states, and then Persia, and India, and other countries one by one, till the whole known world was conquered by him. It is said that he wept, because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. He died, at the age of thirty-three, from drinking too much wine. In consequence of his great success in war, he was called Alexander the Great.”

(Plutarchos, Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A [Loeb, F.C. Babbitt]) 

• “But he said, `
  

  If I were not Alexandros, I should be Diogenes’; that is to say: `If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to diseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorius Hellenes should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos…’

  “ 

(Plutarchos, On the Fortune of Alexander, 332 a-b) 

• “
  

  Yet through Alexander, Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Hellenes … Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Hellenic magistracies … Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Hellenic city, for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence.’

(Plutarchos Moralia. On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A) 

• “
  

  When he (Alexander the Great) arrived at Ilion he sacrificed to Athenaand offered libations to the Heroes.” 

(Plutarchos, Alexander 15) 

• “It is agreed on by all hands, that on the father’s side, Alexander descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from Aeacus byNeoptolemus on the mother’s side” 
  

(Plutarch, The Life of Alexander)

IX. When Philip was besieging Byzantium he left to Alexander, who was then only sixteen years old, the sole charge of the administration of the kingdom of Macedonia, confirming his authority by entrusting to him his own signet. He defeated and subdued the Mædian rebels, took their city, ejected its barbarian inhabitants, and reconstituted it as a Grecian colony, to which he gave the name of Alexandropolis.

Plutarch’s Lives – Life of Alexander

“From when he was master of Egypt, designed to settle a colony of
GRECIANS there, he resolved to build a large and populous city, and give it his own name.”

Now why would he want to create a large and populous city (in a sense the capital of his empire) named after himself, full of non-Macedonians if he didn’t consider himself and the Macedonians Greek themselves.

pg.166

“He made the longest address that day to the Thessalians and other Greeks, who made answered him with loud shouts, desiring him to lead hem on against the BARBARIANS, upon which he shifted his javelin into his left hand and with his right lifted up towards heaven, besought the gods, as Callisthenes tells up, that if he was of a truth the son of Zeus, they would be pleased TO ASSIST AND STRENGTHEN THE GRECIANS.”

Once again to strengthen the GRECIANS and not Macedonians. This tells me that when people refer to Macedonians, they infer that they are Greeks but of Macedonia, just like the Athenians and Spartans are refered to just that, but no one ever questions their Greekness!

pg.170

“It is related that the first time he sat on the throne of Persia under the canopy of goled, Demaratus the Corinthian, who was much attached to him and had been one of his father’s friends, wept, in and old man’s manner, and deplored the misfortune OF THOSE GREEKS WHOM DEATH HAD DEPRIVED OF THE SATISFACTION OF SEEING ALEXANDER SEATED ON THE THRONE OF DARIUS.”

 

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