Macedonians in Roman times (was: Re: Ancient History bulletin (1))
John Prodromidis
Galina <sp...@erols.com> wrote on May/21/1997:
>
> Josif,
> Why bother witn more artillary I sometimes wonder? No matter
> what you put, John will come back with generalized diatribes and
> then, whatever source you list will simply list a bunch of names
> of references form antiquity, often without quoting them,
/
/
"From" antiquity? Please show me the case so I can rectify that
at once. I hope you don't confuse me with dear Slavko whom I have
asked on May 14th, 21st, and given up waiting for his "quotes"...
once again. :-)
> as if the mere mention of the odd Chrysostom will work some
> magic charm.
Very good!
On the very same day that I happened to mention John Chrysostomos
to Mangovski... And you picked it up. Well trained!
> Or taking the above, he might attempt to suggest that you do not
> know the precise meaning of kulturgeschichte. Or are
> referencing the wrong one of Aristotles theorums.
Such as?
> I once read this long rather turgid treatise on how Platonic
> thought was more compatible with eastern Orthodoxy and these
> exchanges remind me somewhat of that.
Very interesting. And if you do not mind my query:
Was this in the internet?
>
> As to the specifics above,
^^^^^^^^^
A first time for everything I guess.
But now you have obtained my undivided attention.
> there are many scholars who think that the people around in
> macedonia were Macedonians while the references to "Greeks"
> applied only to certain epople or to a priviledged class in the
> late Roman period in that area.
And what the erudite correspondent probably extrapolates, comes
from the field of Roman Studies, where things are pretty much
straight-forward, ever since the establishment of that field of
history to our days:
"While the Macedonians proper on the lower course of the Haliacmon
(Vistritza) and the Axius (Vardar), as far as the Strymon, were
an o r i g i n a l l y Greek stock, whose diversity from the
more southern Hellenes h a d n o f u r t h e r s i g n i-
f i c a n c e for the present epoch, and while the Hellenic
colonization embraced within its sphere both coasts -on the west
with Apollonia and Dyrrachium, on the east in particular with the
townships of the Chalcidian peninsula - the interior of the
province, on the other hand, was filled with a confused mass of
non-Greek peoples,...
The G r e e k c i t i e s, which the Romans found existing,
retained their organisation and their rights; Thessalonica, the
most considerable of them, also freedom and autonomy. There
existed a League and a Diet (`koivov') of the Macedonian towns,
similar to those in Achaia and Thessaly. It deserves mention, as
an evidence of the continued working of the memories of the old
and great times, that still in the middle of the third century
after Christ the diet of Macedonia and individual Macedonian
towns issued coins on which, in place of the head and name of the
reigning emperor, came those of Alexander the Great. The pretty
numerous colonies of Roman burgesses which Augustus established
in Macedonia, Byllis not far from Apollonia, Dyrrachium on the
Adriatic, on the other coast Dium, Pella, Cassandreia, in the
region of Thrace proper Philippi, w e r e a l l o f t h e m
o l d e r G r e e k towns, which obtained merely a number of
new burgesses and a different legal position, and were called
into life primarily by the need of providing quarters in a
civilised and not greatly populous province for Italian soldiers
who had served their time, and for whom there was no longer room
in Italy itself. The granting of Italian rights certainly took
place only to gild for the veterans their settlement abroad. That
it was never intended to draw Macedonia into a development of
Italian culture is evinced, apart from all else, by the fact that
Thessalonica remained Greek and the capital of the country."
<Theodor Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire,
vol.1, translated by W.P.Dickson, from the 1909
edition (Chicago, Ares Publishers, 1974), pp.299-301>
"Hadrian... also founded a temple of `Zeus Panhellenios', and
established Panhellenic games and an annual Panhellenic assembly
of deputies from all the cities of Greece and all those outside
which could prove their foundation from Greece;... The importance
attached to Hadrian's institution is best illustrated by an early
third-century inscription from Thessalonica honouring a local
magnate, T.Aelius Geminius Macedo [Makedon] , who had not only
held magistracies and provided timber for a basilica in his own
city, and been Imperial `curator' of Apollonia, but had been
archon of the Panhellenic congress in Athens, priest of the
deified Hadrian and president of the eighteenth Panhellenic
Games (199/200); the inscription mentions proudly that he was the
first `archon' of the Panhellenic Congress from the city of Thes-
salonica. That was one side of the picture, the development of
Greek civilization and the c o n s c i o u s c e l e b r a-
t i o n of its u n i t y and prosperity. In the native
populations of the East it produced mixed feelings, nowhere
better exemplified than the conversation of three Rabbis of the
second century,..." <Fergus Millar, "The Roman Empire and its
Neighbours," 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth,
1981), pp.205-206>
> The passage often quoted from the Acts of the Apostles is like
> that,
Absolutely right: Having ended up in Thessaloniki and addressing
the members of the local Jewish synagogue...
"some of them were convinced and joined Paul and Silas, and
so did a great many God-fearing Hellenes," <Acts 17.4>
> as are mentions of Macedonians and the tribute they pay in
> Byzantine texts. It is clear that the people were there, that
> they defended themselves and that they were separate somehow.
Right on again! As the other regional Greeks (Thessalians,
Achaians, etc.) the Macedonians felt "separate" from the Slavs,
and appear to have "defended themselves" against them:
"...and the barbarians [Avars and Slavs] arrived... and the
number of besiegers was far greater not only of all the
Macedonians but also of the Thessalians and Achaians (were
one to gather them all as a heap in Thessaloniki)..."
<"Miracles of Saint Demetrios," Book 1, 13.116;
(On the events of Sunday, 22 September, 586?);
Patrologia Graecae, vol.116>
> And that they intermarried, but maybe no more so than Greeks
> with other peoples, but it is also clear that they retained
> their identity
"...these mountains [the Pindos Mountain-range near Kasto-
ria] were the limits between the [despotate of] `Old and
New Epeiros', and our Hellenic lands."
<Georgios Akropolitis, `Annales', Patrologia
Graecae, vol.140 col: 1196a (80)>
And, I am sure, Galina in no way implied that there were not
other people in the region as well. For example, somewhat in the
north:
"So, I am down here among Bulgarians, a true Constanti-
noupolitan, a foreign body, living like a Bulgarian..."
<Theophylactos of Ohrid, "To the Despoina Lady
Maria [Alani]," 58-59>
> and that their identity flowered with the Ohrid Renaissance in a
> perceptible way with contributions to church hymnography,
> iconography and architecture.
> And the two symbols of the star of Vergina and the spiral have
> remained continuously in Macedonian art sometimes when they were
> absent in Byzantine art of the same type. To see this symbolism
> beofre the Alexandrian period and without ceasing into the 20th
> century in folk art, in church art. Oh, what is the use? It is
> so tiring to see this unrelenting blindness.
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
And we may think so, but what can we do? It is your style, my pet.
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