Alexander did not care about Helenism nor Helenization

Sharrukin

I won't proceed to a thorough reply, I'll for you to come up with something about the rest of my post.

But I can't avoid the "Pelasgian" issue, so I think I can safely put up some remarks on that:

You are trying to interprete ancient politics without recognizing them as such.  It was common knowledge in ancient Greece that the Pelasgians were the indigenous population of the southern balkans, the people the Greek tribes found when they settled in.

It was also common knowledge (or common prejudice, misunderstanding, superstition or whatever) that some Greeks came from Pelasgic stock - like the Athenian.

Those two sentences seem contradictory to eachother, but they are not if you try for one moment to think in political terms instead of clinically historical ones.

The Greeks are the first who excelled in the mastery of politics (the Romans, well, surpassed them later), just think of that.

I won't feed you with the answers, you are a clever man and can find them for yourself. I'll just point out to the fact that what we call early Greek culture dates back in the southern Balkans, to the beginning of the third millenia BC. There is a strong case for continuity in that are, from prehistoric to historic times. The "invasion" theories make for a good fairy tale, something to put the kids to sleep at night, but they really don't hold much water when examined closely, even with the fragmented and rather controversial archeological evidence we have at hand.

In that context, I couldn't help noticing that you are still supporting the - unfounded, horribly outdated and in the end misleading - "Dorian invasion" theory.  You should be aware of a number of factors pointing out that such a thing never happened. The only "invasion" seems to be a shifting of population from northern and central Greece to the Peloponese - and that's it.

I have completely lost the topic! Of course there were civilizations co-existing for a while before one dominated the other. This discussion reminds me of the question: "which was first, the egg or the chicken"?

Anyway, going back to Herodotus, his claim that Athenians were "Pelasgians" is politically motivated to support the Athenian claim that they're "autochthones" and therefore (since they "were there first") can claim land rights. Herodotus displays a blatant pro-Athenian bias, and a close reading of the Histories reveals that many his sources were pro-Athenian (as one would expect, given that he spent a good deal of time in Athens and in Thurii, a colony of Athens).

This notion was not, by any means, supported by other Greeks.

Herodotus puts anything typical of, or surviving from, the state of things in Greece before the coming of the Greeks as "Pelasgic" and get's it over with. (In this sense one could regard all Greece as formerly "Pelasgic", which is in essence truth!)

Other sources:

Pythia tells the Pelasgians to give the Athenians whatever they desire.  The request is for the Pelasgian territory.  The response is that, when a ship can travel from Athens to Pelasgian territory in a single day, with a north wind, we will give you our land.  The Pelagians are �well assured� (epistamenoi) that this is impossible, since Attica is far to the south of Lemnos.  

Homer, in Iliad, mentions as Pelasgians the inhabitants of Thrace, later in Odyssey he places them living in Crete amongst Dorians and Achaeans (but doesn't comment on their status). There're no Pelasgians mentioned in Lemnos but there're Minyans.

We have the epithet Pelasgic" to a district called Argos in southern Thessaly , and to the temple of Zeus at Dodona . But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans are the inhabitants of Thessaly, and Dodona hosts Perraebians and Aenianes, all of the Greeks. Most likelly "pelasgic" here means simply "old".

What you fail to mention is that Herodotus alludes to an even more older author, Hecateus, who mentions a Pelasgian presence in Attica until some were expelled to settle Lemnos.  We already know from Homer's Illiad that the most ancient kings of Athens were already referred to as "earth-born".   The inference is obvious.  If Herodotus was the first to use the term "Pelasgian" for the Athenians, he uses it as a connotation for the more ancient Athenian claim to nativeness.  Now, if Homer is using somewhat similar language for a specific political purpose, please specify it. 

Yes, one can say that Herodotus was pro-Athenian, especially since he declared that Athens was the most responsible for the independence of the Greeks against Persian tyranny, but so what?  He still was utilizing more ancient Athenian traditions of ancientness.  But since you mention it, he was obviously pro-Macedonian royal house as well, but I'm not going to further comment on his evidence, since I don't think it relevant.

Yes, on the southern coast of Thrace, where Herodotus also locates Pelasgian enclaves.

Hesiod mentions them there as well.

The reason for no Pelasgians in Lemnos is that they arrived there from Athens at a later date.  Read Herodotus again and you will get the sense that their arrival there was more recent in date.

Strange.  Hesiod says that when Apollo was living in Magnesia, Hermes stole his cattle and:

"He drove them through the country of the Pelasgi, and Achaea in the land of Phthia, and through Locris, and Boeotia and Megegaris, and thence into Peloponnesus......"

In this passage "Pelasgians" are specifically mentioned between Magnesia and Phthia.

In another passage, Hesiod says:

"He went to Dodona and the oak-grove, the dwelling place of the Pelasgi". 

Again, another mention of this people.  So, no, the sense is obviously not meant be mean "old" but rather that the population of these places were pre-Greek.  Where are you getting your sources of information?

I will deal with your responses, Romano, within 24 hours. 

Yiannis, if I sound a bit too arrogant, I apologize, okay.

Hesiod's perception was based on his observation of the Macedonians of his time.  He considered them kindred enough to Greeks to warrant putting them on a "mythological construct" making them "cousins" to the Greeks.  He did not perceive them as fitting any of the four categories of Greeks he mentions as children or grandchildren of Hellen.

Herodotus, almost three hundred years later, on the other hand, saw them as pre-Dorians and as "cousin" to Dorians.   Since he does not say that these "Makednons" were Greek but only the Dorians, there is left enough of a doubt even among his readers as to the national origin of the royal house itself, which he himself took pains to "demonstrate" that they were Greek.  He did after all say that the Greeks were a branch of the Pelasgians.  There is nothing then, not suggest that these "Makednons" were Pelasgians.  

His contemporary, Hellanicus, viewed them as Aeolian and therefore Greek.   Perhaps Hellanicus saw the Hellenization of the Macedonians in full swing.  Which witness should we believe; as the pre-Dorians of the Dorian Herodotus, or as the Aeolians of the Aeolian Hellanicus?  Perhaps the answer lies in the time between Hesiod and Herodotus/Hellanicus; that the Macedonians were becoming Greek, and that the Greeks of the fifth century BC held different views of the Macedonians.  Three hundred years is enough time to transform a people.  It is only sufficient for me to say that until about 550 BC, Greek culture did not predominate in Macedonia, despite Greek colonies established there since about 750 BC when the Macedonians were first observed. 

Me "discrediting" Hesiod or Herodotus?  You hurt me Yiannis.

I never said that the Pelasgians of one place were related to the Pelasgians of another place.  As far as I'm concerned, "Pelasgians" is a blanket term for peoples seen by the Greeks as either pre-Greeks or their descendants inhabiting the same regions as the Greeks.

Now I have to post-pone my response to Romano, since I'm posting this kind of late today, my time.  I'll try again tomorrow. 

I concede the point Yiannis Grammatis. 

By the way, is anyone else having difficulty accessing these threads?  I've been trying for the longest to access these forums today, but they didn't want to build when I clicked on the links.  I was finally able to get this far only after 10:00 pm, my time!!!

They were traditions rather than theories.  Irregardless of Herodotus's pro-Athenian leanings, he does allude to traditions which were known to the older Hecateus and even from the time of Homer. 

But in fact we do have references of Achaean migration.  According to the received traditions, descendants (or sons) of Achaeus migrated from Achaean Phthia in Thessaly to Argolis where they intermarried with the daughters of king Danaus.  They gained such an influence that the Argives became known as Achaeans.  The dynasty remained Danaean but the population was becoming Hellenized. 

Rather it was his "source" which was "perceptive", but since I looked at the passages personally, I found the name "Pelasgi" was indeed mentioned in them, specifically.  So, no, I cannot agree with his source.

Because the Greeks can only be considered one of many groups which constituted the Helladic culture.  Their traditions are quite persistent that they were not the only ones in Greece, and thus we have a multiplicity of names of non-Greek tribes distributed all over Greece in the mythological period.  By sometime in the Late Helladic period they began to predominate.  The first evidence of the Greek language, in Crete, dates from about 1450 BC and on the mainland from about 1300 BC, in diverse places.  Thus by perhaps 1500 BC the Greeks began to predominate, mostly through peaceful infiltration into areas formely not under their rule.  The traditions mostly begin their migrations either in Thessaly or from an adjacent region in northern Greece. 

You know, after trying to find specific material to add flesh to this "Continuity Theory" I still find the specifics elusive.  I've read time and time again, all these declarative statements about the "Kurgan invasions" being a "myth", "outdated", "disproved", etc. and I'm not finding anything concrete to disprove the "invasionist" position.  They are purely declarative statements.  Now, on the other hand, Greece does show a continuity from the Neolithic period.  As a matter of fact there are other regions where IE languages penetrated which do show continuity. These facts in no way disprove "invasionist" theory.  Greece happened to have a strong culture which was adopted by the invaders.  The same cannot be said of the more northern Balkans. 

Gimbutas's studies (much despised by Continuity theorists) do show displacement of populations coincidental with the introduction of cultural elements from the steppe which appreciably altered the cultures of the region within the space of two millennia.  Old European cultures were either hybridized, displaced, or submerged, and new names are given by the archaeologists to the new cultures to reflect these changes.  The proliferation of "kurgans" in the Balkans cannot simply be explained in terms of cultural fusion or trade.  This burial custom has behind it both religious and social undertones, facits of culture which would have been resisted by local populations.

And let's face it, in historic times we do find large-scale invasions which change the linguistic composition of large areas without appreciably altering the local culture.  How is it that Illyrians, Paeonians, and Thracians were absorbed by the Slavs?  Byzantine chronicles even mention Slavic penetration and settlement into the Peloponnese itself, although these Slavs were eventually absorbed.   How is it that central Asia became Turkified?   I think that Continuity Theory has taken the opposite extreme and deny evidence which can explain many things. 

In about 1200 BC in the Peloponnese:  Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Meneleion, Korakou (in Corinthia).  Other centers like Zygouries, Prosymna, Berbati, and Nemea were abandoned all about the same time. 

You seemed to have ignored the evidence of the place-names, to establish languages in Greece other than Greek.  We can watch the evolution of the Greek itself in two ways.  We can find the root words within Greek itself to establish whether a certain word was originally Greek, and we can compare Greek with other IE languages to find points of commonality.  As you may know, the languages which are the most similar to Greek are the Indo-Aryan languages.   In terms of geography, their relationship cannot be explained from contact in the Middle East, since we know that the earliest languages of these regions were Hattian, Hurrian, and Semitic.  On the other hand we do have evidence of a continuum of Iranic languages on the Eurasian steppe into the Balkans, and so by extension we have a northern Eurasian continuum of IE languages stretching into Iran and India.  Add to this, Phrygian and Armenian whose bearers were said to have originated in the Balkans, and which also show affinities with Greek and we can paint a picture of a time, when bearers of what would become Greek were part of an extended community of speakers of similar languages somewhere in eastern Balkans or the Pontic steppe. 

Anthropologists note that settled populations are much more conservative in maintaining their language than mobile populations.  In other words, it is unlikely that the settled population would adopt words from newcomers if the words already exist in their own language.  Mobile populations on the other hand will adopt words from the native language.  Take the case of ancient Sumerian.  The Akkadian population adopted Sumerian terminology and not visa versa. 

Yes, most European culture remained quite concervative to change, but let's not forget that linguistically, Europe did see much change.  You cannot deny that there were conquests and invasions, such as that of the Romans which altered the linguistic map of part of the Balkans (i.e. Romania) and western Europe (i.e. Portugal, Spain, and France).  You cannot deny large-scale Celtic, Germanic and Slavic invasions which, although didn't make that much of a cultural impact, nevertheless made a linguistic one (the Slavs more so than the Germanics). 

Yes, in terms of genetics, studies do show that 80% of European genes originated in Paleolithic populations.  But this in itself does not exclude "invasionist" theories.  Local genetics pretty much absorb the invaders genotypically. 

Hesiod's perception was based on his observation of the Macedonians of his time.  He considered them kindred enough to Greeks to warrant putting them on a "mythological construct" making them "cousins" to the Greeks.  He did not perceive them as fitting any of the four categories of Greeks he mentions as children or grandchildren of Hellen.

    .Hesoid stated the Macedonians were related to the Thessalians as brothers.Thus are you saying Thessalians were not Greek?

  From the daughter of Deucalion sprang Magnes and Macedon, ancestors of the Magnesians and Macedonians, who are thus

   Since Deucalion was the Father of all Greeks and the Macedonians were his offspring then it is implied quite coherantly that Macedonians like Thessalians(Magnes) were related to the Hellenes thus shaing a common origin.So the Greeks accepted Hesoid's observation that they had a common origin with the Macedonians in 720 BC well before Phillip's time.

 In addition please keep in mind that Greeks did not always use the word Hellas to describe themselves .In the Illiad only Achilles and his myridoms came from a place called Hellas.Greeks used the terms Acheans,Argeives and Danaans to describe their kin not Hellenes.The term Hellas to describe the Greek peoples was gradually applied well after the Trojan war.

ince he does not say that these "Makednons" were Greek but only the Dorians,

 Read Herodotus more carefully he states that the Makedon were the original Hellenes who

settled about Pindos under the name Makednon."
(Herodotos 1.56)

  He clearly associates the Macedonians among the earliest of Greeks.He also states the Dorians emerged from the Makedon's.The name Makedon proceeds the Dorian name.Only when some of the original Greek tribes entered the Peloponese was the name Dorian used.

 HEROD -from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian."

From the Peloponnese, the following- the Lacedaemonians with six, teen ships; the Corinthians with the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians with fifteen; the Epidaurians with ten; the Troezenians with five; and the Hermionians with three. These were Dorians and Macedonians all of them (except those from Hermione), and had emigrated last from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis. The Hermionians were Dryopians, of the race which Hercules and the Malians drove out of the land now called Doris. Such were the Peloponnesian nations. 

    Herodotus  states that Peloponisians were heavily composed of MACEDONIAN stock from Pindus

     So if MACEDONIANS were not Greek neither were the Peloponisians.Herodotus was read in Macedonia and the rest of Greece and his conclusions were accepted.If the Macedonians were not  Greek and the Peloponisians were accepted as deriving largely from Macedonian stock then then the Peloponesians would not have been considered Greek.Could you imagine a nation as proudly Greek as the Spartan one being referred to as non Greek? 

  Hesoid and Herodotus wrote well before Phillip's time when Macedonia was not a major power so they had no reason to lie to claim ATGs conquests

    He did after all say that the Greeks were a branch of the Pelasgians.  There is nothing then, not suggest that these "Makednons" were Pelasgians.  

     Twisting Herodotus here.Herodotus stated that Hellens referred to themselves with different names in areas they settled.Makedon in Pindus- Dorians in the Peloponese ect .Thus since they were associated with original Greek (Makedons-after they settled in Pindus) they were once part of the Pelasgian peoples before they seperated.

   So not only were the Macedonians Greek but they were directly linked to the original tribe of Greeks while the Athenians were not.Thus according to Herodotus Macedonians were more Greek then even the Atheniansin ORIGIN .The Athenians were Hellenized NOT the MACEDONIANs who were associated with the earliest HELLENES.

Where does he say that they were Doric Greeks? What he says is the Macedonians were pre-Dorians and related to Dorians, but he never says that they were Greeks.

Interesting replies Sharrukin... I'll have to deal with them later, because I've got little time for research and reading currently.

Only two points that do not need much reading (only common sense):

In previous posts you seem to imply that we can trace a great deal of data only from linguistical evidence. And there is this common notion (not a common fallacy, I assume) that names (be it names of people or of places) carry a whole lotta weight in the linguistics, as they show among many other things if "alien" intermixtures have occured - you are trying to prove that there was indeed a "Kurgan invasion" based almost 90% on linguistic evidence.

And here you proceed to disqualify a humangous pile of evidence, the Macedonian names, with a (simply wrong) argument of them being of the 4th century and on and the previous being mostly of kings...

I found this an extremely selective way of interpreting things... when it fits we use it, when it doesn't we discard it? Reminds me of how Gimbutas manipulated her evidence so she could prove her Kurgan theory

We have a very large body of Macedonian names at our disposal. Yes, the bulk of those (like 90%) are from the early 4th century and on. But I would assume - as every historian or linguist would assume - that if they were hellenized somewhere in the 6th century, as you imply, they would keep a vast body of their own names in a hellenized form.

Well, as I pointed out, only one single name we have for Macedonians, does not have Greek roots.

The rest (about 99.8%) are from Greek roots.

Care to explain how such a disrepancy (really, a blasphemy in the face of linguistics, if your theory about "hellenization" of the Macedonians is to be held of any value) has occured? It would be unique in the annals of history, you know.

Also, when I said that Karians, Thracians, Lydians and Lykians were hellenized, you said that they preserved their ethnic and linguistic identity (they didn't, but that's a whole different story and we can't discuss it as a side-issue) well into the Roman times... Well, we know that the hellenization of Karians, for instance, started in the 6th century BC. Herodotus himself was half-Karian.

If the national identity of the Karians, who began being hellenized from the 6th century BC, was not "complete"  "well into the Roman period and even into the Byzantine period" (that would be about 1.000 years at least, correct?), how on earth could the Macedonian be so thoroughly assimilated in a period of 2 centuries, just because some Greek colonies were founded in Macedonia, and leave us absolutely nothing (and I repeat: NOTHING) that speaks of a different cultural and ethnical and linguistical identity?

I mean, I don't believe the Greeks had any close connection with The Borg

You are being extremely inconsistent, my friend. That's not very scientific.

Ah, btw. allen cannot be interpreted as "elsewhere" (and it doesn't make any sense in that context - "Macedonia and elsewhere of Greece?" ) - that word is "allouthe".

Sharukin, why are you getting upset? I mean, I ain't Greek, you ain't "Macedonian", why are you getting so "passionate" about this escapes my mind... and your tone ain't improving either... I mean "do your research" is rather rude... and I could've said it to you a few times before (but didn't).

I am not trying to win an argument here, I am just trying to put forth the scientific data available so we, being rather intelligent people and quite knowledgeable, and not operating on one agenda or another, can draw some educated, scientific conclusions.

But you seem extremely fixed to the idea that Macedonians were non-Greeks and you carry on with your effort to disprove valid data on that claim.

I am not accusing you, I am just stating the obvious: that your sole effort is to disprove what I am writing, not to actually seek what is true.

In that context (since you mentioned it) you are still dodging my main question. Let me repeat it, in hope I will get a straight answer.

Cultures tend to preserve their names. A society, ethnic group or whatever, that has adopted a foreign culture, shall carry a host of names (be it of people, places etc.) through the "transformation". You can see that in many cultures that have adopted foreign cultures, one or another.

In the case of Macedonia, we have nothing like that. The hellenization theory doesn't stand the trial of scientific examination because

- No Macedonian names have non-Greek roots. That should be ample evidence enough. Yes, the bulk of the Macedonian names we have comes from the 4th century and on, but how come and people have not preserved some of their names in a hellenized form? Why only one single macedonian name (1=one=uno=ein=ena=1) has non-Greek roots? Don't dodge this with hellenization, we are talking about ROOTS - the Indo-european roots in the current IE languages are still tracable, 6000 years (according to others, 7, 8 or even 10.000 years) after the IE tribes have split... how can't we trace names and words of a culture that has been "assimilated" by a superior culture only a few decades ago?

- When does cultural assimilation occur. That is a rather funny beast. We have the supposed "Macedonians", a culture that you (and Borza) suggest that has Illyrian roots. Illyrian is, as you probably know, an umbrella term designed to cover a rather wide array of cultures that had little or nothing in common. Yet, the Macedonians were numerous, that many that their manpower was comparable with that of all southern city states. And you believe they were assimilated into the Greeks just because they neighbor Greece and because a number of Greek colonies was established there? Could you point out to other similar occurences in the historical annals? A large body of non-natives being assimilated to a (superior or not, doesn't really matter) foreign culture just because of proximity, when the numbers of the "lesser" culture are greater than those of the "assimilators"? I mean, there were dozens of Greek colonies and settlements in Illyricum, and Greek Epiros was bordering it... but it wasn't assimilated - never. Why did - their cusins, according to your interpretation - Macedonians got so thoroughly hellenized by two dozens of Greek colonies, so that in the 4th century they ALL consider themselves Greek? I repeat: last time I checked, the BORG was residing in the Star Treck universe, not in Ancient Balkans.

I was thinking that this is not a contest "outsmart the other guy", but actually an exchange of ideas, data and evidence, in order to seek some productive medium (if there is one).

Was I wrong?