July 10, 2011
Miltiades Elia Bolaris
One of the reasons ancient Greek thought, whether poetic, philosophical, historical or dramatic is considered the foundation of all that is of value in western civilization is precisely its timeliness in expressing human emotion and pathos in a way unequaled before -and certainly setting up an unattainable standard of excellence for what has followed since. There is a line that runs from Homer and Hesiod to Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides and Plato, flowing through Epicurus, Zeno, Arrian, Diodorus and Plutarch, a tragic but full of fresh energy line that connects humanity and all that is worthy in it to the pen of a genius.
While this paper's topic is on how Plutarch viewed Alexander and the Macedonians, I will permit myself the usage of other sources, which will help us expose the shallowness of some of the arguments used by the pseudo-Makedonists.
First the podium will be given to professor Griz...ovski, a.k.a. Gandeto, who, in the fifth of his "Plutarch´s seven points of interest on Macedonians and Greeks" claims that since the citizens of Thebes were making the case of liberating Greece, indeed, all the city states implicitly excluding Macedonia, and since Alexander captured, plundered and razed Thebes to the ground, expecting the Greeks to be terrified, adding the two and we are faced with the proof that the Macedonians are not Greek.
In Gandeto's own words:
"5. Thebes: Plutarch, Alexander 11.
Thebans´ response to Alexander´s demand to surrender the ring leaders against Macedon (chance given to them to repent) with proclamation:
"Anyone who wanted to help them liberate Greece should join their ranks."
"Their city was captured, plundered and razed to the ground, mainly because Alexander expected the Greeks to be terrified at the enormity of the disaster and to cower in fear, but also as a specious way of gratifying his allies´ grievances.
(a) "To liberate Greece" includes and encompasses all the city-states where Greeks lived; and by the same token, patently excludes Macedon from Greece.
(b) Alexander expected the Greeks to be "terrified and to cower in fear."
Conventional wisdom dictates that we must confront the obvious: If Alexander were a Greek king and if the ancient Macedonians were indeed Greeks, would he expect his own Macedonians be to terrified and cowered in fear too? Notice, though, that the reference is to "all Greeks" and not just the Thebans."
Now let's read what Plutarch actually wrote, without any interference or editing:
[4] προσμίξας δὲ ταῖς Θήβαις καὶ διδοὺς ἔτι τῶν πεπραγμένων μετάνοιαν ἐξῄτει Φοίνικα καὶ Προθύτην, καὶ τοῖς μεταβαλλομένοις πρὸς αὐτὸν ἄδειαν ἐκήρυττε. τῶν δὲ Θηβαίων ἀντεξαιτούντων μὲν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ Φιλώταν καὶ Ἀντίπατρον, κηρυττόντων δὲ τοὺς τὴν Ἑλλάδα βουλομένους συνελευθεροῦν τάττεσθαι μετ᾽ αὐτῶν, οὕτως ἔτρεψε τοὺς Μακεδόνας πρὸς πόλεμον. [5] ἠγωνίσθη μὲν οὖν ὑπὲρ δύναμιν ἀρετῇ καὶ προθυμίᾳ παρὰ τῶν Θηβαίων πολλαπλασίοις οὖσι τοῖς πολεμίοις ἀντιταχθέντων ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ τὴν Καδμείαν ἀφέντες οἱ φρουροὶ τῶν Μακεδόνων ἐπέπιπτον αὐτοῖς ἐξόπισθεν, κυκλωθέντες οἱ πλεῖστοι κατὰ τὴν μάχην αὐτὴν ἔπεσον, ἡ δὲ πόλις ἥλω καὶ διαρπασθεῖσα κατεσκάφη, τὸ μὲν ὅλον προσδοκήσαντος αὐτοῦ τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐκπλαγέντας πάθει τηλικούτῳ καὶ πτήξαντας ἀτρεμήσειν, ἄλλως δὲ καὶ καλλωπισαμένου χαρίζεσθαι τοῖς τῶν συμμάχων ἐγκλήμασι: καὶ γὰρ Φωκεῖς καὶ Πλαταιεῖς τῶν Θηβαίων κατηγόρησαν, [6] ὑπεξελόμενος δὲ τοὺς ἱερεῖς καὶ τοὺς ξένους τῶν Μακεδόνων ἅπαντας καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Πινδάρου γεγονότας καὶ τοὺς ὑπεναντιωθέντας τοῖς ψηφισαμένοις τὴν ἀπόστασιν, ἀπέδοτο τοὺς ἄλλους περὶ τρισμυρίους γενομένους: οἱ δὲ ἀποθανόντες ὑπὲρ ἑξακισχιλίους ἦσαν.
[4] Arrived before Thebes, and wishing to give her still a chance to repent of what she had done, he merely demanded the surrender of Phoenix and Prothytes, and proclaimed an amnesty for those who came over to his side. But the Thebans made a counter-demand that he should surrender to them Philotas and Antipater, and made a counter-proclamation that all who wished to help in setting Greece free should range themselves with them; and so Alexander set his Macedonians to the work of war. [5] On the part of the Thebans, then, the struggle was carried on with a spirit and valour beyond their powers, since they were arrayed against an enemy who was many times more numerous than they; but when the Macedonian garrison also, leaving the citadel of the Cadmeia, fell upon them in the rear, most of them were surrounded, and fell in the battle itself and their city was taken, plundered, and razed to the ground. This was done, in the main, because Alexander expected that the Greeks would be terrified by so great a disaster and cower down in quiet, but apart from this, he also plumed himself on gratifying the complaints of his allies; for the Phocians and Plataeans had denounced the Thebans. [6] So after separating out the priests, all who were guest-friends of the Macedonians, the descendants of Pindar, and those who had voted against the revolt, he sold the rest into slavery, and they proved to be more than thirty thousand; those who had been slain were more than six thousand.
Plutarch, Alexander,11.4-6
We will come back to Plutarch's text, but for now, all we need to note is that from the text above, Yugoslav "conventional wisdom dictates that we must confront the obvious", and the "obvious" according to Gandeto is that basically "the Macedonians were not Greeks."
We know that as soon as Alexander and the Macedonian army arrived outside the walls of Thebes,
"a detachment of Thebans made a shortie and killed some Macedonians; but Alexander offered a free pardon if Thebes was prepared to re-enter the Common peace and let the diffident leaders be tried by the Council of the Common Peace.
Within the walls an Assembly of the People considered the offer. Some speakers advised acceptance 'in the public interest" (Arr. An. 1.7.11), others rejection. The Assembly chose rejection, probably in the belief that armies were on the way from Aetolia, Athens, and the Peloponnese."
"The Macedonian State, The Origins, Institutions and History, N.G.L. Hammond, Oxford University Press, 1989-1992, page 202.
We know, therefore, what was being debated in the Theban Assembly. Our sources give us the arguments for and against the offer of compromise with king Alexander of Macedonia.
Let's hear a related speech:
"It is true you have a cause which binds you together more firmly than your fathers were. They fought to be free from the usurpations of the Persian crown, but they fought against a manly foe. You fight against the offscourings of the earth"...(they)
"...now come to you with their hands steeped in blood, robbing the widow, destroying houses, seizing the grey-haired father, and incarcerating him in prison because he will not be a traitor to the principles of his fathers and the land that gave him birth."...
"A few, I trust, may come from every battle fleid to fulfil the pledge they made that they would come to Thebes-- but they will come as captives, not as conquerors."
"Every crime which could characterize the course of demons has marked the course of the invader. The northern portion of Boeotia has been ruthlessly desolated--the people not only deprived of the means of subsistence, but their household property destroyed, and every indignity which the base imagination of a merciless foe could suggest inflicted, without regard to age, sex or condition."...
"By showing themselves so utterly disgraced that if the question was proposed to you whether you would combine with hyenas or Macedonians, I trust every Boeotian would say, give me the hyenas."...
"This is a new government, formed of independent Hellenic States, each jealous of its own sovereignty."
I would ask the reader to go over this related speech once again, to read every line carefully and absorb every argument to its core. Yes, we sense the hatred against the "offscourings of the earth", yes we sense the pathos for independence away from outside control, yes we feel the outrage for the "merciless foe" 's "hands steeped in blood, robbing the widow, destroying houses, seizing the grey-haired father, and incarcerating him in prison because he will not be a traitor to the principles of his fathers and the land that gave him birth", and yes, of course we also hear all too loud the cry that given the proposition, the speaker and his audience "would say, give me the hyenas."
But we honestly need to ask ourselves: Does "conventional wisdom" make it inevitable that based on the arguments brought forward by this speech, asked to make a determination, we would to come to the inevitable conclusion that democratic and independent loving Thebans and Macedonians are by necessity of a different ethnic background?
The reader would have to decide if Gandeto's arguments hold any water. I beg to differ, because differences in the political organization of a society do not in and by themselves predetermine nationality. They are just that, political differences, leading to differences in political organizations and structures. North and South Korea have been at each others' throats ever since the early 1950's but this does not make one any less Korean than the other.
To make this point more apparent, we can take the previous speech and substitute the names:
Whereas "Persian Crown" we substitute it with "British Crown", Thebes with Richmond, Boeotia with Virginia, Macedonians with Yankees, Boeotian with Virginian and "Hellenic States" simply with "States". Now let's read it once again, under a 19th century light:
"It is true you have a cause which binds you together more firmly than your fathers were. They fought to be free from the usurpations of the British crown, but they fought against a manly foe. You fight against the offscourings of the earth"...(they)
"...now come to you with their hands steeped in blood, robbing the widow, destroying houses, seizing the grey-haired father, and incarcerating him in prison because he will not be a traitor to the principles of his fathers and the land that gave him birth."...
"A few, I trust, may come from every battle fleid to fulfil the pledge they made that they would come to Richmond-- but they will come as captives, not as conquerors."
"Every crime which could characterize the course of demons has marked the course of the invader. The northern portion of Virginia has been ruthlessly desolated--the people not only deprived of the means of subsistence, but their household property destroyed, and every indignity which the base imagination of a merciless foe could suggest inflicted, without regard to age, sex or condition."...
"By showing themselves so utterly disgraced that if the question was proposed to you whether you would combine with hyenas or Yankees, I trust every Virginian would say, give me the hyenas."...
"This is a new government, formed of independent States, each jealous of its own sovereignty."
This is in fact the original speech, and while it could as well have been given by the rebel faction in the Assembly of freedom-loving Thebes, it was in fact given in the Executive Mansion, in Richmond, Va., on January 5, 1863 by the confederate president Jefferson Davis. I used it because it shows that similar situations produce similar arguments. Human pathos is indeed timeless, after all, and only the actors change, the drama remains the same; it just enriches itself with different costumes. Reading this speech, an ideological offspring of Gandeto of the distant future could gleefully argue that "conventional wisdom dictates that we must confront the obvious": The Yankees and the Confederates were of different nationality, that the Confederates were not Americans.
Like the Thebans and the southern Greeks thousands of years before them, the Southern states, Jefferson Davis said in 1863, were "forced to take up arms to vindicate the political rights, the freedom, equality, and State sovereignty which were the heritage purchased by the blood of our revolutionary sires."
How could the Southerners have been Americans?...someone again could argue, basing his arguments solely on quotations taken out of context. Wasn't it Robert E. Lee, himself, the marshal general of the Confederacy who, after the defeat in 1865, counseled his southern compatriots telling them:
"Abandon your animosities and make your sons Americans."
"He Lost a War and Won Immortality", Louis Redmond
Here, again, comes the echo: surely, you do not "make" someone an "American" if he is already an American! That would be contrary to the "dictates" of "conventional wisdom"! The Confederates hated everything American, after all, and the "proof" is irrefutable:
Oh, I'm a good old rebel
Now thats just what I am
And for this yankee nation
I do not give a damn.
I'm glad I fit against 'er
I only wish we'd won
I ain't asked any pardon
For anything I've done.
I hates the Yankee nation
And eveything they do
I hates the declaration
Of independence too.
I hates the glorious union
'Tis dripping with our blood
I hates the striped banner
...
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I'd like to kill some mo'.
...
Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in southern dust
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
...
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.
...
I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em down no mo'
But I ain't a-goin' to love 'em
Now that is serten sho.
...
And I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am
I won't be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn.
...
And for this Yankee nation
I do no give a damn.
I'm glad I fought against 'er
I only wish we'd won..."
Confederate song: "O, I'm a good old Rebel"
And on another note, the Aleksandar Donskis of the future will ascertain their readers that the confederates spoke "Confederate", not English, since they used "Confederate" "fit" instead of the English "fight", "serten sho" and "no mo' " instead of the English "certain" and "sure" "any more" and "Yankees is stiff" instead of the English "Yankees are killed".
Going back to the "Old rebel" song, I doubt that Gandeto would even need any more proof, if anything like a Greek version of such Macedonian vs southern Greek expression of hatred as this American civil war song, had ever been written.
Going back to Thebes now, all that Alexander asked of the Thebans, once he....
"Arrived before Thebes, and wishing to give her still a chance to repent of what she had done, he merely demanded the surrender of Phoenix and Prothytes, and proclaimed an amnesty for those who came over to his side."
This is it...just the right to punish two of his personal political opponents, in return for full amnesty. Now that is a lot better deal than what General Phillip Sheridan offered the men women and children he encountered cutting through the Shenandoah Valley :
"The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war."
Hugh Tulloch, "The Routledge companion to the American Civil War era", page 131
"Lincoln's troops razed the South and doomed to poverty generations of Southerners for many years to come. General Sherman's "March to the Sea" was nothing more than a marauding rampage filled with robbery, rape, and murder. These men were less soldiers on a military mission and more common thugs on a crime spree. Northern armies brought war to women, children, and privately held property as a matter of official policy (rather than as so-called "collateral damage")."
"Abraham Lincoln: An American Tyrant", by Dave Gibson, 2005.
"Thebans´ response to Alexander´s demand to surrender the ring leaders against Macedon (chance given to them to repent) with proclamation:
"Anyone who wanted to help them liberate Greece should join their ranks.""
Millenia later a confederate song echoed in the same wavelength:
"Their motto is resistance --
"To tyrants we'll not yield!"
Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!"
"Battle cry of freedom (Southern Version)
And yet another one:
"He's off to the wars and gone;
...
His sword is buckled on,
...
His foes he does defy;
...
I hope for the best, and so do all
Whose hopes are in the field;
I know that we shall win the day
For Southrons never yield. "
...
"A Southern Soldier Boy"
http://www.civilwarpoetry.org/confederate/songs/soldier-boy.html
But the Thebans took their cry for resistance to "Alexander's tyranny", "the tyrant of Greece", as they called him, a step further:
"The Theban's democratic Assembly not only voted to continue the struggle for autonomy, as they understood it, but also (in the words of Diodorus) "proclaimed from a high tower that anyone who wished to join the Great King and Thebans in freeing the Greeks and destroying the tyrant of Greece should come over to them". This proclamation was addressed to the members of the League of Corinth, including other Boeotian cities, who were obediently serving in Alexander's army...But they were appealing for aid in liberating Greece from Alexander's tyranny to the Great King of Persia – that is, to the very figure who was supposed to be the bogeyman of the united freedom – loving Greeks."
Paul Cartledge, of Cambridge University, "Alexander the Great", 2004, pages 110-111.
Then, to add further insult to Alexander's injury Plutarch tells us:
"But the Thebans made a counter-demand that he should surrender to them Philotas and Antipater, and made a counter-proclamation that all who wished to help in setting Greece free should range themselves with them; and so Alexander set his Macedonians to the work of war."
Plutarch, Alexander, 11.4
Alexander, as we saw above, did not go intending to destroy Thebes. The decision to destroy Thebes was not his own, as the record shows, though he did in fact pull the plug on them:
ἄλλως δὲ καὶ καλλωπισαμένου χαρίζεσθαι τοῖς τῶν συμμάχων ἐγκλήμασι: καὶ γὰρ Φωκεῖς καὶ Πλαταιεῖς τῶν Θηβαίων κατηγόρησαν,
he also plumed himself on gratifying the complaints of his allies; for the Phocians and Plataeans had denounced the Thebans.
Plutarch, Alexander,11.5
"Alexander nominally left Thebes' fate to the League, but the only delegates with him were Thebes' enemies; Phocis and Boeotia indeed voted the city's destruction, but the responsibility lies with Alexander.
"Alexander the Great", W. W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press, 1948, reprinted by Beacon Press, 1956-1971, page 7.
All that Alexander had asked was Thebes' inclusion back into the Pan-Hellenic anti-Persian alliance, and the right to punish two of his Theban political opponents.
Alexander was not the only one to try conciliation in the face of provocation:
"The policy of the time, therefore, has seemed to me to consist in conciliation, which should deny to the Disunionists any new provocation or apparent offence,..."
William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, March 15, 1861 Report on Fort Sumter, Department of State
Conciliation did not work out. Plutarch again:
"[5] On the part of the Thebans, then, the struggle was carried on with a spirit and valour beyond their powers, since they were arrayed against an enemy who was many times more numerous than they; but when the Macedonian garrison also, leaving the citadel of the Cadmeia, fell upon them in the rear, most of them were surrounded, and fell in the battle itself and their city was taken, plundered, and razed to the ground."
Plutarch, Alexander, 11.4
Gandeto happily reminds us:
(b) Alexander expected the Greeks to be "terrified and to cower in fear".
This is of course true. Civil war, after all, is raw politics pursued through violent means for the sake of dominance:
"This was done, in the main, because Alexander expected that the Greeks would be terrified by so great a disaster and cower down in quiet..."
Plutarch, Alexander, 11.4
Lincoln's general Sherman was equally harsh in his persuasion:
"My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us."
"Sherman's aim – physically to destroy, live off the land and demoralize the civilian population – was hugely successful."
Hugh Tulloch, "The Routledge companion to the American Civil War era", page 131
"If Alexander were a Greek king and if the ancient Macedonians were indeed Greeks, would he expect his own Macedonians be to terrified and cowered in fear too? Notice, though, that the reference is to "all Greeks" and not just the Thebans.", Gandeto insists.
John Beauchamp Jones was a clerk at the Department of War of the Confederacy. He kept a daily diary:
"AUGUST 7TH, 1864
The 1st Army Corps moved through the city last night, via the Central and Fredericksburg Railroads, and this morning Fitzhugh Lee´s cavalry corps is passing in the same direction—9 A.M.
All this indicates a transferrence of the scene of operations nearer the enemy´s country—the relief of Richmond—the failure of Grant´s MAD BULL campaign, prompted by President Lincoln, who is no general.
Honor to Lee!—the savior of his country! and the noble band of heroes whom he has led to victory!—but first to God.""
And then:
"SEPTEMBER 9TH. 1864 —Rained last night; clear to-day.
We hear of great rejoicing in the United States over the fall of Atlanta, and this may be premature. President Lincoln has issued a proclamation for thanksgiving in the churches, etc.""
John Beauchamp Jones, "Diary of a Rebel War Clerk"
http://www.cw-chronicles.com/blog/
We note here "Lee!—the savior of his country", "nearer the enemy´s country", and "great rejoicing in the United States over the fall of Atlanta", as "proof", in the pseudo-Makedonist sense, of a "separate ethnic identity" of the two camps on the American civil war. That war, after all, killed one-quarter of the Confederacy's (white) men of military age. Thebes's six thousand can not even stand comparison.
"...most of them were surrounded, and fell in the battle itself and their city was taken, plundered, and razed to the ground."
But in Atlanta alone, Sherman's army burned all but about 400 buildings. Most estimates put the number of buildings destroyed by Sherman's Yankees range from 3,200 to 5,000 and that was just in one city!
"This was done" Plutarch reminded us,
"in the main, because Alexander expected that the Greeks would be terrified by so great a disaster and cower down in quiet..."
Now here is what Gandeto reasoned out of all this:
"(a) "To liberate Greece" includes and encompasses all the city-states where Greeks lived; and by the same token, patently excludes Macedon from Greece."
While Alexander was no great friend of Thebes, he could not at the same time forget that:
"Amyntas, son of Perdiccas – or any other potential rival – depended on a coalition of the out-kingdoms (he obviously means not only Paeonians and Thracians but also and foremost the Upper Macedonian kingdoms - MEB) and rebellious Greek cities such as Thebes".
"Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C. A Historical Biography", Peter GreenUniversity of California Press, Oxford, 1991
It is no wonder therefore that Alexander wanted to make an example of them, and to make sure than no pretender to his own throne got any hopes left in Theban assistance. Making an example of the Theban rebels, therefore, was a message to multiple recipients: The other Greek city states, whom he wanted to sit put, Athens foremost, the Persian king, and not least, his own Macedonian political adversaries.
When Gandeto tries to focus our attention : "Notice, though, that the reference is to "all Greeks" and not just the Thebans." he is missing the point. Let's hear Waldermar Heckel's narrative explaining Alexander's priorities in the aftermath of Philip's assassination in Aegae:
"He proceeded to round up his rivals – the sons of Aeropus, Arrhabaeus, and Heromenes, as well as his cousin Amyntas son of Perdiccas – and, in the days and weeks to come, eliminated them on charges of complicity in the murder...Alexander's political opponents were now on high alert. They had little choice but to make their peace with the new king or flee the country. Amyntas son of Antiochus, a longtime friend of the deposed heir, Amyntas IV, took refuge in Asia with the Great King, as did Neoptolemus, a son of Arrhabaeus..."
It was incidentally, this very same Neoptolemus, son of Arrhabaeus, the Macedonian Prince, who joined the Persian army among other Greek mercenaries defending Halicarnassus against Alexander:
[10] καὶ ἀπέθανον αὐτῶν ἄλλοι τε ἐς ἑβδομήκοντα καὶ
ἑκατὸν καὶ Νεοπτόλεμος ὁ Ἀρραβαίου, τοῦ Ἀμύντου
ἀδελφός, τῶν παρὰ Δαρεῖον αὐτομολησάντων
and one hundred and seventy of them died and Neoptolemos, son of Arrhabaeos, Amyntas' brother, among the ones who had gone over to Dareius
Arrian 1.20.10
As for the Macedonian nobleman Amyntas, son of Antiochus, mentioned above, we see him fighting on the Persian side against Alexander's Macedonians in Issos, then leading a whole army of mercenaries:
Ἀμύντας δ᾽ ὁφυγὼν ἐκ Μακεδονίας καὶ πρὸς Δαρεῖον ἀναβὰςσυνηγωνίσατο μὲν τοῖς Πέρσαις ἐν τῇ Κιλικίᾳ, διασωθεὶς δ᾽ἐκ τῆς ἐν Ἰσσῷ παρατάξεως μετὰ τετρακισχιλίωνμισθοφόρων καὶ πρὸ τῆς Ἀλεξάνδρου παρουσίας διανύσαςεἰς Τρίπολιν τῆς Φοινίκης ἐπέλεξεν ἐκ τοῦ παντὸς στόλουτὰς ἀρκούσας ναῦς εἰς τὸν πλοῦν τοῖς ἰδίοις στρατιώταις, τὰςδ᾽ ἄλλας ἐνέπρησε.
That Amyntas who had fled from Macedonia and had gone up to Dareius had fought on the Persian side in Cilicia. He escaped, however, from the battle at Issus with four thousand mercenaries and got to Tripolis in Phoenicia before Alexander's arrival. Here he chose from the whole Persian fleet enough ships to transport his soldiers, and burned the rest.
Diodorus, 17.48.2
So, then, when Gandeto is asking:
"If Alexander were a Greek king and if the ancient Macedonians were indeed Greeks, would he expect his own Macedonians be to terrified and cowered in fear too?", the answer is obviously: Yes! And when Gandeto admonishes us to: "Notice, though, that the reference is to "all Greeks" and not just the Thebans", we agree, Plutarch said: τοὺς Ἕλληνας – the Greeks, everyone, in other word, who opposed him, and not just the Thebans, and yes, that includes his own Macedonians, especially the likes of Amyntas son of Antiochus, and Neoptolemus, a son of Arrhabaeus.
This is exactly what Plutarch is saying!
Alexander knew that when the democratic minded rebels spoke to the Theban Assembly, they:
"called on all true Thebans to throw off the Macedonian yoke - "making great play," says Arrian dourly, "with the grand old words "liberty" and "free speech".
It is clear that a message to "all true Thebans", obviously presupposes that there were also some "not so true" Thebans among them. An age-old game of ultra-nationalists world wide: We are the true patriots while You are the traitors of the ethnic-polity. This, incidentally, at the same exact time when these same Theban partisans were themselves (as professor Paul Cartlege pointed out a few lines earlier) "they were appealing for aid in liberating Greece from Alexander's tyranny to the Great King of Persia!"...
Who was fighting, now, for Greece and who was fighting for Persia? Who was fighting to perpetuate Greece's chaos andh age-old, permanent division, treacherously inviting the patent interference of the Great King of Persia, and who was fighting to unite the fratricidal Greek states in a common Panhellenic struggle of revenge against their old nemesis, ending the supremacy of Persia in Greek affairs?
Words are cheap, and the Theban democrats were surely full of them, but actions is what counts, and in the end, it was Philip and Alexander who (through diplomacy, bribery and raw force where needed) whipped the quarreling Greek city states into the Common Peace and the Congress of Corinth, creating thus, the preconditions of Panhellenic Greek unity in action, for the first time after the Persian wars of 490-480BC.
Since Gandeto had recklessly asked us to check out what professor Waldemar Heckel was saying on this issue, we did:
"The Macedonian king was no longer a boy...but the leader of all Greeks in a war of vengeance. And so he was portrayed by his 'official" historian Calisthenes. Nor were the Panhellenic elements restricted to the Homeric tradition. Just as the destruction of Thebes in 335 had been justified by the past and continuing Medism of the Thebans, so too Gryneum on the coast of Asia Minor had paid the ultimate price for Medism. In the Troad, the fallen statue of Ariobarxanes, former satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, was seen as an omen of victory. Parhaps this symbolic prostration had been arranged by Alexander's own men, or perhaps the pro-Macedonian party had defaced the statue in anticipation of liberation from Persian rule. If the later is the case, it represents one of the few instances of Greek enthusiasm for the expedition. In truth, the Greeks of Asia minor did not throw open their gates to the "liberating" army. Most were under oligarchies, propped up by Persian authority, politically secure and economically prosperous. Indeed, the Greeks had experienced liberation often enough to know that they were simply asked to exchange one master for another. The city of Ephesus had placed a statue of Philip II in its temple of Artemis in anticipation of Philip's campaign, but after the success of Memnon against Parmenion and Calas, and the death of Philip himself, the statue was again dragged down. The support of the Ionians for the Panhellenic war was reactive, awaiting the outcome of battle and the coercive presence of Macedonian armsrather than a key to the overthrow of Persian power. One cannot blame those Greeks. Liberation meant deposing a ruling group and disenfranchising many of its supporters: murder, exile, and the confiscation of property were the concomitants of political change..."
"The conquests of Alexander the Great" Waldemar Heckel, Cambridge university Press, 2008
The Thebans were not the only "freedom – loving" nationalists eager to use foreign (Persian, in their case) intervention to defeat their own domineering brethren (Alexander and the Macedonians) on the other side:
"As an example: the simultaneous Confederate invasions of Maryland and Kentucky in the late summer of 1862 occurred in the context of intense diplomatic activity leading toward possible European intervention in the war, of Lincoln's decision to issue an emancipation proclamation, of anti-black and anti-draft riots and martial law in the North, and of hopes by Peace Democrats to capture control of the Union Congress in the fall elections."
http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/History/BattleCry_Freedom.html
In both instances, this invitation to a foreign power to come to the rescue, was being done in the interest of their own political faction, in the interests and the right of their own state to function in an independent way, for "states rights", after all. Ethnic identity and nationalism had nothing to do with it. South Vietnam was getting help from the USA while North Vietnam was being assisted by the Soviet Union, while both were fighting to keep Viet Nam "free from foreign domination". Speaking of freedom and states rights:
"The South", said Jefferson Davis in 1863, was "forced to take up arms to vindicate the political rights, the freedom, equality, and State sovereignty which were the heritage purchased by the blood of our revolutionary sires."
http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/History/BattleCry_Freedom.html
While each side of the Theban Assembly fence, was in essence calling the other side traitors, Alexander did not have to venture too far back into history to find the propaganda material he needed to prove which Hellenic state was the traitor to the Pan-Hellenic cause:
[1.9.7] ὡς τῆς τε ἐν τῷ Μηδικῷ πολέμῳ προδοσίας τῶν Ἑλλήνων διὰ μακροῦ ταύτην δίκην ἐκτίσαντας Θηβαίους, καὶ τῆςΠλαταιῶν ἔν τε ταῖς σπονδαῖς καταλήψεως καὶ τοῦπαντελοῦς ἀνδραποδισμοῦ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τῆς τῶνπαραδόντων σφᾶς Λακεδαιμονίους οὐχ Ἑλληνικῆς γενομένης διὰ Θηβαίους σφαγῆς, καὶ τοῦ χωρίου τῆςἐρημώσεως, ἐν ὅτῳ οἱ Ἕλληνες παραταξάμενοι Μήδοιςἀπώσαντο τῆς Ἑλλάδος τὸν κίνδυνον, καὶ ὅτι Ἀθηναίουςαὐτοὶ τῇ ψήφῳ ἀπώλλυον, ὅτε ὑπὲρ ἀνδραποδισμοῦ τῆςπόλεως γνώμη προὐτέθη ἐν τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίων ξυμμάχοις.
It seemed as if the Thebans had after a long time suffered this punishment for their betrayal of the Greeks in the Median war, for their seizure of the city of Plataea during the truce, and for their complete enslavement of it, as well as for the un-Hellenic slaughter of the men who had surrendered to the Lacedaemonians, which had been committed at the instigation of the Thebans; and for the devastation of the territory in which the Greeks had stood in battle-array against the Medes and had repelled danger from Greece lastly, because by their vote they had tried to ruin the Athenians when a motion was brought forward among the allies of the Lacedaemonians for the enslavement of Athens.
Arrian, Anabasis, 1.9.7
Arrian is openly characterizing past Theban actions as non-Greek, "un-Hellenic" (οὐχ Ἑλληνικῆς). Can this also be considered "proof" that the Thebans too were not Greek? We will have to wait for Gandeto's sequel for that. For sure, Demosthenes' insult on Philip as being "not a Greek not even a barbarian" has been heralded as sacrosanct "proof" by some of FYROM Slavs, making them immensely proud of their un-Hellenic "barbarity", a "barbarity" than ostensibly makes them automatically Philip' kins and "Macedonians".
Gandeto insists that the destruction of Thebes is proof, somehow, that the Macedonians were not Greek. And the tries to arm-twist Plutarch as well as "any of the other ancient chroniclers" to do the same:
"Furthermore, it must be stressed that neither from Plutarch´s passages nor from any of the other ancient chroniclers can one find references where the ancient Macedonians were regarded as Greeks. While this notion of "greekness"(sic) for the ancient Macedonians is a newly hatched political idea with ominous designs and frightening connotations...".
Search and you shall find, not one, but thousands of such references:
10 πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει καὶ ὁ ζητῶν εὑρίσκει...
10. for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds...
Luke 11.10
All we need to do is put down our circa 1940's Yugoslav distorting glasses and start reading afresh, with the intend to learn and to enrich ourselves and not to violate, distort and falsify the ancient text:
[1.9.6] Θηβαίοις δὲ τὰ τῆς ἀποστάσεως ὀξέα καὶ ξὺν οὐδενὶ
λογισμῷ γενόμενα, καὶ ἡ ἅλωσις δἰ ὀλίγου τε καὶ οὐ
ξὺν πόνῳ τῶν ἑλόντων ξυνενεχθεῖσα, καὶ ὁ φόνος ὁ πολύς,
οἷα δὴ ἐξ ὁμοφύλων τε καὶ παλαιὰς ἀπεχθείας ἐπεξιόντων, καὶ ὁ τῆς πόλεως παντελὴς ἀνδραποδισμός, δυνάμει τε καὶ
δόξῃ ἐς τὰ πολέμια τῶν τότε προεχούσης ἐν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν,
οὐκ ἔξω τοῦ εἰκότος ἐς μῆνιν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ θείου ἀνηνέχθη,
But the Thebans having effected their revolt suddenly and without any previous consideration, the capture of the city being brought about in so short a time and without difficulty on the part of the captors, the slaughter, being great, as was natural, from its being made by men of the same race who were glutting their revenge on them for ancient injuries, the complete enslavement of a city which excelled among those in Greece at that time both in power and warlike reputation, all this was attributed not without probability to the avenging wrath of the deity.
Did Arrian just say:
καὶ ὁ φόνος ὁ πολύς,οἷα δὴ ἐξ ὁμοφύλων τε καὶ παλαιὰς ἀπεχθείας ἐπεξιόντων,...
the slaughter, being great, as was natural, from its being made by men of the same race who were glutting their revenge on them for ancient injuries,...?
If Arrian is calling Thebans and Macedonians ὁμοφύλους i.e. "of the same race"
(the Greek word φύλον/phylon is better translated as "tribe" or even "ethnic group" since Greeks did not think in terms of "races" in the modern Anglo-Saxon sense) then he obviously thinks of them as men of the same Hellenic family, which means that "this notion of "greekness"(sic) for the ancient Macedonians is" NOT after all, such "a newly hatched political idea" as the Skopjan history falsifiers would have us believe.
Gandeto will have to resolve this seeming "paradox" on his own.
While he is thinking about the apparent paradox he trapped himself into, we will push the paradox yet one step further, by "proving" (using the infamous "Gendeto method of ethnic identification") to the world that both the Spartans AND the Athenians were not Greek either. Here is Plutarch, once again, on the Spartans:
ἔνθα δὴ τῶν μὲν Ἑλλήνων Εὐρυβιάδην καὶ Λακεδαιμονιους
ἡγεῖσθαι κελευόντων, τῶν δ᾽ Ἀθηναίων, ὅτι πλήθει τῶν
νεῶν σύμπαντας ὁμοῦ τι τοὺς ἄλλους ὑπερέβαλλον, οὐκ
ἀξιούντων ἑτέροις ἕπεσθαι,
It was at this place that the Hellenes urged Eurybiades and the Lacedaemonians
to take the lead, but the Athenians, since in the number
of their ships they surpassed all the rest put together,
disdained to follow others,
Plutarch, Themistocles, 7.2
We note: "Hellenes" vs "the Lacedaemonians" (who are being urged to taker the lead of the Greeks).
Conventional wisdom dictates that we must confront the obvious: If Eurybiades were a Greek king and if the ancient Lacedaemonians were indeed Greeks, would he expect his own Lacedaemonians to take the lead? Notice, though, that the reference is to "Hellenes" and not just the Athenians.
Now it is the turn of the Athenians. Here is Plutarch again:
καὶ κατεπράϋνε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους, ὑπισχνούμενος, ἂν ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ γένωνται πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον, ἑκόντας αὐτοῖς παρέξειν εἰς τὰ λοιπὰ πειθομένους τοὺς Ἕλληνας.
and tried to mollify the Athenians with the promise that if they would show themselves brave men in the war, he would induce the Hellenes to yield a willing obedience to them thereafter.
Plutarch, Themistocles, 7.3
We note: "Athenians" vs "Hellenes" (who will yield a willing obedience to The Athenians).
This is once again crystal clear (following Gandeto's impeccable"logic":
Conventional wisdom dictates that we must confront the obvious: If Themistocles were a Greek statesman and if the ancient Athenians were indeed Greeks, would he expect his own Athenians to "show themselves brave men in the war"? Notice, though, that the reference is to "Hellenes" as opposed to the Athenians.
Finally, from Plutarch's Agis again, we find "irrefutable" (bogus) "proof" that the Spartans were not the same as Greeks, since as Gandeto professed:
Plutarch's "phrases abound with frank distinction between Macedonians (AND Spartans AND Athenians on the one side, we now can add!) and Greeks and, at no time, do we find ambiguous references used in distinguishing or in describing these two (+two!) ancient peoples. The ethnic separation is not an issue; the roles are quite divergent and the clarity of purpose is evident. The boundary lines are precise and the positions taken are straightforward and meaningful. In other words, Plutarch makes it abundantly clear that ancient Macedonians (AS WELL AS Spartans AND Athenians, following his criteria) were not Greeks."
[2] ...ὥστε θαυμάζειν καὶ διαλογίζεσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας οἷος ἦν ἄρα κόσμος Λακωνικοῦ στρατεύματος Ἀγησίλαον ἔχοντος ἢ Λύσανδρον ἐκεῖνον ἢ Λεωνίδαν τὸν παλαιὸν ἡγούμενον,
so that the Greeks were in amazement and were wondering what would have been the condition of the Laconian army had it been commanded by Agesilaus or the famous Lysander, or Leonidas of old times
Plutarch, Agis, 14.2
We note: "the Greeks" vs "the Spartans" (the Laconian army)
In other words, if "Plutarch makes it abundantly clear that ancient Macedonians were not Greeks", we have to argue that he also makes it equally "abundantly clear" (if we are to follow Gandeto's flawed and irrationally unhistorical method) that both the Spartans AND the Athenians were indeed...not Greeks either! Whom does that leave? The Argives? But the Macedonians themselves, indeed the Temenid dynasty, were claiming descent from Argos...
The attempt to distort Ancient Greek history, making a total mockery out of it in the service of a 20th century forged ethnic identity of a mainly Slavic and Albanian but truly multi-ethnic state in the south of ex-Yugoslavia, and all of it based on the grossly inaccurate interpretation of isolated quotes, comes at a cost. The price tag is blaring academic derision (http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-letter.html ) and manifest self exposure to worldwide ridicule.
Make him whatever you want, but any Badian or Borza, Wilcken, Errington, Hammond, Heckel, Tarn or Cartledge would fall on the floor laughing their heart's content out if someone would suggest to them that Basileus Alexandros Philippou o Makedon was some sort of proto-Slavic Czar Alksandar Filipov Makedonski. At the time Philip was busy unifying the Greeks under his leadership and Alexander was conquering the then known world for Hellenism, the Slavs, respectfully, had not even entered the world arena and had no concept of what or where Macedonia was, leading quiet lives around the Pripjet swamps at the convergence of Modern Poland, Ukraine and Byelorussia. And no pharaonic sized, 60ft bronze horse with "Aleksandar Makedonski" on top of it, in the middle of "Makedonija Square" in Skopje, the capital of the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija" is ever going to change this sober fact.
PS. My thanks to the people at http://history-of-macedonia.com/wordpress/ for their welcome contribution.
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