The Greatest of Them All

January 15, 2011

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075760889881174.html?KEYWORDS=tom+holland

Revisionist professors, Hollywood turkeys, even the pacifist spirit of our age cannot wither the incomparable mystique and terrifying glamour of Alexander of Macedon

By TOM HOLLAND

Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource

'All those who write about Alexander," grumbled the Roman geographer Strabo, "prefer the marvelous to the true." Such a criticism was not entirely accurate even when he made it 2,000 years ago, and it is certainly not fair now. We live in an age of groundbreaking classical scholar ship, when historians of the ancient world have only to get the sniff of a myth to set about busting it. Yet Alexander, more even than Cleopatra or Julius Caesar, has stood insouciant proof against every attempt at revisionism. No amount of cheese-paring by classicists can dim the brilliance of his luster. He remains what he has ever been: the epitome of youthful, world-conquering, terrifying glamour.

We are, perhaps, more squeamish about the collateral damage inflicted by his ascent to greatness, and less prone to celebrate it, than earlier ages. "Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis?" Christopher Marlowe demanded in "Tamburlaine," his blood-sodden drama about a megalomaniacal one-time shepherd who had swaggered and slaughtered his way to a vast Asiatic empire in the 14th century. In point of boring historical fact, the mention of Persepolis in his hero's vaunt is a serious anachronism. The city had been burnt to the ground long before the time of Tamburlaine, all the way back in 330 B.C. Marlowe, however, was a playwright, not a historian—and he could recognize a poetic truth when he saw one.

The man responsible for destroying Persepolis had been none other than Alexander: the feat that broadcast his triumph more blazingly than all his many others, since the city had served, for almost two centuries, as the capital of Asia. The Achaemenids, a Persian dynasty whose rule had stretched from the Aegean to the Hindu Kush, had demonstrated in unprecedented fashion just how vast an empire might be. Alexander, by defeating them, had wrested from them their claim to global rule. Such was the heritage—of looting, bloodshed and unabashed imperialism—to which Tamburlaine in turn had laid devastating claim. No wonder, then, in Marlowe's rendering of his protagonist's career, that he should instinctively have alluded to the greatest conqueror of them all.

 

Alexander the Great

By Philip Freeman
Simon & Schuster, 391 pages, $30

Yet it is precisely the measure of Alexander's charisma and celebrity that a general whose entire career was devoted to securing regime change in the Middle East should be a hero as well to a man as liberal in his sympathies as Oliver Stone. "I think all young people should see something in him because there's an idealism there," Mr. Stone explained in an interview to promote his 2004 biopic, "Alexander"—a movie in which the hero, as well as killing a lot of Persians, is cast as an enthusiast for a brotherhood of man. "He had a desire for change, to shake up the world, a desire to be famous," Mr. Stone explained. If this makes Alexander sound like a 1960s rock star, it is perhaps not entirely coincidental: Mr. Stone did, after all, direct a movie about the Doors. More significantly, however, the movie attests to the abiding influence, almost 40 years after it was first published, of Robin Lane Fox's "Alexander the Great" (1973). In this biography, Alexander is a hero sprung from the "Iliad": a figure quite as golden, as deadly and as tragic as Achilles.

Alexander the Great and His Empire: A Short Introduction

By Pierre Briant
Princeton, 216 pages, $26.95

Formidable historian though Mr. Lane Fox is, there has always been something of the romantic in him as well, and it is this sensibility that gives his portrait of Alexander a hauntingly close affinity with those of the ancient biographers. To the Greeks, the world of Homer was the inexhaustible point of reference— especially so when describing the career of a hero who had claimed descent from a god, penetrated to the very limits of the world and died young. Alexander lived a life more soaringly worthy of his own propaganda than any other conqueror in history and did not even have to die before becoming a figure of myth.
In this sense, Mr. Stone's ability to cast Alexander as an avatar of Jim Morrison is just one of the infinite number of ways in which, over the course of the millennia, people have seen in the blaze of the conqueror's flame a vision of their own deepest ambitions and desires. In "Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend" (2008), Richard Stoneman demonstrated, with formidable learning and not a little wit, just how exotic these visions had actually been. In some of them, Alexander fights with dragons; in others he flies through the air on a chariot; in still others he descends to the bottom of the ocean in a diving bell. Alexander even appears in the Quran; he stops on reaching "the setting of the sun" to have a chat with Allah. Set against exploits of this order, global conquest seems almost a minor feat.
No wonder, then, that modern historians, confronted by such a quagmire of myth and romance, should repeatedly have sought to drain it. The fantasies that they confront are not, of course, those that cast Alexander as an aeronaut or an interlocutor of gods but the far subtler ones of our best—and indeed almost our only—sources: the classical historians. These sources, although they convey an immense amount of information, are a good deal more treacherous than they might at first sight appear.
It is unsettling enough that Alexander, as image-conscious as any contemporary celebrity, made sure to appoint his own tame historian, a nephew of Aristotle's by the name of Callisthenes, to provide the authorized version. That this choice hardly made for an objective record of the great man's career goes without saying—and indeed, it is a measure of just how dangerous it might be to get on the wrong side of Alexander that Callisthenes would end up being put to death for treason. Quite how and why he was executed, however, is unclear: We have no less than five different versions of his end.
That this should be so hints at a further, and even more disconcerting, problem with the sources. Neither the works Callisthenes nor those of any other contemporary historian have been preserved as more than snippets. The few biographies that have survived from antiquity all date from centuries after their subject's death. The full implications of this sorry state of affairs have been spelled out brutally by Paul Cartledge. "The attempt to reconstruct the historical Alexander," he has argued, "is almost as problematic as trying to reconstruct the historical Jesus."

The Landmark Arrian 

Edited by James Romm and Robert B. Strassler

Pantheon, 503 pages, $40

Mr. Cartledge offers this sobering reflection in his introduction to a sumptuously annotated and lavishly illustrated new edition of "The Campaigns of Alexander" by the Roman historian Arrian. Despite the fact that Arrian lived nearly a half-millennia after the events described in his history (he served as consul under the philhellenic Roman emperor Hadrian), he is by far our best and most reliable source for the events that he describes. He makes a point in his introduction of citing biographies by two contemporary biographies of Alexander—Callisthenes pointedly not being one of them—and of explaining how and why he has sought to square the contradictions. It is this painstaking reliance upon primary sources that makes his Alexander surely the closest of all Alexanders to the original. "Any readers who are surprised that it would have occurred to me to write this history," he declares with a winning lack of modesty, "after so many others have written theirs, should read the other accounts and then mine—and then let them say they are surprised."
Almost 2,000 years further on, however, and still the biographies come, with all the remorseless inexorability of a Macedonian phalanx advancing through the dust of Mesopotamia. Many of these are works of the highest quality, combining impeccable scholarship with what is, by the standards of professorial prose, immense readability. Callisthenes may have been a shoddy historian, but Alexander has been blessed in the caliber of his modern biographers: classicists of the order of Peter Green (1970), Brian Bosworth (1988) and Mr. Cartledge (2004) himself have all joined Mr. Lane Fox in writing studies of the great conqueror's career.
Should there be any enthusiasts for Alexander with an appetite for more, they could do worse than turn to Philip Freeman's study: one written, it is true, by yet another classics professor, but quite as racy and pacey as any novel. Here, in vivid and exciting detail, are all the familiar highlights of Alexander's career: the battles, the tempestuous relationships, the dazzling ambitions, the mysterious death in Babylon. Mr. Freeman's ambition, he tells us in his introduction, was "to write a biography of Alexander that is first and foremost a story." It is one he splendidly fulfills.

The Many Lives of Alexander the Great

Legends of Alexander the Great Edited by Richard Stoneman (1994): A compilation of some of the more extravagant tall stories told over the centuries about Alexander. He battles with monsters, becomes a Jew and visits Paradise.
Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (1969): A dazzling fictionalization of Alexander's childhood and youth. He has rarely been made to seem more hauntingly and erotically god-like.
Alexander the Great by Peter Green (1970): Beautifully written and sombre in its conclusions, it foreshadowed the darkening of Alexander's reputation that has occurred over the past few decades. A revision, the authorial equivalent of a director's cut and retitled 'Alexander of Macedon,' was published in 1991.
The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (1972): A loose sequel to 'Fire From Heaven,' this novel describes the relationship between Alexander and the Persian boy of the title, a eunuch by the name of Bagoas. Rare is the man who can read the description of Bagoas's castration without involuntarily crossing his legs.
Alexander the Greatby Robin Lane Fox (1973): Vast erudition is combined with a sense of epic sweep in this celebrated biography. Alexander himself would surely have enjoyed it. Oliver Stone certainly did.
Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great by A.B. Bosworth (1988): The most authoritative scholar currently at work on Alexander, he is also the bleakest and most unsparing in his conclusions. Great conquerors, he serves to remind us, are inevitably killers of many men.
Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallionsby Frank L. Holt (2003): As close to a Sherlock Holmes story as a work of ancient history gets, this is a gripping account of how a medallion discovered in Afghanistan was found to provide us with something thrilling: a contemporary image of Alexander.
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past by Paul Cartledge (2004): Less a straight biography than a hunt through the sources for clues as to the real Alexander, it allows the reader to see just how complex and fascinating the practice of ancient history can be.

But the book is also something more than a rollicking read. Mr. Freeman's biography is interesting as well for what it tells us about the vagaries of academic opinion—which are, of course, no less subject to fashion than anything else. For several decades now, in reaction to Mr. Lane Fox's vision of Alexander as an idealist who dreamed of forging a new and better world, classicists have tended to swing to the opposite extreme. "For large areas of Asia," Mr. Bosworth put it flatly in a book published a decade ago on Alexander's legacy, "the advent of Alexander meant carnage and starvation." This vision of a proto-Tamburlaine has had an increased saliency in the wake of Western involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan—regions where Alexander did indeed spill a good deal of blood.
Perhaps, then, there is the hint of a new trend in the fact that another recent book is a robust dismissal of the terms of this debate. Pierre Briant's "Alexander the Great and His Empire" may be short, but it is of a wholly different order of seriousness from that of Mr. Freeman: an analysis less of Alexander himself than of his record as a state-builder and in particular of the debt that he owed to his Achaemenid predecessors.
Mr. Briant is one of the most brilliant historians of antiquity at work today, a scholar whose corpus of researches into the Persian Empire has enabled us to understand its overthrow from the perspective of the defeated as well as the victor. Alexander, Mr. Briant declares, was neither a visionary multiculturalist nor a deranged killer: "Simply, he governed like a statesman, using the administrative traditions previously adopted and adapted by the Achaemenids, as well as introducing some Graeco- Macedonian innovations." Dazzling his career may have been—and yet Alexander, for all that, ended up very much in the mainstream of Near Eastern history.
Mr. Briant's book is certainly not easy reading. The material is often self- consciously dry and the tone throughout one of sonorous hauteur: The scholar quoted most approvingly and repeatedly by Mr. Briant is Pierre Briant. Nevertheless, for anyone stirred by reading Arrian's history and Mr. Freeman's spirited narrative, "Alexander the Great and His Empire" offers an invaluable corrective to the classical sources and to the nagging sense, reading them, that the Persians only ever existed to be mown down in their thousands. That it serves to make the great conqueror seem a good deal less glamorous than he normally does is undeniable. Yet, in the final reckoning, the shade of Alexander is not likely to care. Neither French professors, nor Hollywood turkeys, nor even the pacifist spirit of the age can ever dim his awesome and incomparable mystique. "No one was like him." So wrote Robert Lowell:

Terrible were his crimes—
but if you wish to blackguard the
Great King,
think how mean, obscure and dull
you are,
your labors lowly and your
merits less.
 
—Mr. Holland is the author of "Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West."

Naming a State: Disputing over Symbols of Statehood at the Example of ‘Macedonia’

Thesis review on:
“Naming a State: Disputing over Symbols of Statehood at the Example of ‘Macedonia’”.

Published at the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 2010 (volume 14, p. 507-561).


By: Michael Ioannidis, LLM (Cambridge), LLM (Heidelberg), PhD candidate

This publication addresses the international law aspects of the dispute between Greece and the ‘former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’. The main thesis of the article is that the choice of the name of a state (and that of Macedonia in particular) can have an importance that exceeds the boundaries of the named entity and affect the interests of other international actors. In such cases, the question of naming a state should not be addressed as a simply domestic matter (as argued by fYROM) but rather from an international perspective. In short, under some conditions, the name of a state is not only a matter of self-representation, but a genuinely international affair. Thus, it cannot be solved only with reference to the argument that every country has the right to be named as it prefers, but it should address the legitimate interests of other international actors and be subject of some kind of international regulation.

This thesis is supported by mainly two arguments. The first, investigates international disputes that had as their subject the name of a state. The historical development of the Macedonia naming dispute is here presented, as the most prominent example of such controversies. Beyond that, other similar international disputes are investigated, and in particular the examples of the Ireland and Austria. The Macedonia naming dispute thus, is not an unprecedented example – much less a Balkan curiosum, as it sometimes presented. On the contrary, in the history of international relations there have been also other cases where the name of a state has been the subject of controversy.

The second argument draws upon concepts of international law that might be of relevance for such disputes. The thesis presented here is that the choice of a name might have significant consequences for international actors. This makes the issue a potential subject of international regulation. The word Macedonia is here presented as example of a symbol with dimensions beyond a single state. The use of such a multifaceted symbol by one state can however lead to its de facto monopolization by that state. This is a development that can ignore legitimate interests of other users of the same symbol and create international tension. Because of that, the name of a state should be addressed in terms of international regulation.

The author argues in sum, that a state choosing a name should not be understood as exercising an unfettered freedom. This freedom has limits that can be defined with reference to international practice, theoretical arguments and the interpretation of legal concepts.

Mακεδονία - Macedonia - Macedoine - Makedonija - Македония - Македонија

Documentary. Year of production - 1984
Taken from the You Tube channel of  DocumentaryMacedonia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8JWfyStuc

Macedonia ( [ˌmæsəˈdoʊniə], Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía, IPA: [makʲe̞ðo̞ˈnia]) 
is a geographical and historical region of Greece in southeastern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region. The region and that of Thrace are often together referred to informally as northern Greece.

This northern Greek region incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, the kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name Macedonia was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine Empires with widely differing borders. Under the Ottomans, the name disappeared altogether.

Even before the establishment of the Modern Greek state in 1830, it was identified as a Greek province, even though Macedonia had no geographical borders [1][2][3] By the mid 19th century, the name was becoming consolidated informally, defining more of a a distinct geographical, rather than political, region in the southern Balkans. At the end of the Ottoman Empire most of the region known as Rumelia or "Turkey in Europe" was divided by the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913, following the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania each took control of portions of the territory, with Greece obtaining the largest portion.

Macedonia was an administrative subdivision of Greece until the administrative reform of 1987, when the region was subdivided into the peripheries of West Macedonia and Central Macedonia and part of the periphery of East Macedonia and Thrace, the latter containing also the whole of the region of Thrace.

 PART I - MΕΡΟΣ Α'

PART II - ΜΕΡΟΣ Β'

PART III - ΜΕΡΟΣ Γ'

PART IV - ΜΕΡΟΣ Δ'

PART V - ΜΕΡΟΣ Ε'

Macedonian names and makeDonski pseudo-linguistics: The case of the name Zaika

Το παρόν άρθρο πρωτοεμφανίστηκε στο Αμερικανικό διαδυκτιακό περιοδικό Αμέρικαν Κρόνικλ, στις 14 Ιανουαρίου του 2010
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/136624
Mιλτιάδης Η. Μπόλαρης


Balkan Illusion - phantasia archaica:

"Zaika. This is one of the most interesting ancient Macedonian female names. It may represent a female form of the present day Macedonian "zajak" (rabbit). In any case, there are numerous examples of names taken from names of animals. The names Zaia (Zaja) and Zaiko (Zajko) are present in todays' Macedonian onomasticon.." Quote taken from: "Similarities between ancient Macedonian and today's' Macedonian Culture (Linguistics and Onomastics)" by Aleksandar Donski, celebrity historian and propagandist of pseudo-macedonism from FYROM.



Zaika/Ζάϊκα

The southern edge of ancient Paionia, the land of the Paionians, was originally starting from the Aegean coast of Northern Greece (Macedonia proper), went up into the southwestern part of what is now Bulgaria and then continued north to the central lands of what is now the ex-Yugoslav republic of Slavic Makedonija (ПОРАНЕШНАТА ЈУГОСЛОВЕНСКА РЕПУБЛИКА МАКЕДОНИЈА / FYROM). It included the lands on either side of the Axios/Αξιός river (ВАРДАР in Slavic) and the Strymon/Στρυμων river (СTРУМА in Slavic) and their respective watersheds.
Ancient Thrace included most of the lands of what is now Bulgaria, including parts of modern Romania as well as the provinces of Eastern Thrace of Turkey and Western Thrace of Greece. Thracians also lived in parts of Chalcidice and even Pieria, just north of mount Olympus.
Beginning around the 8th or 9th century BC, the Greek-speaking Macedonians started coming down from their original homelands in upper Macedonia(upper meant "mountainous" not "northern"), slowly pressing Thracians and Paionians out of the flat-lands in Pieria, Emathia and Amphaxitis. The Paionians gradually lost the coastline (early 5th cBC) and kept being pressed northward. A little more than a century later, in a series of campaigns between 358BC and 346BC Philip II of Macedon defeated the Paionians and extended his kingdom by either incorporating lands that previously belonged to the Paionians and to various neighboring Thracian tribes, or converting their kingdoms into Macedonian client states, creating a loyal buffer zone to his north, against attacks from the Illyrians and from other barbarians beyond the Danube. Two centuries later, Philip V / Φίλιππος Ε΄ feeling the pressure of the Romans and their Illyrian allies in a strategically defensive rather than offensive move, to stabilize his northern frontiers, shed all semblance of Paionian independence and incorporated their semi-independent kingdom into Macedon.
The Thracians suffered a similar fate, being slowly pushed north and east while many of their cities resigned to accepting incorporation into the Macedonian state, whether under Philip II, Alexander II (the Great) or later under Lysimachos/Λυσίμαχος (360 BC - 281 BC), an epigonos of Alexander who created his own Macedonian kingdom within Thrace proper. Philip, we know from history kept on shuffling populations around, bolstering his frontiers with Greek Macedonians and building new cities where needed, like Heracleia Lynkestis/Ηράκλεια Λυγκιστίς (Μοναστήρι/Bitola/Битола) in Pelagoneia or Veroia/Βέροια (Stara Zagora/Стара Загора) and Philippoupolis/Φιλιππούπολις (Plovdiv/Пловдив) in Thrace, or reorganizing cities like Callindeia/Καλλίνδεια, Amphipolis/Ἄμφίπολις or Crenides/Κρηνίδες (renamed: Philippoi/Φίλιπποι).
The ancient historians have left us a grim picture of this population engineering, of bringing barbarians into the cities to be assimilated and sending Greeks to be established in settlements along the frontiers, which Philip II used in his attempt to unify his dominions and the promotion of the Greek language was his tool to achieve this:

"7 Reversus in regnum, ut pecora pastores nunc in hibernos, nunc in aestivos saltus traiciunt, sic ille populos et urbes, ut illi vel replenda vel derelinquenda quaeque loca videbantur, ad libidinem suam transfert. 8 Miseranda ubique facies et excidio similis erat. 9 Non quidem pavor ille hostilis nec discursus per urbem militum erat, non tumultus armorum, non bonorum atque hominum rapina, 10 sed tacitus maeror et luctus, verentibus, ne ipsae lacrimae pro contumacia haberentur. 11 Crescit dissimulatione ipsa dolor, hoc altius demissus, quo minus profiteri licet. 12 Nunc sepulcra maiorum, nunc veteres penates, nunc tecta, in quibus geniti erant quibusque genuerant, 13 considerabant, miserantes nunc vicem suam, quod in eam diem vixissent, nunc filiorum, quod non post eam diem nati essent.
VI. Alios populos in finibus ipsis hostibus opponit; alios in extremis regni terminis statuit; quosdam bello captos in supplementis urbium dividit. 2 Atque ita ex multis gentibus nationibusque unum regnum populumque constituit."

Historiarum Philippicarum in Epitomen redacti A M Iuniano Iustino, Book VIII

"On his return to his kingdom, as shepherds drive their flocks sometimes into winter, sometimes into summer pastures, so he transplanted people and cities hither and thither, according to his caprice, as places appeared to him proper to be peopled or left desolate. The aspect of things was every where wretched, like that of a country ravaged by an enemy. There was not, indeed, that terror of a foe, or hurrying of troops through the cities, or seizure of property and prisoners, which are seen during a hostile invasion; but there prevailed a sorrow and sadness not expressed in words, the people fearing that even their very tears would be thought signs of discontent. Their grief was augmented by the very concealment of it, sinking the deeper the less they were permitted to utter it. At one time they contemplated the sepulchres of their ancestors at another their old household gods, at another the homes in which they had been born, and in which they had had families; lamenting sometimes their own fate, that they had lived to that day, and sometimes that of their children, that they were not born after it.6 Some people he planted upon the frontiers of his kingdom to oppose his enemies; others he settled at the extremities of it. Some, whom he had taken prisoners in war, he distributed among certain cities to fill up the number of inhabitants; and thus, out of various tribes and nations, he formed one kingdom and people."

Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. Marcus Junianus Justinus

This is the best explanation of how Paeonians and Thracians eventually became Hellenic in speech, though many kept their names and religious beliefs as the epigraphical record amply shows. History, unfortunately is not lending a hand to her falsifiers.
The Romans eventually defeated Philip V in the battle of Cynos Cephalai (197 BC) and later Perseus in the battle of Pydna (168 BC), and Macedonia became a Roman province. During the Roman era, all areas previously under the Macedonians went through a period of bilingualism, with Greek eventually replacing Thracian and Paionian as the dominant language in the southern part of the Balkans. Unlike the northern lands of the Balkan Peninsula, Latin never made much inroad in Macedonia or lower Thrace. The coins of Macedonia kept on being issued in Greek, and all the funeral and votive inscriptions were written in Greek, reflecting the dominant Hellenic language of the area. By the dawn of the early Christian era, and certainly by the fourth century AD, the lower Balkans had become completely Hellenic-speaking areas, while the north had become Latinized in speech. The Jireček Line, has been used as the imaginary linguistic boundary separating the Hellenic-speaking and the Latin-speaking areas of the Balkans, before the Slavic invasions.

Russian map showing 7th-8th cAD entry of Slavs into Byzantine areas

The Slavs started raiding the south Balkans towards the mid to end of the 6th cAD, and by the 7th and 8th centuries AD they had breached the Danube frontier of the Byzantine Empire and had established themselves in many settlements in the Balkans. The Slavs had never been in contact with the ancient people of the Balkans, namely the Greeks, the Illyrians, the Thracians, the Dacians or the Paionians. The Albanians, another Balkan people, are related to the ancient Dacians, but during the Greek and Roman antiquity they were not living in what is now modern Albania. They are not related to the Illyrians, despite what their own state national mythology propagates. The Albanians moved south to their present location, sometime in the eleventh cAD, from their original the Carpathian homeland. The Romanians, although Latin in speech are to a great extend descended from the ancient Dacians too, as well as from Greek and Latin-speaking populations of Thrace and the Black Sea. The Thracians were either Latinized or Hellenized and many of their descendants became Slavic in speech after the Bulgarians and the Slavs took over part of their lands from Byzantium. Later on, some also became Turkish in speech and identity, and it is believed that the Slavic speaking Muslims of Thrace, the Pomaks/ Помаци/Πομάκοι are to a great degree of Thracian stock.
Most serious modern researchers seem to agree that the most probable original homeland of the Slavs was the Pripet Marshes, between Belorussia, Poland and Ukraine. The Slavic languages are grouped together with the Baltic languages in a common Balto-Slavic linguistic family. The Balkans as homeland of the proto-Slavs is as serious a theory as suggesting a Chinese descent for the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. It has only been suggested by discredited pseudo-scientific circles in Skopje, in the service of irredentist and ultra-nationalist goals.
Any attempt, to make a linguistic connection between the ancient inhabitants of these lands and the Slavs cannot be taken seriously by anyone except some extremist nationalist groups and their supporters in political parties like the VMRO, a fascist-irredentist group until recently in the list of terrorist groups of the US State Department but now the political party in power in Skopje.
It is easy for someone without the classical language background to get carried over and starting with some superficial phonetic similarities of an ancient name (Zaika) of a completely alien and now extinct language (in this case Thracian, as we shall prove) then connect it to a word of his own modern language (the Sloveno-macedonski dialect of Bulgarian) and finally try to explain one from the other. The Slavonic dialect spoken by the majority population in the former province of Yugoslavia that is now FYROM, cannot be credibly named "Macedonian", for many reasons, chief among which is that it creates confusion between a modern Slavonic dialect and the Greek dialect of the ancient Macedonians. Secondly, the Slavic Macedonians are not the only people that live in Macedonia. In FYROM itself there are Albanians, Vlachs, other Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs etc. In Greece, where the vast majority of the land of historic Macedonia lies, the spoken language is Greek. Therefore, calling the Slavonic dialect spoken in parts of Macedonia THE "Macedonian" language is a complete misnomer, and one with political undertones which many unsuspecting linguistic scientists naively ignire. It is also an attempt to usurp a GENERAL geographic term and make a PARTICULAR ethnic term out of it. Macedonia, the geographic area, is first and foremost inhabited by Greeks, secondly by Slavs, thirdly by Albanians, fourthly by Bilingual Vlachs, then by Roma-Gypsies, Jews, Turks, Serbs, Bulgarians, etc. Not one of these nationalities should have the right to usurp the general geographic determinant name for themselves. After all, it is not the right of some of the Slavs who live in a small part of historic Macedonia to call themselves by the name of the province that belongs to all the other nationalities living in it. The Greeks of Macedonia are very content to call themselves Greeks by nationality and language, and Macedonians by cultural and provincial identity, and so do the Albanians, the Vlachs, the Bulgarians and others.
If we want to be taken seriously, we have to go to the sources and base our research on what is epigraphically available.
We have located three Inscriptions with the name Zaika/Ζάϊκα. Τhe first two are from Sintike/Σιντική, an area on the upper run of the river Strymon/Στρυμών, in Bulgaria, just north of Greece. The third one if close to Prilep/Прилеп, inside FYROM:

IGBulg IV 2311
Macedonia : Sintike: Vranya
Βειθυς Παραμόνου ἑαυ-
τῷ καὶ Ζαικᾳ τῇ γυ-
ναικεὶ καὶ Πυρουσαλᾳ τῇ θυγα-
Beithys son of Paramonos to him-
self and Zaika his wi-
fe and Pyrousala his daught-

We have three names here: Paramonos/Παράμονος is most certainly a Greek name but it is quite possibly also a Greek/Paionian isogloss. It is obviously related to the name Parmenion/Παρμενίων, of the famous general of Philip II and Alexander the Great. It has been suggested (Ian Worthington) that Parmenion himself was of Paionian ethnic descent. Parmenion means "son of Parmenon" (the ending -ion notes descend) and Parmenon is obviously a cut off version of Par(a)menon/Παραμένων (Delta I 642,7 , Egypt and Nubia: Παραμένων με ἀνέθηκε τὠπόλλωνι.), "the one with staying power", which makes it similar in etymology to the Latin name Constantius.

Beithys/Βειθυς seems to appear in the epigraphic record along with other Thracian names. It is probably Thracian. It is certainly not Hellenic, neither in form nor etymology. It is also found written as Bithys/Βιθυς (ΙGBulg IV, 2322), and in the very Thracian form: Beithykenthos/Βειθυκενθος (IGBulg III, 1714).
Pyrousala is a Thracian name too. The word Pyr sounds like the Greek word for fire, but pyros/πυρός is also the maise, the barley seed and it is not exclusive to Greek, so its appearance in Thracian should not surprise us. We will encounter this name further down once again, and we will try to explore a plausible etymology. Salas is a well attested Thracian name, as shown in the following inscription:
IGBulg III,1 1441 [Σαλ]α̣ς Βειθυος. εὐχήν.
Zaika is inconclusive for now.

We now go to the second inscription, which is from SW Bulgaria, part of ancient Sintike/Σιντική

IGBulg IV 2303
Macedonia : Sintike: Kovachevo
Πύρρος Ἀγάθωνος ∙ ἑαυ-
τῷ καὶ Ζαικᾳ τῇ γυναι-
κὶ ἑαυτοῦ ζώων ἐποίει.
Pyrros son of Agathon him-
self and Zaika his wi-
fe and while still alive he made it.

Out of the three names on this inscription, Pyrros/Πύρρος and his patronym Agathon/Ἄγάθων are both Greek names, while Zaika is definitely not.
Our third inscription is from FYROM, close to the town of Prilep/
IG X,2 2 164
Macedonia : Pelagonia: Vitolište: Caracina niva Prilep
Ι#⁷․[— — —]ΛΝ Μυρω-
[— — — —] καὶ Ζαικα
[— — —]ο̣ς ἑ[α]υτο [— — —]LN
Myro-
[— — — —]and Zaika
[— — —]os himself

Myron/Μύρων is a Hellenic name, (see Myron/Μύρων the Athenian sculptor, known by "The discobolus", the discus thrower, mid-fifth century BC). Zaika/Ζάϊκα, once again, is not Greek.

How can we be so confident in saying that Zaika is either a Thracian or a Paionian name? First of all, it is encountered in lands historically inhabited by both Paionians, Thracians and Greeks, but it is not a Greek name. Since it also appears all too often in areas too far east (in modern Bulgaria) to be Illyrian, then the logical deduction is that is has to be either Thracian or Paionian. Geography, therefore, is our first clue, but the epigraphical record is what defines it, and clarifies the issue for us, so let us proceed further down. We expand our research and we find a name that sounds very similar to Zaika / Ζαικα appearing on an inscription: Zaikis / Ζαικις. It is from historic Macedonia, though the place of its original exact location is not known.
SEG 52:651
Macedonia : Unkn. Provenance
Ζαικις Ἀνδρονίκου Βαστικείλᾳ τῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις
Ἀνδρονείκῳ καὶ Ἀλλωπόρει καὶ Μητόκῳ καὶ ἑατῇ, ζῶσα.
Zaikis, daughter of Andronikos to Bastikeila, her husband and to her children
Andronikos and Alloporis and Metokos and to herself, while living.

The names Alloporis/Αλλωπορις and Bastikeila/Βαστικείλᾳ are clearly Thracian. The ending "-poris" means "the son of" and is a typical ending for a Thracian name. Epte-poris/Επτή̣-πορις Dindi-poris/Δινδι-πορις, Dili-poris/Διλι-πορις, Raskou-poris/Ρασκού-πορις, Ketri-poris/Κετρι-πορις, etc.
The name Andronikos/Ανδρόνικος (female: Andronike/Ανδρονίκη) is clearly a Greek name from andras/άνδρας, man and nike/νίκη, victory: "Victorious over men"..
Metokos/Μητοκoς sounds like a Greek name but it is not, unless it is a dialectical paraphrase of Metoikos/Μέτοικος (μετά/meta, after + οίκος/oikos, home), meaning the immigrant resident. As Metokos it only appears in a few inscriptions in Thrace, always coupled with other Thracian names: Metokos son of Taroulos/Μητοκος Ταρουλου (IGBulg I² 400), or Metokos son of Mestos/Μήτοκος Μέστ[ο]υ (IG XII,Suppl 471).
Finally, we come to Zaikis: The name Zaikis/Ζαικις is too similar-sounding to Zaika not to be related, both probably being different forms (male-female) of the same name.

Extending our search to names of the area that start with Zai- / Ζαι- , that there are indeed several names to be found on inscriptions, all from historic Peonia, part of which is now in Bulgaria.
IGBulg V 5918
Macedonia : Sintike: Parthikopolis (Sandanski): Laskarevo
Δείδος Πυρούλᾳ τῷ πατρ[ί],
Ζαιβαλῳ, Πυρούλᾳ τῷ ὑῷ {υἱῷ},
Πυρούλᾳ τῷ μεικρῷ ζῶν ἐπύ-
Deidos son of Pyroulas to his father
Zaibalos, to his son
Pyroulas to the little one epy-

None of the names is Greek here, though the Paionians or Thracians who wrote these are on their way to become Hellenized, since we see them using Greek but with spelling variances, betraying variances in dialectical pronunciation (ei/ει instead of i/ι, y/υ instead or yi/υι). The name Pyroulas, is a typical Thracian name, attested as "Pyrumerulas (variants: Pyrmerulas, Pyrymerylas, Pirmerulas), which occurs as an epithet of the Thracian deity of Heros", according to the Bulgarian Linguist Ivan Duridanov. Duridanov believes it to be related to the Greek word pyros/πυρός the maize, and he is suggesting a meaning of something like: The Powerful one of the maize seed. I would say we would not be off the mark if we were to expand it to mean something like: The Great Farmer, or Farmer Protector, which the Thracian mounted Hero was.
Deidos sounds Greek but it is probably a Thracian name too. The ending "-dos" is not unusual in Thracian onomastics. The Thracian God Zberthurdos was the closest equivalent to being the Thracian "Zeus".
Zaibalos is most probably related to Zaika and Zaikis, possibly its male version.

Another Inscription from now Bulgarian Thrace speaks of a Zaipas/Ζαιπας. It seems plausible that this name is linguistically also related to the name Zaika/Ζαικα.
IGBulg IV 2112
Thrace and Moesia Inferior
Thrace and the Lower Danube (IG X)
IGBulg IV 2112
Thrace and Moesia Inferior
Ροιμος
Ταρσου Ζαι-
πᾳ συμβί-
ῳ τῇ καλ-
Roimos
son of Tarsos to Zai-
pa his life part-
ner the most beau-

Yet another inscription has been found in the same area, this one with the name Zairdainos/Ζαιρδαίνος:
IGBulg III,2 1743
Thrace and Moesia Inferior
Ζαιρδαι[νῳ — — — — — —]
Αυλουζεν̣[— — — — — —]
to Zairdan[os — — — — — —]
son of Aulouzeṇ[— — — — — —]

Zairdanos again starts with "Zai-" and the ending "-rdanos" is very Thracian, reminiscent of and quite probably related to the Thracian ethnonym: Dardanos. Dardania was roughly the land enclosing what is now Kosovo and the northern part of FYROM, and Skopje, far from being a Macedonian city, ever, was the capital of Dardania, yet now it is the capital of the so called Republica "Makedonija".

Yet another Thracian name that starts with Zai- / Ζαι- is found again in Bulgarian Moesia:
IGBulg I² 130
Thrace and Moesia Inferior
[υ]τ̣ῷ καὶ τῇ γ̣[υναι]-
κὶ Ζαινειλᾳ Η[․c.4․]
[τ]ὸ̣ μνημεῖ̣[ον ἔστησε].
...self and to his wi-
fe Zainela H.......
the monument he erected

An interesting name appears in another Greek inscription from Sintike, by the Bulgarian city of Sandanski, ancient Parthikopolis:
Northern Greece (IG X)
IGBulg IV 2291
Macedonia : Sintike: Parthikopolis (Sandanski): Laskarevo
τῷ ἀδελφῷ
Δ̣ε̣ιτουζαι-
που ἡ γυνὴ
Ἀμύντου
to brother
Deitouzaipas'
wife

Δ̣ε̣ιτουζας / Deitouzaipas seems to be a combination of two well-attested Thracian names that we just encountered above: Deidos/Δειδος and Zaipas/Ζαιπας.

Another indication that Zaika/Ζαικα is most probably a Thracian name is in on some inscriptions from Thrace, Northern Greece and Paionia from the Roman times, long before the descent of the Bulgarians and the Slavs (during the middle ages) into these areas:

SEG 53:663
Macedonia : Sintike: Neine (G. Gradeshnitsa-Ilindentsi)
Σεβήρᾳ τῇ συμβίῳ καὶ Ἰουλίῳ Μαξίμῳ τῷ
υἱῷ καὶ Ζαικαιδενθῃ τῇ ἀδελφῇ κατωχη-
κόσι κατεσκεύασεν μνήμης ἕνεκα.
…to Severa his wife, and to Ioulios Maximos his
son and to Zaikaidenthe, his sister, to be buried,
he erected in their memory

Northern Greece (IG X)
Mt. Olympe 479,28
Macedonia : Pieria: Nea Ephesos
Ζαιπύρου Μέξτεως
(of) Zaipyros son of Mextes

Ζαικαιδενθη/Zaikaidenthe means child of Zaika, in Thracian. The endings -denthes /-δενθης and -denthe /-δενθη are typical of many names in the Thracian language. It means: "child of", equivalent to English "-son": John-Johnson, James-Jameson, etc.
Examples: Καρδένθης/Kardenthes, Σκαιδένθης/Skaidenthes, Βαργιδένθης/Bargidenthes, Αυλουδένθης/Auloudenthes, Επτακένθης/Eptakenthos - a frequent Thracian name ´Epta´s (a goddess) child´, Διασκενθης/Diascenthus - ´god´s child´. Dia is related to Greek Διός/Dios (genitive of Zeus), and to the Latin Deus, among others. We also find: Δενθηβαρις / Denthevaris, with δένθη/denthe appearing here in the beginning of the word.

Zaika/Ζαικα, Zaikaidenthe/Ζαικαιδενθη, Zaikis/Ζαίκις, Zairdainos/Ζαιρδαίνος, Zainela/Ζαινείλα and Ζαίπα/Zaipa are all Thracian names, for most of which we do not know the exact meaning. The only thing we can do is speculate basing ourselves on existing linguistic data.

The first clue comes from Bulgarian Thracologist professor Ivan Duridanov´s list of Thracian names, where we find the following names: Zipyros, Zeipyros, Ziepyrus, Zypyr, Zipyron, Zeipyron, all of which mean: God´s boy, God´s son.
Zan/Ζάν (genitive: Zanos/Ζανός, plural: Zanes/Ζάνες) is but another name for Zeus/Ζεύς. Zea/Ζέα (a name that survives in one of Peireus´three ports even today: Limani Zeas/Λιμάνι Ζέας), Hesechios tells us was another name for the underworld Goddess hekate/Εκάτη, Godess also of three-roads junctions. Zeus in genitive is Dios/Διός, a cognate of Deus in Latin and Theos/Θεός in Greek, all of which mean "God". Zeus and Deus and Dios might seem very different at first sight, but the letter Ζ/Ζ is interchangeable with D/Δ in some Greek dialects: Dia/Διά, in the Aeolian dialect was pronounced and written as Ζa/Ζά. Dia nyktos/διά νυκτός, through the night, in Aeolian would be: za nyktos/ζα νυκτός. Zeter/Ζητήρ is Zeus in Cyprus (Ζεύς εν Κύπρω, according to Hesechios, again), which seems like a possible paraphrase of Zeus-Pater, a cognate of the Latin Jupiter. The interchangeability between Z and D exists not only in Greek but in Thracian too:
Deopus - ´son of god´, Deospor, Deospuris - ´son of god´, Desakenthos - ´god´s child´, Diaskenthos, Diascenthus, Diascinthus - ´god´s child´, Diazelmis - ´god´s descendant´, Diazenis, Diuzenes ´born of Zeus, divine´, Dizapes - ´god´s son´, Dizapor - ´god´s son, boy´, Dizazelmis - ´god´s child, descendant, are cognates of the Thracian names we encountered earlier: Zipyros, Zeipyros, Ziepyrus, Zypyr, Zipyron, Zeipyron.
Proposing that Zaika is a Thracian name, with a name that means the divine one, or the blessed by the gods, in the spirit of equivalent Greek names Theone/Θεόνη or Theone/Θεώνη and Διώνη/Διόνη or Dione/Διόνη, for example, is more plausible to me than trying to equate this name with no regard to historical geography to the Slavonic rabbit, or hare.
Professor Donski from Skopje, FYROM, tells us that "Zaika…is one of the most interesting ancient Macedonian female names. It may represent a female form of the present day Macedonian "zajak" (rabbit)".
Let us see what the Bulgarians, who never claimed to be descendants of the ancient Macedonians, call their hare/rabbit: заек/zaek, which is the same as the Slavomacedonians of the Prespa region, call it too: a very Bulgarian-sounding заек/zaek, instead of the proper, Skopje-sanctioned: заjак/zajak. The Serbs and Croats give it a slightly different twist: зец/zec and: zec. The Czechs call it: zajíc, the Slovenians: zajec, which is identical to the Ukrainian hare: заєць/zajec. The Upper Sorbians, a Slavic minority in Germany, whose name betrays ancient fraternal connections to the Serbians of the Balkans call their rabbit: zajac, which is identical in pronunciation to the Russian: заяц/zajac, Belarusian: заяц/zajac, and Slovak: zajac and almost identical to the Polish: zając.
Now, I will have a very hard time trying to convince myself that the Slovenomakedonski заjак/zajak or заек/zaek for that matter, is ancient Macedonian and that Zaika is a hare-related name. All the Slavs have similar sounding and linguistically very tightly related rabbits/hares. In fact, the Slavonic long-eared lovable creatures are linguistically very close to the Baltic ones, the Latvian: zaķis and the Lithuanian: zuikis. This, of course, is to be expected, since the Baltic and the Slavic languages used to be part of the same linguistic Balto-Slavic group, before they split, sometime in the first millennium BC, long before (probably a thousand years or so) some of their descendants descended to the warm and fertile lands of Thrace, Paionia and Macedonia. Incidentally, the hare in Ancient Greek: λαγός/lagós and λαγώς/lagós or λαγωός/lago'os and in Modern Greek: λαγός/lagós.

Πτολεμαίου Βασιλέως / (belonging to) King Ptolemaios

This brings us to Ptolemy Lagos, the Macedonian general who later became Pharaoh of Egypt: Ptolemy, the childhood friend and comrade of Alexander the Great, whose full name was Ptolemaios Lagos/Πτολεμαίος Λάγου. He is the one who started the dynasty of the Ptolemies/Πτολεμαίοι, who were also called Lagidai/Λαγίδαι, from Lagos/Λάγος or Λαγός, the name of Ptolemaios´ father. Ptolemaios himself gladly abandoned his own rabbit/hare-sounding patronym once he himself became a king, the Pharaoh of Hellenistic Egypt. He adopted the prosonym which the Rhodians in gratitude offered him: Soter/Σωτήρ, the Savior! The hare connection of Ptolemaios Lagos is possible and almost obvious, but another, more plausible explanation exists, especially given the fact that Lagos must have been a Macedonian chief himself (little if anything is known of him, and Ptoleμaios spread the royal rumor that Philip II was in fact his own father from Arsinoe/Αρσινόη, his mother).
The alternative theory would be that the name Lagos/Λαγος is possibly a dialectical short rendering of Lagetes/Λαγέτης or Lagetas/Λαγέτας. Lagetas is derived from Λάας-Λαός, meaning "the people" and specifically, in ancient Greek, "the people in arms", the army, and from ago/άγω, to lead. Lagetas/Λαγέτας appears also much earlier, in pre-Homeric Lawagetas/ΛαFαγέτας. The earliest attestation of Lawagetas/ΛαFαγέτας is in the Linear B tablets of Pylos and Knossos: ra-wa-ke-ta, transliterated by Michael Kendris, the decipherer of the Linear B tablets as: Lawagetas/ΛαFαγέτας, "military commander". In modern Greek Laos/Λαός means "people", and Lagetas or Lagetes and Lawagetas can be rendered as Laoegetes/Λαοηγέτης, or Laou egetes/Λαού ηγέτης, both meaning "leader of the people". The transformation of the -es and/or -as ending into an -os ending can be confusing but not at all unusual in Greek. The same evolution can be seen in the Greek word for "hunter":
Achaean-Linear B Greek: ku-na-ke-ta =, transliterated as Kynagetas/κυναγετας from kyn/κυν = dog + egetas/ηγετας=leader [ku-na-ke-ta-i (PY Na 248, TH) [kuna:geta:hi] 'hunters'32. 28. a-stems, loc. plur., Ref.: Autosegmental Phonology and Word-Internal -h- in Mycenaean Greek,  S Colvin - 2006], meaning literally: "leader of the dogs", hunter. Kynagetas/κυναγετας developed into Kynegos/κυνηγος from:
Kynagetas/Κυναγετας --- Kynegos/Κυνηγος
Likewise: Lawagetas/ΛαFαγετας --- Lagetes/Λαγέτης - Lagos/Λαγος
If this is correct, then the rabbit connection needs to be erased completely from the patronym of Ptolemaios. We need to be suspicious of easy, phonetic-based explanations. Lagos sounds exactly like a hare in both ancient and modern Greek, but probably not so in all the Hellenic dialects. Macedonian Greek was notorious in omitting vowels for example, and this can be very confusing for us today. Many Greeks still think that Perdikas/Περδίκας the Macedonian general took his name from perdix/πέρδιξ, the partridge bird. On a closer inspection, his name is actually from the preposition peri/περί, around, concerned with, and dika/δίκα δίκη, justice: Peridikas/Περιδίκας. In this sense it is linguistically and grammatically closer to that most famous of Athenian names: Perikles/Περικλής, whose name is also derived from peri/περί and is combined with kleos/κλέος, "glory".

Tito's geostrategic dream: Greater Yugoslavija from the Adriatic to the Black Sea

The modern Македонски Словени/ Makedonski Sloveni, the self-proclaimed "ethnic Macedonians" have absolutely no linguistic or historical relation to the ancient Greek Macedonians, or the Thracians and Paionians of Macedonia proper. They inhabit a sizeable part of the land that used to be ancient Paionia, and only tiny parts of ancient Macedonia and ancient Thrace. Misnaming what is now the Former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija as "Macedonia" might have made sense at some point, from the perspective of the advancement of Tito´s Yugoslav expansionist dreams. These dreams included the creation of a Titoist fiefdom from the Adriatic to the Aegean sea and to the shores of the Black Sea. The hope, of course, was to incorporate not only northern Greece but the whole of Bulgaria too, and extend this Balkan Mega-Sclavenia to the Black sea. This did not see the light of day, due to the Stalin-Tito break, or possibly, Tito´s demands may have caused it. These considerations, dating back to the 1940´s and 1950´s have no basis on either geography or history and never had any. Jugoslavija, instead of usurping the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, Greek Macedonia and Bulgaria included, ended up breaking up itself, exploding in flames and genocide during the 1990´s.
This process is still painfully with us until now, simmering in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and FYROmacedonia. It is in all these areas that short-sighted Euro-American interests imposed temporary solutions that sought to create mini-Yugoslavias or Mini-Albanias or mini-Afghanistans in the middle of the proverbial Balkan powder keg. None of them has any long term future, not under their respective leaderships anyway and not the way they have been formed and imposed upon the locals, fermenting oceans of ethnic hatred in the process. These ethnic morphemes are all accidents waiting to happen. It is only a matter of when and how, not a question of if.
Edo einai Balkania, den einai paixe gelase/ Εδώ είναι Βαλκάνια, δεν είναι παίξε γέλασε, is how music composer and song-writer Dionysis Savopoulos /Διονύσης Σαββόπουλος prophetically put it in the song Ballos, back in the early 1970´s: This is the Balkans…this is not a play-and-laugh field! For the international community to be tolerating, nay, encourage Skopjan irredentism and extreme ultra-nationalism that borderlines fascism and fringe political lunacy, like the policies of the governing VMRO party of prime minister Nikola Gruevski/Никола Груевски, and all this in a country that for all practical purposes is nothing but a microcosm of Yugoslavia is utterly incomprehensible to the locals. One of the reasons, besides flawed and idiotically near-sighted geopolitics (of the type that led the US into quagmires in Iraq, or Vietnam and now Afghanistan) that Globomagicians-in-training from Washington, London and Brussels are gleefully playing with matches in the midst of the Balkan powder keg is simple: it is not their own backyard! Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs want none of that and they view the likes of Nikola Gruevski and his VMRO political goons as dangerous left-overs from ages past.
To bring this home, and to see how Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs view the neo-Ottoman-Great Turkish, Kosovarian-Great Albanian and Skopjan-Antico-Slavomakedonci dreams of Grandeur and land annexation, is to ponder at an analogy: how would the US government and the American people react to any talk of Mexican irredentism, vis-à-vis California, Texas and New Mexico, to name a few states, that some hotheaded Politicos in Mexico city would demand to carve away from the USA and annex to Mexico?

It does not sound good, now, does it? This is, unfortunately the raison d'être behind professor Donski´s laughable theories. They are a medley of nonsense in support of a false and utterly imaginary ethnogennesis, trying to prove that somehow, the Slavs of FYROM are the direct descendents of the Greek-speaking ancient Macedonians, and therefore, Greeks, who have a historically and archaeologically proven presence of four thousand years in Macedonia, should be considered invaders that need to be thrown into the Aegean sea. When you play with history, history has a way to get its revenge. The archaeological and epigraphic record always comes to our rescue and proves professor Donski (and all his fellow propagandists in Skopje) wrong. All they are left with is folk etymology, invented pseudo-history and bogus science.
The limits of folk etymology are very narrow and they rarely hit the mark. Pulling a proverbial rabbit out of a Jugoslavic hat, is not as easy as it seems at first, as it is amply illustrated by our point in case: a counterfeit identity is not going to make a Sloveno-Makedonka out of an ancient Thracian girl. Zaika/Ζάϊκα, our Thracian girl is as closely related to Zajak/Заjaк the rabbit as the girl with the fluffy bunny ears, shown at the beginning of this article, is.
Pretending is not the same as being: PRETENDING to be a Macedonian does not make you an "ethnic" Macedonian. Skopje´s propaganda machine has been tirelessly at work, since 1944, trying to bolster an unsustainable national cohesion (and to avoid Yugoslavia´s fate of dissolution) through an officially-sanctioned pseudo-Macedonian forged ethnic identity. Reality has a way of getting back to those who disregard it. A person that escapes his own reality ends up with a split personality (clinically diagnosed as Dissociative Identity Disorder-DID). Tragic as it is for a person, it can be devastating when applied to a whole population by a repressive state apparatus that "knows best", as it happened with Tito´s former Yugoslav Republic of Makedonija. The permanent identity crisis that has plagued this mini state from its inception has spilled over, creating problems of ethnic tension, hatred and irredentist passions for everyone else in this volatile Balkan neighborhood. This obvious clash with reality has created a national obsession with identity-searching within the majority of the population in FYROM: a Torbeshi (Bulgarian-speaking Muslim Slav) thinks he is a Turk, a Vlach Greek thinks he is a Slav and a Slav thinks he is a Macedonian Greek (though violently refuses to accept that the Hellenism of the Macedonians). More often than not, the pseudo-Makedonist state propaganda´s version of ethnic reality transcends into the realm of the bizarre and the surreal crosses over and establishes itself well within the borders of the outright ludicrous, ending up with such national-identity-bolstering gems like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RLCj7Luu5Ko

Our Thracian Zaika/Ζάϊκα notwithstanding, pulling propaganda rabbits out of a hat seems to be part of the daily Show in Skopje´s "Greater Macedonija - Fantasija Balkanika" Circus.


FURTHER READING – REFERENCES:
http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main
Philip II of Macedonia, by Ian Worthington, Yale university Press, 2008
Historiarum Philippicarum in Epitomen redacti A M. Iuniano Iustino, Book VIII
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. Marcus Junianus Justinus
translation by John Selby Watson. London 1853
http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/trans8.html
Езикът на траките/The Language of the Thracians, by Ivan Duridanov, Nauka i izkustvo, Sofia, 1976 http://groznijat.tripod.com/thrac/index.htmlpaionia
Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell & Scott, Oxford, 1951 (1843)
Hσύχιος/Hesychios, Λεξικόν, Aρχαία Ελληνική Γραμματεία, "Οι Ελληνες»», Οδυσσέας Χατζόπουλος, Athens 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBcJp1dywHA
Linear B – An introduction. J.T.Hooker, Bristol Classical Press, London, 2001
The Decipherment of Linear B, John Chadwick, Cambridge University Press, 1958

Macedonian names and makeDonski pseudo-linguistics: The case of the name Lyka.

Miltiades Elia Bolaris

Το παρόν άρθρο είχε πρωτοεμφανιστεί στο Αμέρικαν Κρόνικλ στις 15 Αυγούστο του 2009. This article first appeared in the "American Chronicle", on August 15, 2009.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/114302

"Lyka. This female Macedonian name, which exists in the present day language, is possibly derived from the noun "lika" (a face, pretty face). The name Lika is present in today's Macedonian onomasticon." Quote was taken from: "Similarities between ancient Macedonian and today's' Macedonian Culture (Linguistics and Onomastics)" by Aleksandar Donski, celebrity "historian" and propagandist from FYROM.

Lyka/Λύκα

Lykos/Λύκος in Greek means wolf. In Greek the substitution of the -os/ος ending of masculine names by the -e/-η and -a/-α endings signifies the female equivalent of the same noun or adjective. Therefore, to the uninitiated, Lyka obviously sounds like female wolf in Greek. Under certain conditions it could be, but properly it is not. The female wolf in standard modern Greek, is Lykaina (G.Babiniotis, Athens, 2002). Lyka/Λύκα is also understood, but it does not sound proper.

The modern Slavic name Lika/Лика, (wherever it is not a simple cut-off derivative of Angelika) can possibly be a survival of the ancient Greek name Λύκα/Lyka, since many Greek rural populations lived side by side with Slavic ones and some were probably assimilated into the Slavic populations of later times, post 7th century Ad. But since this name is found also in other Slavic languages, who never came into contact with the local Greek speaking populations of the Balkans, then this hypothesis is probably unsupported.

Personally, I would would tend to think that if, and that is a big if, the Slavic female name Lika/Лика is related to Greek, then it is most probably a modern loan name that could in fact be derived from the Greek Lykos/ Λύκος=wolf. In a dialectical format in some parts of modern Greece the she-wolf may indeed also be called Lyka/λύκα, though personally I cannot attest to it, nor deny its posibility. In ancient Greek the word to describe her was either Lyko/Λυκώ or Lykaina/Λύκαινα(Stamatakos, Athens, 1972). The commonly used word to describe the the she-wolf now, in Modern Greek, is also Lykaina/Λύκαινα, the "Wolfette" . For the record, Lykos/ Λύκος is derived from the common Indo-European word for the wolf *wlkwos, which is found in numerous other Indo-European languages, besides Greek: Latin "Lupus", Sanskrit "Vrka", Tocharian B "Walwa", Lithuanian "Vilkas", Albanian "Ujk", English and German "Wolf", Russian "Volk", etc. (Oxford Introduction to Indo-European, Oxford 2006).

Professor Donski may actually be correct in pointing out that the modern Slavomacedonian name Lika/Лика "is possibly derived from the noun "lika" (a face, pretty face)". Indeed, "face" in Russian is "Litso/лицо", and when speaking of a Saint's face the Russians use the word "лик святого" (lik svyatogo). In Serbian and Croatian it is "Lice/лице" and in Bulgarian it is "Litse/лице" or "Lik/лик" so it seems probable that Donski may actually be partially right on this one, on the derivation of the modern Slavonic name Lika.

Regardless and completely independent of where the modern Slavic female Lika/Лика is derived from, the ancient Macedonian name Λύκα/Lyka is unquestionably Greek. Unlike the modern version, though, it is for sure not derived from Λύκος/Lykos, the wolf. Linguistically the two words are totally unrelated.

We must go to the ancient sources and look at what the ancient epigraphy can reveal to us, in order to find out why.

The first inscription is from the Macedonian city of Amphipolis/Ἀμφίπολις, not far from the city of Serres:

Regions : Northern Greece (IG X) : Macedonia
SEG 35:712
Makedonia (Edonis) — Amphipolis — Portraita se Taphika Mnemeia (1983) 194,
127 — Grabdenkmäler mit Porträts (1998) 104,135

Ζώσιμος καὶ Χρη-
σίμα Λύκᾳ τῷ τέ-
κνῳ μνήμης
χάριν.

Zesimos and Chre-
sima to Lyka their
child in memory's
Grace.

A second inscription from Macedonia comes from Beroia:

Regions : Northern Greece (IG X) : Macedonia
EKM 1. Beroia 341
Makedonia (Bottiaia) — Beroia — 2nd/3rd c. AD

Ἡλιοφῶν Λύκαν τὴν γυ-
νε̑κα μνήμης χάριν κὲ Οὐα-
λέριν τὸν υἱὸν ἥρωα.

Heliophon to Lyka his
wife in memory's Grace and to Oua-
lerios his son the Hero.

A third inscription, this one from Thessalonike mentions yet another Lyka:

Regions : Northern Greece (IG X) : Macedonia
IG X,2 1 326
Makedonia (Mygdonia) — Thessalonike — 2nd c. AD

Σεραπιακὸς καὶ
Λύκα Λευκίππ[ῃ]
καὶ Ἀθηνοδώρῳ
τοῖς τέκνοις μνεί-
ας χάριν.

Serapiakos and
Lyka to Leukipe
and Athenodoros
their children, in me-
mory's Grace

Then, on an inscription, from the Paionian city of Stoboi, now in Central FYROM, the name appears in its masculine form, Lykas/Λύκας.

Regions : Northern Greece (IG X) : Macedonia
SEG 16:406
Makedonia (Paionia) — Stoboi — Sirkovo — Roman period — ZAnt 3 (1953) 237, 7

Κλυμένη Λύ-
κᾳ τῇ θυγατρὶ
καὶ Πουπλίῳ
τῷ ἀνδρὶ ἐποίει
μνήμης χάριν καὶ
ἑαυτῇ ζῶσα.

Klynene, daughter of Ly-
kas to her daughter
and to her husband
Pouplios she made
(and dedicated this monument)
in memory's grace and
to herself, while still alive.

Τhe Paeonians were an ancient ethnic group that lived in the Amphaxitis, in what is now Central Macedonia,Greece, in southern ex-Yugoslavia (what is now southern and central FYROM), and in SW Bulgaria. They were squeezed between the Macedonians and the Thracians. The Paionians are thought to have been a cousin nation to the Greeks, the closest ethnolinguistic relatives of the Greeks in the ancient Balkans. Precious few of their words are known to us. Only some toponyms, hydronyms, animal names ethnic and personal names have passed down to us. They never had their language written down and what has been written is all in proper Greek. Paionia became completely Hellenized after it became a client state of the Macedonians, retaining only nominal independence. It is generally accepted that they were also closely related to the Phrygians, who were originally neighbors of both the Paionians and the Northwestern Greeks, according to Herodotus and others, and the linguistic affinity of the Phrygian language to Greek has recently been well established (Claude Brixhe, Vladimir Orel, Panayiotou, Diakonov, etc) beyond doubt.Revealingly, most of the Paionian names were either unmistakably Greek (Agis/Άγης, a Royal name shared with several kings of Sparta, Ariston/Αρίστων, Audoleon/Αυδολέων, Leon/Λέων, etc) or Greek-related (almost completely Greek with only slight dialectical differences with classical Greek, like Patraos/Πατράος, Eupolemenos/Ευπολεμένος, etc). At any rate all of their names are easily decipherable using Greek. One of the Paionian names was that of a Paionian κing, named Lycceios/Λύκκειος (356BC - 340BC).
We see that there are plenty of inscriptions in Macedonia, which indicates that the name Lyka and apparently Lykas too were quite common in Macedonia, and apparently in Paionia too. In fact there was a city known from Hellenistic times called Lyka, on the island of St Achileios in the Prespa Lake, which has been recently identified by Roman and Hellenistic fragments under Byzantine archaeological strata, and of course the epigraphy found at the spot:

EAM 149
Macedonia : Lynkestis: Lyke (Agios Achilleios)

Λυ]καίων ἡ πολειτεία
Κ(όιντον) v Ἰούλιον Κρίσπον

The city of the Lykaioi
to Kointos Ioulios Krispos (a Latin name written in Greek)

SEG 47:910
Macedonia : Lynkestis: Lyke (Agios Achilleios)

θε]οῖς Σεβαστοῖς καὶ τῇ Λυκαίων
πό]λει Λ(εύκιος) Φλαούιος Φαβρικιανὸς

to the Respected Gods to the city of the
Lykaioi Leukios Flauios Fabrikianos

The St. Achileios island inscriptions, besides the identification of Lyka, the city of the Lykaoi, it also gives us a good hint of the language spoken in this macedonian city during the Roman times.

But was the name Lyka/Λύκα exclusive to Macedonia? Apparently not, as the epigraphic record will easily prove.

An Athenian man, sometime in the early 5th c BC inscribed his name in ancient graffiti form, for posterity:

SEG 40:47 Attica
Att. — Würzburg: Martin-v.-Wagner — c. 480-470 bc
graffito:}²

Λύκας.

Lykas

In the Attic town of Eleusis, in Athens we read:

Regions : Attica (IG I-III) : Eleusis
SEG 45:188
Att. — Eleusis — AD 47.1992[1997].B.42

Λύκα Θρέπτου ἐγ Μελιτέων

Lyka daughter of Threpsis from Meliteoi.

A woman's funerary dedication on her father's tomb, tells us that the name Lyka was also in use in the island of Crete.

Regions : Aegean Islands, incl. Crete (IG XI-[XIII]) : Crete
IC II v 43
Crete, W. — Axos — IIp.

Λύκα Μυ̣-
στίκωι
τῷ πατρὶ
μνήμης
χά̣[ριν].

Lyka to My-
stikos
her father
in memory's
grace.

The name Lyka appears twice on a long list of about 270 names from the Torre Nova area of Rome, the vast majority of which are Greek, with some Latin ones, which indicates that this was a Greek religious cult or mystic order, since such religious titles as ἱέρεια/Hiereia, μύσται/mystai, ἥρως/hero, δᾳδοῦχος/dadouchos, ἱεροφάντης/hierophantes, βουκόλοι ἱεροί boukoloi hieroi, πυρφόροι/pyrphoroi and of course a φαλλοφόρος/phalophoros are mentioned, all by name:

Regions : Sicily, Italy, and the West (IG XIV) : Italy, incl. Magna Graecia
IGUR I 160
Italia — Roma: Torre Nova, area of — ca. mid. 2nd c. AD — cf. IGUR IV, p. 148, 160

βάκχαι/bacchae
Τύχη/Tyche
Ἐρώτιον/Erotion
Σεουέρα/Seouera
Λύκα/Lyka
etc
and further down:
Στρατηγία/Strategia
Οὐαλερία Ἀριστεῖνα/Oualeria Aristeina
Μυγδονίς/Mygdonis
Νεμεσίλλα/Nemesilla
Φηλείκιτας/Phelikitas
Λύκα/Lyka
Σέμνη/Semne
etc

Finally, in the Greek city of Knidos, in Caria of Asia Minor, at the base of a statue we read:

Regions : Asia Minor : Caria
IK Knidos I 165
Karien — Knidos (Tekir) — 180-170 v.Chr. — AJA 77.1973.422 Anm.37

Κλέαρχον Ἀναξιδώρου
Τιμόξενος Ἀριστοκλεῦς
καὶ Λύκα Ἀναξιππίδα
τὸν αὐτᾶς πάππον

To Clearchos son of Anaxidoros
Timoxenos son of Aristocleus

and Lyka daughter of Anaxipidas
to her grandfather

The epigraphic record, therefore, amply proves, as we said earlier, that Lyka/Λύκα is not only a Macedonian, but a Panhellenic name; all the Greeks used it, in every part of the Greek speaking word.

Let us now go to two inscriptions from Central Greece, with the name Lyka/Λύκα. They are from the oracle of Delphi, where Apollo was worshiped. Both inscriptions very similar, I would say almost identical, which seems to indicate that they followed a ritual pattern for this type of sacred dedicatory texts, where only the names of the persons, the names of the months and the amounts of money involved in the sacred sale were changing. They are dedications to the Pythian Apollo of Delphi.

1 ἄρχοντος Δαμοσθένεος μηνὸς Δαιδαφορίου, ἐπὶ τοῖσδε
ἀπέδοτο Διόδωρος Μνασιθέου Δελφὸς τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι
τῶι Πυθίωι σῶμα γυναικεῖον ἇι ὄνομα Λύκα, τιμᾶς ἀργυ-
ρίου μνᾶν τεσσάρων ἡμιμναίου, καθὼς ἐπίστευσε
5 Λύκα τῶι θεῶι τὰν ὠνάν, ἐφ´ ὧιτε ἐλευθέρα εἶμεν

which translated into English will give us:

1 during the archonship of Damosthenes in the month of Daidaphorios right here
Diodoros son of Mnasitheos, a Delphian offered to Apollon
the Pythian a body of a woman whose name is Lyka worthy
four and a half silver mnas since she
5 Lyka has accepted the sale to the Gods

Regions: Central Greece (IG VII-IX) : Delphi
SGDI II 1963 SGDI II 1962 SGDI II 1964
Phokis — Delphi — 182 bc

Now the second Inscription:

ἄρχοντος Κράτωνος μηνὸς Θεοξενίου, ἐπὶ τοῖσ-
δε ἀπέδοτο Λύκα Δώρου τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι τῶι
Πυθίωι σῶμα γυναικεῖον ἇι ὄνομα Εὔπρα-
ξις. τιμᾶς ἀργυρίου μνᾶν τριῶν, καθὼς ἐπί-
(στευσε)..................................

and in approximate translation:

during the archonship of Kraton in the month of Theoxenios right
here Lyka daughter of Doros offered to Apollon
the Pythian a body of a woman whose name is
Eupraxis worthy three silver mnas since she be-
(lieved)..................................

Regions: Central Greece (IG VII-IX) : Delphi
SGDI II 1961
Phokis — Delphi — 183 bc

In both of these texts we notice the mention of two women named Lyka. They are obviously unrelated, which seems to indicate that this was probably a common name in the area of Delphi. In fact I found a total of seven inscriptions from Delphi (SGDI II 1741 Delphi, SGDI II 1833, Delphi, SGDI II 1876 Delphi, SGDI II 1961 Delphi, SGDI II 1963 Delphi, SGDI II 1975 Delphi, SGDI II 2243 Delphi) where the name Lyka is mentioned no less than 13 times.

The reason is simple: One of the names of the Pythian Apollon is Lycaios Apollon / Λυκαίος Ἀπόλλων or Lyceios Apollon /Λύκειος Ἀπόλλων. To know the meaning of this adjective we go to other words in the Greek language: Lykauges/Λυκαυγές (from Lyke/λύκη, meaning bright light+auge/αὐγή meaning dawn) is the light of the early dawn, when darkness breaks into day.

The same meaning is also found in the Greek word Lykophos/Λυκόφως (λύκη + φώς) for twilight. In ancient Greek we also encounter the word Lykabas/Λυκάβας (Λύκη+βαίνω) which means the going, the traveling, the departure of light, and it signified the time of day that still has light – before it gets dark, but also alternatively the solar year. Therefore, Lyke is a word that means light, and it is related to the word Lychnos which is the oil lamp the ancients used at night. Therefore Lycaios Apollon/Λυκαίος Ἀπόλλων means Apollo the illuminating one, which makes perfect sense considering that Apollon is a Solar God, a God of Light. Homer calls Apollon Lykegenes/Λυκηγενής=born of light, offspring of the light (and not wolf-born as popular etymology would assume, that would have been: Lykogenes/Λυκογενής).

In Arcadia in central Peloponnese we find the worship of Lycaios Zeus/Λυκαίος Ζεύς and indeed the toponym (one of many throughout Greece, from Macedonia to the Peloponnese) of Lycaeon/Lykaion/Λυκαίον Oros/Lycaeon mountain and on that mountain we also find the temple of Apollon at Bassae, in Phigaleia, a work of the celebrated architect Iktinos, one of the most magnificent temples in all of Greece. There is also a town called Lycaia, in Arcadia ("Λύκαια, πόλις Αρκαδίας"/Lycaia, a city of Arcadia - Stephanus Byzantius), adn yet another one, called Lycoa/Λυκόα ("Λυκόα, πόλις Αρκαδίας"/Lycοa, a city of Arcadia - Stephanus Byzantius, referencing Pausanias).

On top of the mountain Lycaeon/Lykaion the Arcadians celebrated the festival of Lycaea/Lykaia/Λυκαία in Honor of Lycaios Zeus/Λυκαίος Ζεύς.

An inscription from the town of Tegea, in Arcadia, enumerates the career victories of a Tegaean athlete, a native son, Damatrios/Δαμάτριος (Doric form of Demetrios), son of Aristippos/Ἀρίστιππος, and we read that among his numerous victories he had also won four times the Javelin throw prize in the Lykaian Games, the Lykaia/Λύκαια, held in his native Arcadia:

IG V,2 142 Arkadia (IG V,2) Arkadia — Tegea — late 3rd c. BC

Δαμάτριος Ἀριστίππου Damatrios son of Aristippos
Ὀλύμπια παῖδας στάδιον, Olympic Games children, Stadion run
Νέμεα παῖδας δόλιχον, Nemean Games children, Javelin
Ἀσκληπίεια παῖδας δόλιχον, Asclepieian Games, children, Javelin
Ἀλέαια παῖδας δόλιχον, Aleaian Gamnes, children, javelin
Λύκαια ἄνδρας δόλιχον τετράκις, Lykaian Games, men, Javelin, four times
Νέμεα ἄνδρας δόλιχον τρίς, Nemean Games, men, Javelin, thrice
Ἑκατόμβοια ἄνδρας δόλιχον ἵππιον δίς, Ecatomboia Games, men, Javelin, twice
Ἴσθμια ἄνδρας δόλιχον δίς, Isthmian Games, men, Javelin, twice
Ἀλέαια ἄνδρας δόλιχον τρίς, Aleaian Games, men, Javelin, thrice
Πύθια ἄνδρας δόλιχον δίς, Pythgian Games, in Delphi, men, Javelin, twice
Ὀλύμπια ἄνδρας δόλιχον ἅπαξ, Olympic Games, in Olympia, men, Javelin, once
Βασίλεια ἄνδρας δόλιχον δίς. Basileian Games, men, Javelin, twice

In the center of Athens, across the Acropolis, there is the white capped hill of Lycabetus/Λυκαβητός, a name it has had since prehistoric times. Then there is Lykeion/Λύκειον, the neighborhood by the temple of Lyceios Apollon, where Aristotle established his school of philosophy appropriately named the Lyceion/Λύκειον, in Latin transliterated as Lyceum. Τhe archaeological site has already been identified several years ago, in modern Athens. Now schools worldwide are called Lyceum/Lyceo/Lycee' due of Aristotle's random choice of that neighborhood as a good place to locate his school.

An inscription found in Athens actually mentions Lyceion/Λύκειον as an Athenian neighborhood landmark location:

IG II² 457 Attica

το τό τε στάδιον τὸ Παναθην]αϊκὸν καὶ τὸ γυμνάσιον τ-
ὸ κατὰ τὸ Λύκειον κατεσκεύ]ασεν καὶ ἄλλαις δὲ πολλαῖ-
ς κατασκευαῖς ἐκόσμησεν] ὅλην τὴν πόλιν·

and the stadion known as Panathenaikon and the gymnasion (a place for exercise),
the one next to Lykeion (Lyceion/Λύκειον) he built and other numerous
structures he decorated throughout the city.

Stephanos Byzantios mentions it too, in his "Ethnica": Λυκείον, τό γυμνάσιον. καί Λύκειος ό Απόλλων, λέγεται καί Λυκήιον / Lyceion, the gymnasium. and Lyceios Apollon, it is also called Lyceeion.

Finally in ancient Greece we encounter the names Lycaon/Λυκαων of Arcadia, Lykastes/ Λυκαστης of Crete, Lycarios/Λυκαριος the Spartan, Lycaonides/Λυκαονιδης the Arcadian, Lycanthos/Λυκανθος the Athenian, Lycainion/Λυκαινιον as a name for a woman from Athens Lycaros/Λυκάροs (IG X,2 2 327) in Macedonia : Derriopos: Styberra (Cepigovo), and Lycaretos/Λυκάρητος (Lebedos 6) from Ionia. We find Lyka/Λυκα a name very popular in Delphi and also Lyca/Λύκα (I.Apollonia 115) from Epeiros, and Lyca/Λύκα ( SEG 36:1156) from Bithynia, Lyca/Λύκα (IC I xviii 95) from Crete, Ctr.: Lyttos and Lyca/Λύκα (SEG 37:450) from Thessaly (IG IX,2): Magnesia: Demetrias. Lycaon/Λυκάων (IvO 91) from Elis in the Peloponnese, Lycaon/Λυκάων (MAMA 10 244) also from Phrygia, Lycaon/Λυκάων (FD III 1:478) from Delphi but also from (Spomenik 98 (1941-48) 48,101) Macedonian Paionia: Idomene? (Isar-Marvinci). Lykaios/Λυκαῖος (Epigr. tou Oropou 353) from Megaris in Boiotia (IG VII), Λυκάδας (Brunšmid, Inschriften 2-14) Epeiros, Illyria, and Dalmatia : Dalmatia, IG IV²,1 188, Λύκαιθος (IG IV²,1) from Epidauros in the Peloponnese, Lycades/Λυκάδης (ID 338) from the Cycladic island of Delos (IG XI and ID), Lycarion/Λυκαρίων (IGUR II 756) from Magna Graecia, in Southern Italy but also Lycarion/Λυκαρίων (SEG 40:1568) from Egypt. Lycandros/Λύκανδρος ( Graffites d'Abydos 91) from Egypt, Lycaris/Λυκάρις (IK Klaudiu polis 15) from Bithynia, Lycaithion/Λυκαίθιον (IK Knidos I 73) from Caria : Knidos. Lycaithos/Λύκαιθος Chios 152) from the island of Chios, and Lycaithos/Λύκαιθος (Iscr. di Cos ED 81) from Cos and Calymna : Kos.

Lyc/Luk-/Λυκ- derived Greek names, are all over the map of the ancient Hellenic world, they are obviously Pan-Hellenic and certainly not exclusive to the Macedonians.

Lyka-/Λυκα- is derived from Lyke/Λυκη meaning "bright light", which is also distantly related to Leukos/Λευκος which means "bright white, shiny, clear, bright" in Greek, and both are directly derived from the original Indo-European word *leukos which meant light, shiny, clear and bright, and related to the Indo-European noun *loukes for light. The Germanic-derived English word "light", the Old Irish "Loch" (glowing white), Hittite "Lukke", Sanskrit "Roki", Tocharian B "Lyuke", Lithuanian "Laukas" for blazing white, as well the Latin words "Lux" for light and "Luceo" for kindle, are all linguistically related to the Greek words "Leukos/Λευκός" the bright white, and Lyke/Λύκη" and of course to the ancient Macedonian, therefore Greek name "Lyka/Λύκα".

If we had the white she-wolf, shown in the photograph above, and had named her Lyka, she would have been Lyka/Λύκα, the lyceia/λυκεία-leuce/λευκή lykaina/λύκαινα:

In ancient Greek:

Λύκα ἠ λυκάλευκη λύκαινα - Lyka he lykaleyke Lykaina: Lyka the brightly white - shiny white she-wolf.

Come to think of it, it almost sounds like the title for a beautiful children's fable, like one of those professor Donski could be writing, once he stops wasting his great talent with words in fake nationalist fables for politically delusional adults of the type that belongs to the VMRO-DPMNE party; fables that try to promote an imaginary Ancient Macedonian Greek past for those with an uncertain and confused identity who happen to live in the lands of ancient Paionia and Dardania.


NOTES:

The photographs from Amphipolis, Lycabetos and Stoboi, as well as the Ancient Greek to English translations are by the author.

Greek Inscriptions
http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main

THE OXFORD INTRODUCTION to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, Oxford Linguistics, J.P.Mallory & D.Q. Adams, Oxford University Press, 2006-2007

Εθνικά, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ΚΑΚΤΟΣ, Αθήνα, 2004

A LEXICON OF GREEK PERSONAL NAMES - VOLUME IV - MACEDONIA, THRACE, NORTHERN REGIONS OF THE BLACK SEA, The British Academy, Clarendon Press, The University of Oxford, Oxford, 2005

Villages Cities and-Ethne in Upper Macedonia, Rizakis-Touratsoglou, page 82
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20072904/Villages-Cities-and-Ethne-in-Upper-Macedonia

GREEK - ENGLISH LEXICON, Liddell & Scott, Oxford University Press, 1843-1951

Λεξικόν της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Γλώσσης, Ιωάννου Σταματάκου, Αθήνα, 1972

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