It\'s all Greek to me (Makedonians included) ...

[Ghostmojo]

As Makedon and then Epeiros get their turns at hegemony over the other Greeks it is interesting to see how they both interact and how much common ground they always had. In many ways their respective stories go hand in hand.

The peninsula nature of Greece and its often inhospitable landscape made the movement and expansion of peoples a necessity as time went on. Initially there were neighbouring islands (Ionian or Aegean) to relocate to, and then their were nearby and not so nearby coasts. All the Greek ethnes seemed to have involved themselves in this to some extent with perhaps Aiolians and Ionians at the forefront. Residents of say Elis or Phokis for example, would have little recourse other than war with immediate neighbours if they wanted additional territory; or they had to start sailing towards more remote parts of coastal Greece to the north east or north west; or to Italy, Siciliy, Asia Minor or even further afield. During the age of expansion/colonisation there seemed to have been a reasonable degree of rubbing shoulders as one group or another settled and founded a colony either within or adjacent to the territory of other Greeks. The Ionian coastal region is a good example of this with Corinth founding Kerkyra, and Ambrakia (Arta) within Molossian lands.

Because of the defined geographic boundaries most mainland Greeks had to accept, their regions or states became easier to consolidate and stabilise. The opposite was true of the two border regions - Makedon and Epeiros. Their way of life was also different and every comment above directed at the Makedones could also be applied to the various residents of Epeiros - the Chaonians, Molossians and Thesprotians. Once again, Thukydides describes them as barbarians as evidently did Strabo, and yet Herodotos, Pausanias and others describe them as Greeks. Jeff Champion in his Pyrrhus of Epirus book suggests perhaps Thucydides views were based upon the classic urban Athenian Greek's opinions of village dwellers and pastoralists. And yet Thukydides never referred to the 'village-dwelling' Spartans as barbarians, although I am sure he would have had some other choice epithets for them! Hammond also viewed the various tribes of the Epirote kingdoms as being basically Greeks. The oldest Hellenic sanctuary (second only in importance to Delphi) was to be found in the very remote Dodona after all.

It is easy to see the dichotomy of Greek existence when comparing say a Greek Makedonian with a Greek Athenian or a Greek Epeirote with a Greek Argive. Not only did you have the clear obvious cultural and political snobbish, elitism of the central and southern cosmopolitan poleis Greeks, but you also had different ethnic backgrounds and historically pervading ways of life. The older Homeric Greek way of being had clung on longer in these regions. Their borders were also far less impervious to intrusion from non-Greeks (Illyrians, Thakians, etc.) and such continuous friction would not have allowed the progressive development into more sophisticated political systems so easily as happened elsewhere.

Having said that the all-pervading Hellenic influence, and the Greeks natural ability to settle diverse regions and climates, made colonisation/interaction with non-Greeks easier and hence we see the spread of Greek cities right up the Adriatic coast (Apollonia, Epidamnos, Pharos, Amantia, Pola, Epidauros etc.). Greek influence would be felt far more widely with even an early Rome considerably affected by this. I think because of this there exists a wide grey area concerning who was Greek and who was Greek-influenced.

Did Phillip or Pyrrhos desire wider Greek acceptance because it was an attractive notion, or did they because they felt absolutely that they shared the same rights to this by language, religion, custom, birth and descent? And did cultural opposition merely force them to reinforce the concept which often therefore made it viewed as aspiration by others rather than simple fact? And of course much of history is that of important and powerful people, written by or for the victors, and we rarely get to hear from the ordinary bloke (and almost never from women). It is certainly true that warbands wielding weapons can dominate surrounding less organised peoples, but they often find it easier to achieve if those 'dwellers-around' also feel some cultural or linguistic links with them, and perhaps share the same language and gods.