, at the Museum of
Vergina, which contains the remains
Philip II of Macedon () Macedonia had a distinct material culture by the
Early Iron Age. Typically Balkan burial, ornamental, and ceramic forms were used for most of the Iron Age. This did not necessarily symbolize a shared cultural identity, or any political allegiance between these regions. In the late sixth century BC, Macedonia became open to south Greek influences, although a small but detectable amount of interaction with the south had been present since late Mycenaean times. By the 5th century BC, Macedonia was a part of the "Greek cultural milieu" according to Edward M. Anson, possessing many cultural traits typical of the southern Greek city-states. Classical Greek objects and customs were appropriated selectively and used in peculiarly Macedonian ways. In addition, influences from
Achaemenid Persia in culture and economy are evident from the 5th century BC onward, such as the inclusion of Persian grave goods at Macedonian burial sites as well as the adoption of royal customs such as a Persian-style
throne during the reign of Philip II.
Economy, society, and social class and
Philip II The way of life of the inhabitants of Upper Macedonia differed little from that of their neighbours in Epirus and Illyria, engaging in seasonal
transhumance supplemented by agriculture. Young Macedonian men were typically expected to engage in
hunting and martial combat as a byproduct of their transhumance lifestyles of herding
livestock such as goats and sheep, while
horse breeding and raising
cattle were other common pursuits. In these mountainous regions, upland sites were important focal points for local communities. In these difficult terrains, competition for resources often precipitated intertribal conflict and raiding forays into the comparatively richer lowland settlements of coastal Macedonia and Thessaly. Despite the remoteness of the upper Macedonian highlands, excavations at Aiani since 1983 have discovered finds attesting to the presence of social organization since the 2nd millennium BC. The finds include the oldest pieces of black-and-white pottery, which is characteristic of the tribes of northwest Greece, discovered so far. Found with
Μycenaean sherds, they can be dated with certainty to the 14th century BC. The finds also include some of the oldest samples of writing in Macedonia, among them inscriptions bearing Greek names like
Θέμιδα (Themida). The inscriptions demonstrate that Hellenism in Upper Macedonia was at a high economic, artistic, and cultural level by the sixth century BCoverturning the notion that Upper Macedonia was culturally and socially isolated from the rest of ancient Greece. Exploitation of minerals helped expedite the introduction of coinage in Macedonia from the 5th century BC, developing under southern Greek, Thracian and Persian influences. Some Macedonians engaged in farming, often with
irrigation,
land reclamation, and
horticulture activities supported by the Macedonian state. However, the bedrock of the Macedonian economy and state finances was the twofold exploitation of the forests with
logging and valuable
minerals such as copper, iron, gold, and silver with
mining. The conversion of these raw materials into finished products and their sale encouraged the growth of urban centers and a gradual shift away from the traditional rustic Macedonian lifestyle during the course of the 5th century BC. (). Macedonian society was dominated by
aristocratic families whose main source of wealth and prestige was their herds of horses and cattle. In this respect, Macedonia was similar to Thessaly and Thrace. In contrast with classical Greek poleis, the Macedonians held only few slaves. , a philosopher from the Macedonian town of
Stageira, tutoring young
Alexander in the
Royal Palace of
Pella. The Macedonian Kings often sought the best education possible for their heirs. Artwork by
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. However, unlike Thessaly, Macedonia was ruled by a monarchy from its earliest history until the
Roman conquest in 167 BC. The nature of
the kingship, however, remains debated. One viewpoint sees it as an
autocracy, whereby the king held absolute power and was at the head of both government and society, wielding arguably unlimited authority to handle affairs of state and public policy. He was also the leader of a very personal regime with close relationships or connections to his
hetairoi, the core of the Macedonian aristocracy. Any other position of authority,
including the army, was appointed at the whim of the king himself. The other, "
constitutionalist", position argues that there was an evolution from a society of many minor "kings" – each of equal authority – to a sovereign military state whereby an
army of citizen soldiers supported a central king against a rival class of
nobility. Kingship was hereditary along the
paternal line, yet it is unclear if
primogeniture was strictly observed as an established custom. During the Late Bronze Age (circa 15th-century BC), the ancient Macedonians developed distinct, matt-painted wares that evolved from
Middle Helladic pottery traditions originating in central and southern Greece. The Macedonians continued to use an individualized form of material culturealbeit showing analogies in ceramic, ornamental and burial forms with the so-called
Lausitz culture between 1200 and 900 BCand that of the
Glasinac culture after circa 900 BC. While some of these influences persisted beyond the sixth century BC, a more ubiquitous presence of items of an Aegean-Mediterranean character is seen from the latter sixth century BC, as Greece recovered from its Dark Ages. Southern Greek impulses penetrated Macedonia via trade with north Aegean colonies such as Methone and those in the
Chalcidice, neighbouring Thessaly, and from the
Ionic colonies of Asia Minor. Ionic influences were later supplanted by those of
Athenian provenance. Thus, by the latter sixth century, local elites could acquire exotic Aegean items such as
Athenian red figure pottery, fine tablewares, olive oil and wine amphorae, fine ceramic perfume flasks, glass, marble and precious metal ornamentsall of which would serve as status symbols. By the 5th century BC, these items became widespread in Macedonia and in much of the central Balkans. Macedonian settlements have a strong continuity dating from the Bronze Age, maintaining traditional construction techniques for residential architecture. While settlement numbers appeared to drop in central and southern Greece after 1000 BC, there was a dramatic increase of settlements in Macedonia. These settlements seemed to have developed along raised promontories near river flood plains called
tells (Greek: τύμβοι). Their ruins are most commonly found in western Macedonia between
Florina and
Lake Vergoritis, the upper and middle
Haliacmon River, and
Bottiaea. They can also be found on either side of the
Axios and in the Chalcidice in eastern Macedonia.
Religion and funerary practices was a centre of the worship of
Zeus and the most important spiritual sanctuary of the ancient Macedonians. in
Amphipolis,
northern Greece, a 4th-century BC marble tomb sculpture erected in honor of
Laomedon of Mytilene, a general who served under
Alexander the Great By the 5th century BC the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks worshiped more or less the
same deities of the Greek pantheon. In Macedonia, politics and religion often intertwined. For instance, the head of state for the city of
Amphipolis also served as the priest of
Asklepios, Greek god of medicine; a similar arrangement existed at
Cassandreia, where a cult priest honoring the city's founder
Cassander was the nominal municipal leader. Foreign
cults from Egypt were fostered by the royal court, such as the temple of
Sarapis at
Thessaloniki, while Macedonian kings
Philip III of Macedon and
Alexander IV of Macedon made
votive offerings to the internationally esteemed
Samothrace temple complex of the
Cabeiri mystery cult. This was also the same location where
Perseus of Macedon fled and received sanctuary following his defeat by
the Romans at the
Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. The main sanctuary of
Zeus was maintained at
Dion, while another at
Veria was dedicated to
Herakles and received particularly strong patronage from
Demetrius II Aetolicus () when he intervened in the affairs of the municipal government at the behest of the cult's main priest. From an early period, Zeus was the single most important deity in the Macedonian pantheon. Artemis was often depicted as a huntress and served as a tutelary goddess for young girls entering the coming-of-age process, much as
Heracles Kynagidas (Hunter) did for young men who had completed it. A notable influence on Macedonian religious life and worship was neighbouring Thessaly; the two regions shared many similar cultural institutions. They were tolerant of, and open to, incorporating foreign religious influences such as the
sun worship of the Paeonians. By the 4th century BC, there had been a significant fusion of Macedonian and common Greek religious identity, but Macedonia was nevertheless characterized by an unusually diverse religious life. abducting
Persephone, fresco in the small
Macedonian royal tomb at
Vergina,
Macedonia, Greece, c. 340 BC A notable feature of Macedonian culture was the ostentatious burials reserved for its rulers. The Macedonian elite built lavish tombs at the time of death rather than constructing temples during life. Lavish warrior burials had been discontinued in southern and central Greece from the seventh century onwards, where offerings at sanctuaries and the erection of temples became the norm. From the sixth century BC, cremation replaced the traditional inhumation rite for elite Macedonians. This demonstrates a continuing tradition of the warrior society rather than a focus on religious piety and technology of the intellect, which had become paramount facets of central Greek society in the
Classical Period. Some grave goods and decorations were common in other Macedonian tombs, yet some items found at Vergina were distinctly tied to royalty, including a
diadem, luxurious goods, and arms and armor. Scholars have debated about the identity of the tomb occupants since
the discovery of their remains in 1977–1978, yet recent research and forensic examination have concluded with certainty that at least one of the persons buried was
Philip II (Tomb 2). Located near Tomb 1 are the above-ground ruins of a
heroon, a shrine for
cult worship of the dead. In 2014, the ancient Macedonian
Kasta Tomb, the largest ancient tomb found in Greece (as of 2017), was discovered outside of
Amphipolis, a city that was incorporated into the Macedonian realm after its capture by Philip II in 357 BC. The identity of the tomb's occupant is unknown, but archaeologists have speculated that it may be Alexander's close friend
Hephaestion. The
deification of Macedonian monarchs perhaps began with the death of Philip II, yet it was his son Alexander the Great who unambiguously claimed to be a
living god. As
pharaoh of the Egyptians, he was already entitled as
Son of Ra and considered the living incarnation of
Horus by his Egyptian subjects (a belief that the
Ptolemaic successors of Alexander would foster for
their own dynasty in Egypt). However, following his visit to the
oracle of
Didyma in 334 BC that suggested his divinity, he traveled to the
Oracle of
Zeus Ammon (the
Greek equivalent of the Egyptian
Amun-Ra) at the
Siwa Oasis of the
Libyan Desert in 332 BC to confirm his
divine status. After the priest there convinced him that Philip II was merely his mortal father and Zeus his actual father, Alexander began styling himself as the 'Son of Zeus', which brought him into contention with some of his Greek subjects who adamantly believed that living men could not be immortals. Although the
Seleucid and Ptolemaic
diadochi successor states cultivated
their own ancestral cults and deification of the rulers as part of state ideology, a similar cult did not exist in the Kingdom of Macedonia.
Visual arts By the reign of
Archelaus I of Macedon, the Macedonian elite started importing significantly greater customs, artwork, and art traditions from other regions of Greece. However, they still retained more archaic, perhaps
Homeric funerary rites connected with the
symposium and drinking rites that were typified with items such as decorative metal
kraters that held the ashes of deceased Macedonian nobility in their tombs. Among these is the large bronze
Derveni Krater from a 4th-century BC tomb of
Thessaloniki, decorated with scenes of the Greek god
Dionysus and
his entourage and belonging to an aristocrat who had a military career. Macedonian
metalwork usually followed
Athenian styles of vase shapes from the 6th century BC onward, with drinking vessels, jewellery, containers, crowns,
diadems, and
coins among the many metal objects found in Macedonian tombs. Surviving Macedonian painted artwork includes
frescoes and
murals on walls, but also decoration on
sculpted artwork such as
statues and
reliefs. For instance, trace colors still exist on the
bas-reliefs of the
Alexander Sarcophagus. Macedonian paintings have allowed historians to investigate the clothing fashions as well as military gear worn by ancient Macedonians, such as the brightly-colored tomb paintings of
Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki showing figures wearing headgear ranging from
feathered helmets to
kausia and
petasos caps. (left), wearing a
kausia and fighting an
Asiatic lion with his friend
Craterus; late 4th century BC
mosaic,
Archaeological Museum of Pella,
Macedonia Aside from metalwork and painting,
mosaics serve as another significant form of surviving Macedonian artwork, especially those discovered at
Pella dating to the 4th century BC. The similar Lion Hunt Mosaic of Pella illustrates either a scene of Alexander the Great with his companion
Craterus, or simply a conventional illustration of the generic royal diversion of hunting.
Theatre, music and performing arts Philip II was assassinated by his
bodyguard Pausanias of Orestis in 336 BC at the
theatre of
Aigai, Macedonia amid games and spectacles held inside that celebrated the marriage of his daughter
Cleopatra of Macedon. Alexander the Great was allegedly a great admirer of both theatre and music. While he and his army were stationed at
Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon), Alexander had his generals act as judges not only for athletic contests but also stage performances of Greek tragedies. The contemporaneous famous
actors
Thessalus and Athenodorus performed at the event, despite Athenodorus risking a fine for being absent from the simultaneous
Dionysia festival of Athens where he was scheduled to perform (a fine that his
patron Alexander agreed to pay).
Music was also appreciated in Macedonia. In addition to the
agora, the
gymnasium, the
theatre, and
religious sanctuaries and
temples dedicated to Greek gods and goddesses, one of the main markers of a true Greek city in the
empire of Alexander the Great was the presence of an
odeon for
musical performances.
Literature, education, philosophy, and patronage of
Aristotle; an
Imperial Roman (1st or 2nd century AD) copy of a lost
bronze sculpture made by
Lysippos.
Perdiccas II of Macedon was able to host well-known Classical Greek intellectual visitors at his royal court, such as the lyric poet
Melanippides and the renowned medical doctor
Hippocrates, while
Pindar's
enkomion written for
Alexander I of Macedon may have been composed at his court. Yet
Archelaus I of Macedon received a far greater number of Greek scholars, artists, and celebrities at his court than his predecessors, leading M. B. Hatzopoulos to describe Macedonia under his reign as an "active centre of Hellenic culture." His honored guests included the
painter Zeuxis, the
architect Callimachus, the poets
Choerilus of Samos,
Timotheus of Miletus, and
Agathon, as well as the famous Athenian
playwright Euripides. Although Archelaus was criticized by the philosopher
Plato, supposedly hated by
Socrates, and the first known Macedonian king to be insulted with the label of a
barbarian, the historian
Thucydides held the Macedonian king in glowing admiration for his accomplishments, including his engagement in
panhellenic sports and fostering of literary culture. The philosopher
Aristotle, who studied at the
Platonic Academy of Athens and established the
Aristotelian school of thought, moved to Macedonia, and is said to have tutored the young Alexander the Great, in addition to serving as an esteemed diplomat for Alexander's father Philip II. Among Alexander's retinue of artists, writers, and philosophers was
Pyrrho of Elis, founder of
Pyrrhonism, the school of
philosophical skepticism. In terms of early
Greek historiography and later
Roman historiography,
Felix Jacoby identified thirteen possible ancient
historians who wrote histories about Macedonia in his
Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Aside from accounts in the works of
Herodotus and Thucydides, the works compiled by Jacoby are only fragmentary, whereas other works are completely lost, such as the history of an
Illyrian war fought by
Perdiccas III of Macedon written by the Macedonian general and statesman
Antipater. The Macedonian historians
Marsyas of Pella and
Marsyas of Philippi wrote histories of Macedonia, while the
Ptolemaic king
Ptolemy I Soter authored a history about Alexander and
Hieronymus of Cardia wrote a history about Alexander's royal successors. Following the
Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian military officer
Nearchus wrote a work of his
voyage from the mouth of the
Indus river to the
Persian Gulf. The Macedonian
historian Craterus published a compilation of decrees made by the
popular assembly of the
Athenian democracy, ostensibly while attending the school of Aristotle. By the end of the 5th century BC, the Macedonian king Archelaus I was crowned with the
olive wreath at both
Olympia and
Delphi (in the
Pythian Games) for winning
chariot racing contests. In addition to literary contests, Alexander the Great also staged
competitions for music and athletics across his empire.
Dining and cuisine scene from a Macedonian tomb of
Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki, 4th century BC; six men are shown
reclining on couches, with food arranged on nearby tables, a male servant in attendance, and female musicians providing entertainment. Ancient Macedonia produced very few fine foods or beverages that were highly appreciated elsewhere in the Greek world, namely
eels from the
Strymonian Gulf and special
wine brewed in
Chalcidice. The earliest known use of flat bread as a plate for meat was made in Macedonia during the 3rd century BC, which perhaps influenced the later
'trencher' bread of
medieval Europe if not Greek
pita and Italian
pizza. The Macedonians also most likely introduced
mattye to Athenian cuisine, a dish usually made of chicken or other spiced, salted, and sauced meats served
during the wine course. This particular dish was derided and connected with licentiousness and drunkenness in a play by the Athenian comic poet
Alexis about the declining morals of Athenians in the age of
Demetrius I of Macedon. The
symposium (plural:
symposia) in the Macedonian and wider Greek realm was a banquet for the nobility and privileged class, an occasion for feasting, drinking, entertainment, and sometimes
philosophical discussion. The
hetairoi, leading members of the Macedonian
aristocracy, were expected to attend such feasts with their king. They were also expected to accompany him on royal hunts for the acquisition of
game meat as well as for sport. Like symposia, hunting was another focus of elite activity, and it remained popular throughout Macedonia's history. Young men participating in symposia were only allowed to recline after having killed their first
wild boar.
Language (Greek
katadesmos): from Prof. Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Bryn Mawr College. For administrative and political purposes,
Attic Greek seems to have operated as a
lingua franca among the ethno-linguistically diverse communities of Macedonia and the north Aegean region, creating a
diglossic linguistic area. Attic Greek was standardized as the language of the court, formal discourse and diplomacy from as early as the time of Archelaus at the end of the 5th century BC. Attic was further spread by Macedonia's conquests. Although Macedonian continued to be spoken well into
Antigonid times, it became the prevalent oral dialect in Macedonia and throughout the Macedonian-ruled Hellenistic world. However, Macedonian became
extinct in either the Hellenistic or the Roman period, and entirely replaced by
Koine Greek. For instance,
Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, spoke Koine Greek as a first language, and by her reign (51–30 BC), or some time before it, the Macedonian language was no longer used. Attempts to classify Ancient Macedonian are hindered by the lack of surviving Ancient Macedonian texts; it was a mainly oral language and most archaeological inscriptions indicate that in Macedonia there was no dominant written language besides Attic and later Koine Greek. Classification attempts are based on a vocabulary of 150–200 words and 200 personal names assembled mainly from the 5th century lexicon of
Hesychius of Alexandria and a few surviving fragmentary inscriptions, coins and occasional passages in ancient sources. The
Pella curse tablet, which was found in 1986 at Pella and dates to the mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier, is believed to be the only substantial attested text in Macedonian. The language of the tablet is a distinctly recognizable form of
Northwest Greek. The tablet has been used to support the argument that
ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Greek dialect and mainly a Doric Greek dialect. However, according to Hatzopoulos, Bruno Helly expanded and improved his own earlier suggestion and presented the hypothesis of a (North-)'
Achaean' substratum extending as far north as the head of the
Thermaic Gulf, which had a continuous relation in prehistoric times, both in
Thessaly and Macedonia, with the Northwest Greek-speaking populations living on the other side of the
Pindus mountain range, and contacts became cohabitation when the Argead Macedonians completed their wandering from
Orestis to Lower Macedonia, in the 7th century BC. written at the top, mid 4th century B.C.,
Vergina,
Macedonia, Greece In Macedonian
onomastics, most personal names are recognizably Greek (e.g. Alexandros, Philippos, Dionysios, Apollonios, Demetrios), with some dating back to Homeric (e.g.
Ptolemaeos) or Mycenean times and there are also a few non-Greek names (Illyrian or Thracian; e.g. "Bithys"). This material supports the observation that Macedonian personal names have a predominantly Greek character. Macedonian has a close structural and lexical affinity with other Greek dialects, especially Northwest Greek and Thessalian. Most of the words are Greek, although some of these could represent loans or cognate forms. Alternatively, a number of phonological, lexical and onomastic features set Macedonian apart. These latter features, possibly representing traces of a
substrate language, occur in what are considered to be particularly conservative systems of the language. Several hypotheses have consequently been proposed as to the position of Macedonian, all of which broadly regard it as either a peripheral Greek dialect, a closely related but separate language (see
Hellenic languages), or a hybridized idiom incorporating Brygian, Northwest Greek and
Thessalian Greek. Drawing on the similarities between Macedonian, Greek and Brygian,
Fanula Papazoglu wrote that she formed an
Indo-European macro-dialectical group, which, according to Georgiev, split before circa 14th–13th century BC before the appearance of the main Greek dialects. The same data has been analyzed in an alternative manner, which regards the formation of the main Greek dialects as a later convergence of related but distinct groups. According to this theory, Macedonian did not fully participate in this process, making its ultimate positionother than being a contiguous, related 'minor' languagedifficult to define. Hatzopoulos, who offers a critical review of recent research on Macedonian speech, argues that all available evidence points to the conclusion that Macedonian is a Greek dialect of the North-West group. Based on this evidence, Papazoglou has written that Macedonian could not have been a Greek dialect, however, evidence for non-intelligibility exists for other ancient Greek dialects such as
Aetolian and Aeolic Greek. Hornblower suggests that Greeks were intelligible to Macedonians without an interpreter, as supported by the Athenian orator
Aeschines.
Livy wrote that when
Aemilius Paulus called together representatives of the defeated Macedonian communities, his Latin pronouncements were translated for the benefit of the assembled Macedonians into Greek. According to Hatzopoulos, the sole direct attestation of Macedonian speech preserved in an ancient author, is a verse in a non-Attic
Greek dialect that the 4th century BC Athenian poet
Strattis in his comedy 'The Macedonians' places a character, presumably Macedonian, to give as an answer to the question of an Athenian: – (‘the sphyraena, what's that?’) – (‘it's what ye in Attica dub cestra’). Georgios Giannakis writes that recent scholarship has established the position of ancient Macedonian within the dialect map of
North-West Greek. ==Identity==