Rosetta Stone-Decoding the Demotic Text

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Chicagogeorge your sources either suck or you are a genious in misinterpretation!

My sources suck now

Does Herodotus suck?
Does Aristotle suck?
Does Dionysus of Halikarnassos?
Does Aeschylus?



Does Cook, Hall, Fine, Cambridge and Oxford suck as well

Seems like the cat is backed into a corner and instinctively finds the need to attack........

You think you will regain your credibility by posting critics of these books without you even reading them!

You can attack them all you want. Why don't you attack Cambridge and Oxford as well, since they too disagree with your assertions!

Btw, I'm still waiting for your comments on Histories 8:43 on the Peloponesians Herodotus mentioned being Dorian and Makednian race!,

Here it is again. I wont let you get away without addressing it since you were sooo sure of your interpretation of Histories 1:56





So did these tribes just cross Macedonia!

ohh....and on the ancient quotes of the Pelasgians.......





Edited by chicagogeorge - 02-Jan-2008 at 19:58

Chicagogeorge you just want to drift off from topic to topic, source to source, showing only extracts not providing a link to your spource, most often you send contradictory sources to your claim, you are a mess!!!

But I like you!!!

This is what my source says on the Histories 8.43:

"XLIII. The following took part in the war: from the Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians provided sixteen ships; the Corinthians the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians furnished fifteen ships, the Epidaurians ten, the Troezenians five, the Hermioneans three. All of these except the Hermioneans are Dorian and Macedonian and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region. The Hermioneans are Dryopians, driven out of the country now called Doris by Herakles and the Malians."

Well it clearly shows that Dorians were separate race from the Macedonian, and that the Macedonians were never considered as Dorian or vice vesa. Why would they have put them together! Why would you say that all of them were American and Californian, if California is American?

Don't you see where you are getting it wrong! They are using the Dorian as the name for the Greek Doric tribes, and Macedonian for the name of the Macedonian tribes. They were always seen as distinct!!!

Even your source offers a translation that clearly shows that the Macedonians were a different race from the Dorian!!! Man we are talking races here!!! Who knows how radical it sounded back in those times?

Moreover we are not sure that Herodotes refered to the Macedonians here. I mean there is a phonetic similarity, but is it the same tribe?






Edited by Petro Invictus - 02-Jan-2008 at 23:29

Originally posted by Petro Invictus  This is a modern map indeed. I used it as a visual aid only. I want to point out that the Slavic linguistic identity has existed here even before it was first recorded in a script! The Slavic culture which developed in the north and the east is just one side of the story.

How should your map do this. Well, I told you that the Slavs entered Poland e.g. not before 450 AD. So your map doesn't say anything.

Originally posted by Petro Invictus The other is in the south. We are having this debate only to justify the existence of proto-Slavic or ancient Macedonian words in the Demotic text of the Rosetta stone, and the main reason it is difficult for you to understand is because of the misconception with the Slavic migrations.

But there is such migration recorded from the Kiew-Kultur. When the Huns migrated westwards they drove a lot of germanic nation with them and the Alans, too. So why not the Slavs. If they appear in the sources they are mentioned together with Avares, Huns, Antes, where is the problem?

Yes they did drive some Slavic tribes west and north. As well in the south. However, the issue here is what was the origin of the Macedonian population in Byzantium at that time. There are sources who point out that the newly arrived Slavic tribes were merging with the indigenous population since they were not so much different.

The earliest Slavic sources point at the fact that the inhabitants of Thessaloniki spoke pure Slavic in the 9th century, when we know that at that time Solun was surrounded by the Slavic tribes but the town was inhabited by the old population, Macedonian!

Literacy comes as a result of advanced civilizational achievements! Slavic literacy could have appeared only with the civilized Slavs, and the Macedonians were the only Slavic people who lived in an organized system such is the Byzantine.    

You should not mix the west, north and south Slavic tribes.

The migration of the Slavs in the Balkans was first recorded by the Byzantine historians, under the name Sklavenis. However, this term was used with Avars as well, and to Byzantine authors it meant "military allies".

We know of these tribes that settled Macedonia at that time:



However, the question that poses is what happened to the numerous indigenous population of Macedonia and the Balkans. If the Huns and Avars are the new foreign element that separated the Slavic world, maybe the Slavic world was always present there before the invasion of the Hunic, Avaric and Tataric tribes.

Otherwise, how did they manage to erase the indigenous population of Byzantium, when we know that this population gave the Slavs Christianity and literacy!!!

If the indigenous Macedonian population melted in the Slavic element, then the question is how similar they were? Since, there is usually a rejection if the intruding element is foreign!!! In the Balkans not just that there wasn't rejection, but there was a willingness to merge into a single culture, on both sides, Macedonian and the newly arrived Slavic tribes!!!

Take a look at Bulgaria. The territory of Bulgaria was occupied by the Bulgarian Tatars, and they melted in the Slavic element. These mongolic people can be seen even today in some places in Bulgaria, but the predominant element was Slavic. However when the Bulgars intruded they tried to pose their own language as official, but to no avail. Except for the Khans and their people, no one else spoke the langauge. They then accepted the Byzantine Koine as an official language, but as soon as the Cyrillic script appeared, they took the literacy of the indigenous people, the Macedonians, and allowed their state to be strongly influenced by the Slavic linguistic element.

It was obvious that the Slavs were the indigenous population. Since the Bulgars were the newcomers! Those Slavic tribes that migrated were merely driven south from the Danube region because of the Hunic intrusion!!!

   

Edited by Petro Invictus - 03-Jan-2008 at 11:52

Plus I'm sure you are well aware that the Macedonian Royal House claims decent from Herucles (same as the Spartans) which is a Dorian tradition. Both the Spartans and Macedonians share this....Hhmmmm I wonder where they got this Oh wait the Spartans are Dorians! The Macedonian Royal house comes from Argo in the Peloponese Is it starting to make sense to you now..... Dorians=Makednoi

The Dorians never had a ROYAL HOUSE!!! This is the main proof that they were different from both the Macedonians and the Spartans. The Dorians were copying the Macedonian culture and took Hercules as their hero too. It seems to me!!! The Dorian invasion occured when Macedonian kingdom was at its full rise!!! And you are saying that the newcomers, the Dorian gangs, who demolished the kingdoms of the Mycenean world, told the Macedonians who their ancestor was!!!   

Why did the Dorians change the political system into a "democracy", why didn't they establish kingdoms! What was so different in the organization of the Macedonian and Greek tribes so that one group came up with a KINGDOM and the other with ELITE rule of a group!!!

I have a theory!!! The Macedonians developed their kingship based on tribal organization, which is based on healthy familiar tribes, rather than the Greek outlaws who couldn't establish healthy families and tribes, so that they couldn't reach the position of the Divine King to rule over all. They had to organize themselves in a gang, which later became the Aghora. Similar to the Romans!

I mean just a theory!

It is not said that they learned it in Thessaloniki but from the Slavs around. At those days the Thema Thessaloniki was just a little stripe along the coast. If your Macedonian was so widespread on the Balkans, why do they tell us where they learned it and why was it necessary to learn it. Sure they were some guys who knew it?.

No dear! The territory they settled was called Macedonia! They were called Dorian when they settled the Peloponnese!

That is why the translation of the text by Herodotus goes:

"The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far. [3] For in the days of king Deucalion1 it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian..."

This is a correct interpretation and it is by Herodotus, The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley).

Alfred Denis Godley (1856--1925) was a classical scholar and author of humorous poems. From 1910 to 1920 he was Public Orator at the University of Oxford, a post that involved composing citations in Latin for the recipients of honorary degrees. One of these was for Thomas Hardy who received an Honorary D. Litt. in 1920, and whose treatment of rural themes Godley compared to Virgil.

He also published a translations of Herodotus (1921) and Horace's Odes (1898).

Here is another translation of Herodotus:

"For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian."

http://truth.macedonia.gr/quotes.html

"For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthiotis, then in the time of Dorus son of Helen the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus; driven by the Cadmeans from this Histiaean country it settled about Pindus in the parts called Macedonian; thence again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into Peloponnesus, where it took the name of Dorian"

http://www.hri.org/Martis/contents/main3.html

"Herodotus, The Histories: "These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost
in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a
Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the
Hellenic has wandered often and far. For in the days of king Deucalion
it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under
Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven
from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans [Phoenicians], it settled about
Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it
migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese,
where it took the name of Dorian." (the localities mentioned in
the story of the migration into the Peloponnese are all in northern Greece)."

http://www.illyrians.org/pelacase.html

Was that enough!?! So the misinterpretation you posted here, is either an intended mistake, or you do not know your own ancient Greek.

The problem is that you added an extra "and", when you say "and were called Makednoi"!!! There is no such an interpretation in any other translation of Herodotus. Are you reinventing Herodotus?

The tribe known as Hellenic moved a lot, and it settled about Pindus, in the territory called Macedonia! And that is true!!!

However, the Macedonians were never part of this Hellenic race! The Macedonians in Herodotus were mentioned as parallel to the Greek race, which we already confirmed, but I'll do it once again:

"The following took part in the war: from the Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians provided sixteen ships; the Corinthians the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians furnished fifteen ships, the Epidaurians ten, the Troezenians five, the Hermioneans three. All of these except the Hermioneans are Dorian and Macedonian and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region. The Hermioneans are Dryopians, driven out of the country now called Doris by Herakles and the Malians."

Now you answer this question: Can you list Americans and Californians next to each other, when we know that Californians are Americans?

If the Macedonians were Dorians, why would they mention them as separate races?

I am waiting for your logical explanation!





Edited by Petro Invictus - 03-Jan-2008 at 18:15

Makednon in the specific quote is  a adjective that qualifying the object and is not a neuter noun. Neuter noun is the Pindos. The object were the Dorians. You need grammar lessons.

Originally posted by Petro Invictus The Dorians never had a ROYAL HOUSE!!!

Originally posted by Petro Invictus This is the main proof that they were different from both the Macedonians and the Spartans.

So the Spartans were not a Dorian tribe!

Originally posted by Petro Invictus The Dorians were copying the Macedonian culture and took Hercules as their hero too. It seems to me!!! The Dorian invasion occured when Macedonian kingdom was at its full rise!!!

The Dorian migrations occurred a generation after the Trojan War. At that time the Macedonians were nothing more than a pastor tribe in the West Pindus under the name Makednoi (as Herodotus tells us). The Macedonian kingdom didn't begin to expand untill several centuries after the Dorian's tribal movements.

Originally posted by Petro Invictus And you are saying that the newcomers, the Dorian gangs, who demolished the kingdoms of the Mycenean world, told the Macedonians who their ancestor was!!!

What you said makes no sense at all.

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Why did the Dorians change the political system into a "democracy", why didn't they establish kingdoms! What was so different in the organization of the Macedonian and Greek tribes so that one group came up with a KINGDOM and the other with ELITE rule of a group!!!

Ok......, the Dorians DID NOT introduce Democracy. It was the Ionian-Athenians who did.

The Dorians in fact maintained Kingdoms and Oligarchies....


Example:

Sparta was Dorian and was a Kingdom. Corinth was Dorian and it was a kingdom.  The city of Locris was a Kingdom and they were DoriansEpiros was the homeland of the Northwest Greeks (which Dorians were a part of) and those tribes were divided into kingdoms


I have a theory!!! The Macedonians developed their kingship based on tribal organization, which is based on healthy familiar tribes, rather than the Greek outlaws who couldn't establish healthy families and tribes, so that they couldn't reach the position of the Divine King to rule over all. They had to organize themselves in a gang, which later became the Aghora. Similar to the Romans!

I mean just a theory! [/QUOTE]

I guess you know little about how the Makedones say they established their rule of their land.....

Story of the Macedonian star, and the origins of the Royal House

In the eighth book of Herodotus' Histories, he tells about the ancestors of the Alexander I Philhellene. As he is a descendant of Temenus of Argos, who in turn descended from Zeus' son Hercules (Dorian).

Herodotus, The Histories 8.137-139 . Now of this Alexander the seventh ancestor was that Perdiccas who first became despot of the Macedonians, and that in the manner which here follows: From Argos fled to the Illyrians three brothers of the descendants of Temenus, Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas; and passing over from the Illyrians into the upper parts of Macedonia they came to the city of Lebaia. There they became farm servants for pay in the household of the king, one pasturing horses, the second oxen, and the youngest of them, Perdiccas, the smaller kinds of cattle; for in ancient times even those who were 'rulers over men' were poor in money, and not the common people only. The queen cooked for them their food herself. And whenever she baked, the loaf of the boy their servant, namely Perdiccas, became double as large as by nature it should be. When this happened constantly in the same manner, she told it to her husband, and he understood that this was a portent and tended to something great. He summoned the farm-servants, and ordered them to depart out of his land. They replied that it was right that before they went forth they should receive the wages which were due. Now it chanced that the sun was shining into the house down through the opening which received the smoke, and the king when he heard about the wages said, being inspired by a divine power: "I pay you then this for wages, and it is such as you deserve," pointing to the sunlight. Gauanes and Aeropus, the elder brothers, stood struck with amazement when they heard this, but the boy, who happened to have in his hand a knife, said: "We accept, oh king, that which you gave", and he traced a line with his knife round the sunlight on the floor of the house, and having traced the line round he thrice drew of the sunlight into his bosom, and after that he departed both himself and his fellows. They were going away, and one of those who sat near the king at table told what the boy had done, and how he had taken that which was given with some design. When the king heard this, he was moved with anger, and sent horsemen to slay them. Now there is a river in this land to which the descendants of these men from Argos sacrifice as a savior. This river, so soon as the sons of Temenus had passed over it, began to flow with such great volume of water that the horsemen became unable to pass over. So the brothers, having come to another region of Macedonia, took up their dwelling near the gardens of Midas the son of Gordias, where roses grow wild which have each one sixty petals and excel all others in perfume. [...] Above the gardens is situated a mountain called Bermion, which is inaccessible because of the cold. Having taken possession of that region, they made this their starting-point, and proceeded to subdue the rest of Macedonia. From this Perdiccas, Alexander descended as follows: Alexander was the son of Amyntas, Amyntas was the son of Alcetes, the father of Alcetes was Aeropus, of him Philip, of Philip Argaeus, and of this last the father was Perdiccas, who first obtained the kingdom.

Quote:

Herodotus made a special point of emphasizing that the royal house of Macedonia was Greek by descent, and Thucydides, who questioned much of what Herodotus said concurred with him in calling the Macedonian kings �Temenidae from Argos�. Almost a century later Isocrates wrote to Philip II, saying �Argos is your fatherland�, and asked Philip to emulate his father (Amyntas) the founder of the monarchy (Perdiccas), and the originator of the family (Heracles).� [For further references consult Hdt.5.22;Thuc.2.99.3;Thuc.5.80.2; Isoc.5.32 and 105-12]

N.G.L Hammond �A History of Greece to 322 B.C.�, pg. 18

Quote:

There is no doubt that this tradition of a superimposed Greek house was widely believed by the Macedonians.�

Eugene Borza: In The Shadow of Olympus: page 80

Quote:

There was a persistent, well attested tradition in antiquity that told of a group of Greeks from Argos-descendants of Temenus, kinsman of Heracles - who came to Macedonia and established their rule over the Makedones, unifying them and providing a royal house.�

Eugene Borza: In The Shadow of Olympus:, page 80

Quote:

There is no reason to deny the Macedonians� own traditions about their early kings and the migration of the Macedones..The basic story as provided by Herodotus and Thucydides, minus the interpolation of the Temenid connections, undoubtly reflects the Macedonians� own traditions about their early history�

pg 84.

Constance & Crossland: Macedonian Greece:

Quote:

�Herodotus stated quite clearly that Perdiccas, the first recorded king of Macedonia, and his descendants were Greeks and there is no reason why we should not take the Father of History�s word on this fundamental point.�

page 16.

N.G.L Hammond: The Macedonian State:

Quote:

�The matter is of only academic interest to a few scholars today. No one in antiquity doubted the truth of the claim.�

page 19

Quote:

As we have mentioned in Chapter I, Perdiccas and his brothers came from Argos and Peloponnese. They were members of the Royal house of Argos, the �Teminidae�, descendants of Temenus, whose ancestor was Heracles, son of Zeus; it was this Temenus who led the Dorian tribes into the Argolid and founded Dorian Argos late in the 12th century. Thus Perdiccas came to Macedonia with the aura of divine favor, and he could claim that the Temenidae and the Argeadae were both descended from Zeus and so were diogeneis. To Greeks of the classical period the Temenid name was well known. Thus the oracle which was concerned post eventum with he following of the new capital, Aegeae, by Perdiccas began with the line �The noble Temenidae have royal rule over a wealth producing land. Herodotus made a special point of emphasizing that the royal house of Macedonia was Greek by descent, and Thucydides, who questioned much of what Herodotus said, concurred with him in calling the Macedonian kings �Temenidae from Argos�. Almost a century later Isocrates wrote to Philip II, saying �Argos is your fatherland�, and he asked Philip to emulate his father [Amyntas], the founder of the monarchy [Perdiccas], and the originator of the family Heracles).�

page 18.

Quote:

It seems now that Alexander wanted from the Greek states a public and universal recognition of his benefactions, and that he wanted it as being himself a Greek of the Temenid family

page 235

N.G.L Hammond �A History of Greece to 332 B.C.�:

Quote:

�In the early fifth century the royal house of Macedon, the Temenidae, was recognized as Greek by the presidents of the Olympic games. Their verdict was and is decisive; for modern critics adduce no evidence. It is certain that the Kings considered themselves to be of Greek descent from Heracles, Son of Zeus. The royal house of Lyncus in Upper Macedonia claimed descent from the Bacchiadae, who fled from Corinth about 657. The great wealth of another Royal house has been revealed by the gold masks and furniture discovered in tombs of the late sixth century of Trebenishte near Lake Lynchnitis. The Temenidae and Bacchiadae certainly spoke Greek.�

page 534.

Quote:

He [Alexander III] believed himself to be of divine descent on both sides, from Heracles, son of Zeus, and Achilles, son of Thetis. At the Temple of Zeus Ammon this belief may have been confirmed; for thereafter he showed a special regard for the temple, and his friends believed it was his wish to be buried there and not at Aegae in Macedonia. He may have felt in 324 that his deeds justified him to emulate Achilles and Heracles, and therefore he sought from the Greeks the recognition which they alone could give, by according him �godlike honors� as a Greek.�

page 641

Quote:

The Macedonian kings had much in common with the Mycenaean kings protrayed in the Iliad. They, too, were �sprung from Zeus�. For Philip claimed to be a descendant of Heracles, the son of Zeus. He put the head of Heracles on his earliest coins, named the first city-foundation Heraclea, and dedicated a statue of Heracles at the mouth of the Danube. He worshipped Zeus at Dium, dedicated a treasury to Zeus at Olympia, defended Apollo�s shrine at Delphi, and placed the heads of Zeus and Apollo on his coins. It is significant that Isocrates asked Philip as a descendant of Heracles to consider all Greece his fatherland.�

H. Bengston �A History of Greece: from the beginnings
to the Byzantine era., page 199

Thomas R Martin: Ancient Greece From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times:

Quote:

�Macedonians had their own language related to Greek, but the members that dominated Macedonian society routinely learned to speak Greek because they thought of themselves and indeed all Macedonians as Greek by Blood�

page 188

Quote:

The Macedonian people and their kings were of Greek stock, as their traditions and the scanty remains of their language combine to testify.� `

John Bagnell Bury, �A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great�, 2nd ed.(1913)

Dorians DID NOT introduce Democracy. It was the Ionian-Athenians who did

"In the 12th century, the power vacuum created by the decline of Mycenaean civilization was filled by Greeks speaking the Dorian dialect, who invaded the peninsula from the north. Greek tradition characterized this movement as the “return” of the sons of Heracles (Heraclidae): Hyllus, Dymas, and Pamphylas, who were the eponymous founders of the three Dorian tribes.

The Dorians originally came from southern Macedonia, though the Greeks derived their name from the city of Doris in central Greece. It may be that the Dorians settled there for some time before moving into the Peloponnese. The Argolis, Lacedaemon, and Messenia were conquered, and the Achaeans and Arcadians pushed into corners of the peninsula. Other Dorian groups attacked the Aegean Islands, and conquered Thera, Melos, and the central portion of Crete. A few cities in Asia Minor (principally, Halicarnassus and Cnidos) were founded or cofounded by Dorians.

The Dorian invasion corresponded with the start of the Iron Age in Greece, but despite the introduction of this superior metal, culture as a whole declined in Greece as a result of the Dorian invasion."

http://www.bartleby.com/67/174.html

Herodotus gave the earliest historical expression of a three-fold division:[1] "... those who dwell in our land are called Ionians, Aeolians and Dorians." General names inherited from earlier times were considered to be in one of these three groups, from the earliest literature; for example, the Achaeans (also known as Danaans, Δαναοί, and Argives, Ἀργεῖοι) were primarily Ionians and Aeolians.

The three groups are seldom described by abstract concepts in the ancient sources. The Dorians are almost always simply referenced as just "the Dorians," as they are in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey,[2] where they are already in Crete. Herodotus does use the abstract ethnos[3] with regard to them, the Greek word from which English ethnic comes, which appears in the modern concept of ethnic group.

It was after this invasion that the Greek "democracy" came to existence. However it was far from democracy!

"The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, sometimes translated as city-state. "Politics" literally means "the things of the polis." Each city was independent, at least in theory. Some cities might be subordinate to others (a colony traditionally deferred to its mother city), some might have had governments wholly dependent upon others (the Thirty Tyrants in Athens was imposed by Sparta following the Peloponnesian War), but the titularly supreme power in each city was located within that city. This meant that when Greece went to war (e.g., against the Persian Empire), it took the form of an alliance going to war. It also gave ample opportunity for wars within Greece between different cities."





Edited by Petro Invictus - 03-Jan-2008 at 19:15