The vast majority of expert scholarship considers the ancient Macedonians as essentially Greeks. They did have their own polity, same as the Spartans or the Athenians, but that didn't make them any less Greek. The snobery, especially from the part of the Athenians, was mostly due to political issues. They obviously weren't all that happy that Macedon took their place as the most influential polity in the Greek world. On the other hand the Diadokhoi wanted to keep the highest offices and positions of power for themselves, so they promoted the idea that only Macedonians should acquire them. Their problem wasn't that Eumenes was Greek. They simply prupugindized against him, since each of them aimed to diminish the number of possible rival successors, by pointing out that he wasn't one of them but from another Greek polity and thus he didn't deserve his high office or to be seen as a successor of Alexander. Him not being Macedonian was just an excuse in order to weaken his claims and power in the eyes of the Macedonians under his command. The war against Persia was officially declared and implemented by the HELLENIC LEAGUE including Macedonia with Alexander at it's Hegemon (leader), in order to take revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece a century and a half earlier. "Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greek all had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now, political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aeschines once even found it necessary, to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'ENTIRELY GREEK'. Demosthenes' allegations were lent an appearance of credibility by the fact, apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different to that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common to western Greeks of Epirus, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the Macedonians, and THEIR FUNDAMENTAL GREEK NATIONALITY WAS NEVER DOUBTED. Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was the issue raised at all." Errington 1994, p. 4:Errington, Malcolm (1994). A History of Macedonia. Barnes Noble.
Macedonians being Greeks is undeniable ofc there were different Greek city states and kingdoms and Alexander was born in the ancient kingdom of macedon which doesn't mean he wasn't a Greek.
"Your ancestors came to Macedonia and THE REST OF HELLAS (Greece) and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed LEADER OF THE GREEKS, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you..." Alexander the Great Alexander's letter to Persian king Darius in response to a truce plea, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian; translated as Anabasis of Alexander by P. A. Brunt, for the "Loeb Edition" Book II 14, 4
Oh, so cool to find this channel! Good stories from Diadochi wars never bores me.. Thanks! P.S. I wish you could do battles too, to add a flavor to video..
Thanks for this great opportunity to learn more detail about Eumenes. I have read so many different sources about the Greek vs Macedonian language. One says Alexander had to address his troops twice, once in each language. Another says Macedonian was a dialect of Greek. And here it seems they are virtually the same. Also i would have thought that Byzantion was the proper name, the 'ium' added in the Latin spelling. Thanks again for this video on Eumenes. Look forward to part 2!
This is a reply to several comments claiming that Macedonians were Greeks. While true to a degree, it's far more complex than that. To my understanding, during historical times, the Macedonian Greeks were at first centered around the Haliacmon river. What's called Macedonia was a far larger region, with the majority of it settled by other peoples (Thracians, Paionians, Illyrians, even Phrygians). There's also the legend of the Argeads arriving and becoming the royal line of (Lower) Macedon, and it's unclear if this represents a sizable migration of Greeks, or a small warrior elite. If they came to rule over Greeks or other locals that were absorbed. Could be both to a degree. Or, whatever... it's a legend. Anyway, the kingdom of Macedon gradually (with occasional setbacks) grew to conquer an area outside it's core, even before Philip II. Most of those newly claimed lands were inhabited by tribal peoples like those mentioned earlier. The pace and the degree to which they where pushed away, assimilated or exterminated seems rather unclear. But it's clear that some of those tribes remained active for centuries, especially in the eastern parts of Macedon. Some of them served in Macedonian armies. What makes the most sense is a kingdom with it's own culture/ideology, including Greeks and others, gradually influenced by the more "civilized" Greek colonies across the shoreline and eventually the greater world. It certainly had far less in common with Athens than Thebes or even Epiros. So, besides the political propaganda of Greeks vs Macedonians, there's a rather unknown (to us) level of cultural difference that helped the former be effective, as in the case of Eumenes. Modern Greeks, especially nationalists, seem rather confused on those things. Northern Macedonian ones even more so. Historians usually aren't that helpful either. The Ancient Macedonians as (Ancient) Greeks is only partly true, unless we count only the ruling classes and a part of the population. History isn't black and white. The culture, borders and population make-up of regions and states change over time. Nice video btw:)
"The latest archaeological findings HAVE CONFIRMED that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, GREEK-speaking people, the MAKEDNOI." Nigel Guy Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, 2009, p.439: "The ANCIENT MACEDONIANS WERE GREEKS, THEIR LANGUAGE WAS GREEK to judge by their personal names, and by the names of the months of their calendar." George Cawkwell, Emeritus Fellow,University College Oxford "As members of the Greek race and speakers of the Greek language, the Macedonians shared the ability to initiate ideas and create political forms." N G L Hammond (1992) ;The Miracle that was Macedonia', p 206
@@Serapeum The way you present the relationship between the Macedonians and the other Greeks in the video gives the wrong impression. The Macedonians had their own polity, same as the Spartans or the Athenians, but that didn't make them any less Greek. The snobery, especially from the part of the Athenians, was mostly due to political issues. They obviously weren't all that happy that Macedon took their place as the most influential polity in the Greek world. On the other hand the Diadokhoi wanted to keep the highest offices and positions of power for themselves, so they promoted the idea that only Macedonians should acquire them. Their problem wasn't that Eumenes was Greek. They simply prupugindized against him, since each of them aimed to diminish the number of possible rival successors, by pointing out that he wasn't one of them but from another Greek polity and thus he didn't deserve his high office or to be seen as a successor of Alexander. Him not being Macedonian was just an excuse in order to weaken his claims and power in the eyes of the Macedonians under his command. The war against Persia was officially declared and implemented by the HELLENIC LEAGUE including Macedonia with Alexander at it's Hegemon (leader), in order to take revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece a century and a half earlier.
Maybe I was too vague when phrasing it; yes, the Macedonians were Greek, but I would still argue that Eumenes' "Greekness" (perhaps "non-Macedonianness" would be a better word) still hamstrung his authority among the Macedonian Diadochi. For starters, if it was simply a case of rival Diadochi trying to blacken Eumenes' name, why would people like Alcetas, the brother of Perdiccas the Regent, make such a fuss about working alongside Eumenes in the defence of Asia Minor. Unless Alcetas was otherwise suborned by Antipater and the allies (which doesn't seem plausible considering he fought until the end), then what reasons beyond short-sighted pig-headedness at working alongside someone he viewed as below him did he have for doing stuff that could very well have threatened the survival of Perdiccas' regime. And, by your own token, saying that the other Diadochi were blackening his name with propaganda implies that the charge of not being Macedonian did have weight in the eyes of the Macedonian court and soldiery. Again, I'm not implying that Macedonians or the other Greeks to the south were fundamentally different peoples, but rather that inter-regional antagonism, and the snobbery that emerged from that, probably played a part in eroding Eumenes' authority amongst the Macedonians and hampering his attempts to assert dominance. In sort of the same way, the mutual dislike between the Angevins and Normans in France aided the efforts of Stephen of Blois (a Norman) in quickly advancing his claims of kingship of England (by then ruled by the Normans) over his rival Mathilda and her husband Geoffroy Plantagenet (an Angevin), since the Anglo-Norman barons of England were mistrustful of the Angevins. In much the same way, the hostility and mistrust between Angevins and Normans was not brought about by any particular fundamental differences in ways of life (as both spoke the same language, worshipped the same god, and probably went about their lives in mostly similar ways), but rather merely by low-level, internecine conflict between the two. They were otherwise of the same stock, but that didn't prevent them from being at loggerheads a lot of the time. Hope this makes what I was trying to get across clear :)
@@Serapeum Yes my friend, you were too vague. Have in mind that my english is far from fluent and sometimes it's not all that easy for me to properly express myself in a few sentences, especially on such complicated historical matters. Surely the fact that he was not Macedonian hamstrung his authority among the Macedonian Diadochi. But not because he was Greek, but because he wasn't Macedonian Greek. That's the point I was trying to make. The way you present it in the video is as if the problem was that he was a Greek while the Macedonians were not Greeks and that is why they disliked him! The Macedonian elites after the death of Alexander considered themselves to have the sole rights to his empire, even though the army that conquered Persia was not composed only by Macedonians but by Greeks from all over the Greek world. But Macedon was the most powerful state dominating the Greek world of the time, while the Macedonian king was declared as the Hegemon of the Pan-Hellenic alliance against Persia. Also most of the leaders and Generals during the Persian campaign were Macedonians (not all though, Nearchos the Navarch of the fleet was Cretan). So some Macedonian "Diadokhoi" used Eumenes' "non Macedonianess" as an excuse to take him out of the picture... I don't actually know how the Angevins and the Normans self-identified, in order to understand the validity of your example, but the ancient Macedonians self-identified as Greeks same as the other Greeks and there are countless sources to confirm this. In a passage from Herodotos, Alexander the first who preceded the great for almost 150 years, in a letter addressed to the Persian king self-identifies as a Hellene. According to Arian among others Alexander the Great constantly self-identified as a Hellene. Philip the fifth a century later again in a letter self-identifies as a Hellene. I truly don't understand this. There are numerous sources, archeological findings etc. which have clearly shown that the Macedonians were a Hellenic tribe, but still people, i think due to modern political issues, deny to mention this or even try to present them as totally distinct from the other Greeks! I feel that you did the exact same in this video. Simply mentioning them as "kindred people" definitely gives the wrong impression, especially to someone who has no idea on the subject.
In your explanation of Greeks and Macedonians you got it a bit wrong, the Macedonians were Greek, they were just Macedonian, same way the Spartans who were Greek looked down upon other Greeks, same way the Athenians and thebens did the same
This video had been popping up in my recommendations for months yet somehow I always ended up clicking on something else and postoning this one until now lol😄from now on I'll have to start giving priority to the top quality content of this highly underrated/undersubscribed(relative to it's quality) channel! Keep them coming Serapeum Historia👏👏👏👍
Well, you got here in the end and that's all that matters :) And, if all goes well, I hope to release two videos every month this year - so there's lots more to come!
The vast majority of expert scholarship considers the ancient Macedonians as essentially Greeks. They did have their own polity, same as the Spartans or the Athenians, but that didn't make them any less Greek. The snobery, especially from the part of the Athenians, was mostly due to political issues. They obviously weren't all that happy that Macedon took their place as the most influential polity in the Greek world. On the other hand the Diadokhoi wanted to keep the highest offices and positions of power for themselves, so they promoted the idea that only Macedonians should acquire them. Their problem wasn't that Eumenes was Greek. They simply prupugindized against him, since each of them aimed to diminish the number of possible rival successors, by pointing out that he wasn't one of them but from another Greek polity and thus he didn't deserve his high office or to be seen as a successor of Alexander. Him not being Macedonian was just an excuse in order to weaken his claims and power in the eyes of the Macedonians under his command. The war against Persia was officially declared and implemented by the HELLENIC LEAGUE including Macedonia with Alexander at it's Hegemon (leader), in order to take revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece a century and a half earlier.
"Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greek all had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now, political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aeschines once even found it necessary, to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'ENTIRELY GREEK'. Demosthenes' allegations were lent an appearance of credibility by the fact, apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different to that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common to western Greeks of Epirus, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the Macedonians, and THEIR FUNDAMENTAL GREEK NATIONALITY WAS NEVER DOUBTED. Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was the issue raised at all."
Errington 1994, p. 4:Errington, Malcolm (1994). A History of Macedonia. Barnes Noble.
Macedonians being Greeks is undeniable ofc there were different Greek city states and kingdoms and Alexander was born in the ancient kingdom of macedon which doesn't mean he wasn't a Greek.
Oh man, Eumenes is my guy, I long have had an idea for a comic book on him if I ever got decent at art. Very nice start, can't wait for the next part.
Historie
Yeah there’s a manga on him
There's a manga literally about him called "historie"
@@muhammadamirul7963 That's cool but I didn't make it.
@@SinStar87 what do you mean? Need a help on where to read it?
Ah yes, the plucky Eumenese, after seleucus he is my favorite successor
He's my second favourite too, after Demetrius Poliorcetes
The wars of the diodachi and the people who waged them is one under reviewed and very intriguing point in human history
"Your ancestors came to Macedonia and THE REST OF HELLAS (Greece) and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed LEADER OF THE GREEKS, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you..."
Alexander the Great
Alexander's letter to Persian king Darius in response to a truce plea, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian; translated as Anabasis of Alexander by P. A. Brunt, for the "Loeb Edition" Book II 14, 4
Great work. I would love a movie or a mini-series centered on Eumenes.
I think there's a manga series based on the life of Eumenes. Not sure if it's any good, though...
Just make live adaptation of Historie (the Eumenes manga). It's really good.
@@Serapeum it is good
@@Serapeum It's good, despite some rather odd choices.
Historie is a manga based on the kife of Eumenes. Its really good.
So glad you did one on Eumenes, thank you
I feel bad for him he lived in a world where almost everyone was against him because of his lineage. He really did well and he was also smart.
Interesting title I really like that concept, appreciate the content
I learned about this guy when i was a kid from a semi-historical manga about him called Historia
I'm loving it so far
Oh, so cool to find this channel! Good stories from Diadochi wars never bores me.. Thanks!
P.S. I wish you could do battles too, to add a flavor to video..
Thanks for this great opportunity to learn more detail about Eumenes. I have read so many different sources about the Greek vs Macedonian language. One says Alexander had to address his troops twice, once in each language. Another says Macedonian was a dialect of
Greek. And here it seems they are virtually the same. Also i would have thought that Byzantion was the proper name, the 'ium' added in the Latin spelling. Thanks again for this video on Eumenes. Look forward to part 2!
This is a reply to several comments claiming that Macedonians were Greeks. While true to a degree, it's far more complex than that.
To my understanding, during historical times, the Macedonian Greeks were at first centered around the Haliacmon river. What's called Macedonia was a far larger region, with the majority of it settled by other peoples (Thracians, Paionians, Illyrians, even Phrygians).
There's also the legend of the Argeads arriving and becoming the royal line of (Lower) Macedon, and it's unclear if this represents a sizable migration of Greeks, or a small warrior elite. If they came to rule over Greeks or other locals that were absorbed. Could be both to a degree. Or, whatever... it's a legend.
Anyway, the kingdom of Macedon gradually (with occasional setbacks) grew to conquer an area outside it's core, even before Philip II. Most of those newly claimed lands were inhabited by tribal peoples like those mentioned earlier. The pace and the degree to which they where pushed away, assimilated or exterminated seems rather unclear. But it's clear that some of those tribes remained active for centuries, especially in the eastern parts of Macedon. Some of them served in Macedonian armies.
What makes the most sense is a kingdom with it's own culture/ideology, including Greeks and others, gradually influenced by the more "civilized" Greek colonies across the shoreline and eventually the greater world. It certainly had far less in common with Athens than Thebes or even Epiros. So, besides the political propaganda of Greeks vs Macedonians, there's a rather unknown (to us) level of cultural difference that helped the former be effective, as in the case of Eumenes.
Modern Greeks, especially nationalists, seem rather confused on those things. Northern Macedonian ones even more so. Historians usually aren't that helpful either. The Ancient Macedonians as (Ancient) Greeks is only partly true, unless we count only the ruling classes and a part of the population. History isn't black and white. The culture, borders and population make-up of regions and states change over time.
Nice video btw:)
Eumenes one of the big ifs of history
Great subject. I doubt many of these stories are remotely true but who knows.
How so?
Was eumenes I who was the first king of pergamon related to eumenes of kardia?
The Macedonians were Greek too. You kind of make it sound as if they aren't
Eumenes was not Greek but Scythian Iranian origin
"The latest archaeological findings HAVE CONFIRMED that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, GREEK-speaking people, the MAKEDNOI."
Nigel Guy Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, 2009, p.439:
"The ANCIENT MACEDONIANS WERE GREEKS, THEIR LANGUAGE WAS GREEK to judge by their personal names, and by the names of the months of their calendar."
George Cawkwell, Emeritus Fellow,University College Oxford
"As members of the Greek race and speakers of the Greek language, the Macedonians shared the ability to initiate ideas and create political forms."
N G L Hammond (1992) ;The Miracle that was Macedonia', p 206
yep
@@Serapeum The way you present the relationship between the Macedonians and the other Greeks in the video gives the wrong impression.
The Macedonians had their own polity, same as the Spartans or the Athenians, but that didn't make them any less Greek. The snobery, especially from the part of the Athenians, was mostly due to political issues. They obviously weren't all that happy that Macedon took their place as the most influential polity in the Greek world. On the other hand the Diadokhoi wanted to keep the highest offices and positions of power for themselves, so they promoted the idea that only Macedonians should acquire them. Their problem wasn't that Eumenes was Greek. They simply prupugindized against him, since each of them aimed to diminish the number of possible rival successors, by pointing out that he wasn't one of them but from another Greek polity and thus he didn't deserve his high office or to be seen as a successor of Alexander. Him not being Macedonian was just an excuse in order to weaken his claims and power in the eyes of the Macedonians under his command. The war against Persia was officially declared and implemented by the HELLENIC LEAGUE including Macedonia with Alexander at it's Hegemon (leader), in order to take revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece a century and a half earlier.
Maybe I was too vague when phrasing it; yes, the Macedonians were Greek, but I would still argue that Eumenes' "Greekness" (perhaps "non-Macedonianness" would be a better word) still hamstrung his authority among the Macedonian Diadochi. For starters, if it was simply a case of rival Diadochi trying to blacken Eumenes' name, why would people like Alcetas, the brother of Perdiccas the Regent, make such a fuss about working alongside Eumenes in the defence of Asia Minor. Unless Alcetas was otherwise suborned by Antipater and the allies (which doesn't seem plausible considering he fought until the end), then what reasons beyond short-sighted pig-headedness at working alongside someone he viewed as below him did he have for doing stuff that could very well have threatened the survival of Perdiccas' regime. And, by your own token, saying that the other Diadochi were blackening his name with propaganda implies that the charge of not being Macedonian did have weight in the eyes of the Macedonian court and soldiery.
Again, I'm not implying that Macedonians or the other Greeks to the south were fundamentally different peoples, but rather that inter-regional antagonism, and the snobbery that emerged from that, probably played a part in eroding Eumenes' authority amongst the Macedonians and hampering his attempts to assert dominance.
In sort of the same way, the mutual dislike between the Angevins and Normans in France aided the efforts of Stephen of Blois (a Norman) in quickly advancing his claims of kingship of England (by then ruled by the Normans) over his rival Mathilda and her husband Geoffroy Plantagenet (an Angevin), since the Anglo-Norman barons of England were mistrustful of the Angevins. In much the same way, the hostility and mistrust between Angevins and Normans was not brought about by any particular fundamental differences in ways of life (as both spoke the same language, worshipped the same god, and probably went about their lives in mostly similar ways), but rather merely by low-level, internecine conflict between the two. They were otherwise of the same stock, but that didn't prevent them from being at loggerheads a lot of the time.
Hope this makes what I was trying to get across clear :)
@@Serapeum Yes my friend, you were too vague. Have in mind that my english is far from fluent and sometimes it's not all that easy for me to properly express myself in a few sentences, especially on such complicated historical matters.
Surely the fact that he was not Macedonian hamstrung his authority among the Macedonian Diadochi. But not because he was Greek, but because he wasn't Macedonian Greek. That's the point I was trying to make. The way you present it in the video is as if the problem was that he was a Greek while the Macedonians were not Greeks and that is why they disliked him!
The Macedonian elites after the death of Alexander considered themselves to have the sole rights to his empire, even though the army that conquered Persia was not composed only by Macedonians but by Greeks from all over the Greek world. But Macedon was the most powerful state dominating the Greek world of the time, while the Macedonian king was declared as the Hegemon of the Pan-Hellenic alliance against Persia. Also most of the leaders and Generals during the Persian campaign were Macedonians (not all though, Nearchos the Navarch of the fleet was Cretan). So some Macedonian "Diadokhoi" used Eumenes' "non Macedonianess" as an excuse to take him out of the picture...
I don't actually know how the Angevins and the Normans self-identified, in order to understand the validity of your example, but the ancient Macedonians self-identified as Greeks same as the other Greeks and there are countless sources to confirm this. In a passage from Herodotos, Alexander the first who preceded the great for almost 150 years, in a letter addressed to the Persian king self-identifies as a Hellene. According to Arian among others Alexander the Great constantly self-identified as a Hellene. Philip the fifth a century later again in a letter self-identifies as a Hellene. I truly don't understand this. There are numerous sources, archeological findings etc. which have clearly shown that the Macedonians were a Hellenic tribe, but still people, i think due to modern political issues, deny to mention this or even try to present them as totally distinct from the other Greeks! I feel that you did the exact same in this video. Simply mentioning them as "kindred people" definitely gives the wrong impression, especially to someone who has no idea on the subject.
In your explanation of Greeks and Macedonians you got it a bit wrong, the Macedonians were Greek, they were just Macedonian, same way the Spartans who were Greek looked down upon other Greeks, same way the Athenians and thebens did the same
This video had been popping up in my recommendations for months yet somehow I always ended up clicking on something else and postoning this one until now lol😄from now on I'll have to start giving priority to the top quality content of this highly underrated/undersubscribed(relative to it's quality) channel! Keep them coming Serapeum Historia👏👏👏👍
Well, you got here in the end and that's all that matters :) And, if all goes well, I hope to release two videos every month this year - so there's lots more to come!