MACEDONIA IN TRANSITION – DEVELOPING INTO A CIVILIZATION (14)
PART OF THE BOOK “SELECTED PAPERS FOR MACEDONIA”
BY SLAVÉ KATIN
For some time the Balkan peoples led a life of ease until it was disrupted during the 12th century B.C. migrations in the northwestern part of the Peninsula. The new migrants at the time were nameless barbarian tribes which later became known as the Illyrians, Epiriotes and Dorians.
According to Tukidid (I, 12) “… even after the Trojan War the Elines were still moving to this region and establishing new settlements, so that Elada could not calm down and rise.” This period of history is defined as a transitional period since much has been speculated about it, especially in recent times. This research too will dedicate some space to it.
The invasion of the new migrational hordes (nomadic tribes) made a strong impression on the Dinarida causing sheer panic all through the Balkans, Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt. These migrations of “peoples from the sea” took place around 1190 B.C. and are verified by the epigram in the Medinet Habu temple in Egypt written by Ramses III.
As was already mentioned earlier, Cadmus of Thebes stopped the Illyrian migration into Enheles in western Macedonia. But the Brigians in Macedonia’s north were forced to leave their settlements and migrate to ancient Phrygia in Asia Minor (Herodotus, 7, 73). The Strimons, a Thracian tribe living in the basin of the Struma River did the same. When they settled in Asia Minor they became known as the Bithynians (Herodotus, 7, 75). The Pelazgians were expelled from the Tesprotya Plain, today’s Janina, while the Boeotians left Mount Voion and were replaced by the Epiriotes. The Pelazgians, known as the Petals (Pethaloi) and Thesals (Thessaloi), left the Danube Basin and migrated to the region where the Aeolians lived (Lapits, Minos, Tiros and Phlegians) and since then this region became known as Thessaly (Thessaliωtis) (Papastavrou, 1972). According to Eratosten this took place in 1124 B.C. The Aeolians from Eolia (Thessaly) migrated to Asia Minor, to Eolia while the Achaeans from Phytia migrated to the Peloponnesus.
The Boeotians, neighbours of the Orestis Macedonians, were expelled from Arna to Thessaly around 1140 B.C. and settled in today’s Boeotia between Mount Helicon and Mount Kiteron, originally known as the country of Cadmus (Tukidid, I, 12). The greatest change to Pelazgia however was caused by the arrival of the many nameless tribes later referred to as the Dorians. According to Thessalian tradition, the Dorians invaded Thessaly through today’s southern Albania and Epirus, “eighty years after the fall of Troy” (Tukidid, I, 20). After their southerly migration they settled southern Phytia, where the Thessalian Achaeans once lived.
There is no historic evidence pointing to the origin of the Dorians but from archeological discoveries it has been shown that they employed arms made of iron and that they cremated their dead. Despite their attempts to settle, they were expelled by the local population and were forced to retreat to the lands of the Histeotidas. Later they were again expelled by the Cadmenians, descendants of the famous King Cadmus of Thebes (Herodotus, I, 56). “From Histeotidas they migrated to Pind where they became known as the Macedonians. From Pind they traveled south through the Pind massif and by expelling the Etols they reached Dripid and eventually the Peloponnesus where they became known as the Dorians”. From what Herodotus and Tukidid (I, 3) have told us, we can conclude that the new settlers “took the names of other people, but the names of the regions they invaded remained the same”. The question that needs to be asked now is “with the exception of the Achaeans, the people of Fiotida, who exactly were the first Elines (Hellenes)?”
Contrary to classic historians Herodotus and Tukidid, Sakelariou (1982) and Kostopoluos (1992) wrongly claim that the “Hellenes were Macedonians”, that the “Macedonians were Hellenes” and that “Western Macedonia was an ancient common fatherland to all Hellenes”.
So, if the descendents of the Achaeans were indeed the first Hellenes then we know they were not Dorians; they were the Achaeans of Fiotida, Thessaly, a tribe of Mirmidons (Myrmidones, from myrmex (mirmeks) meaning ants), whose king was Pelei (Peleus), son of eginski King Eak (Aiakos) and father of Achilles (Achilleys). According to mythology the Achaeans never set foot in Macedonia, they passed through Tespritia (Epirus) and settled in Ftia.
They were first known by the ethnonym Ahhiyawa or Ahhiyawan, a name used by the Hittites during King Marsil’s (1350-1320 B.C.) reign and by the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II (1288 B.C.), (Childe 1927, 63, 72). The Achaeans never traveled north on their own but during the middle of the 13th century B.C. they were taken north to the Peloponnesus, to Achaea, by Pelop (Pelops) from Asia Minor who originated either from the Phrygians or from the Liganians. The people of Pelopiditie originated from Pelop, among whom the most famous were Atrei (Atreus), Agamemnon (Agamemnωn) and Orest (Orestes). Therefore it could be concluded that the Pelopidites were not Elines, but either Liganians or Phrygians.
Herodotus is another source who has identified the time of the Dorian expulsion from Histeieotida and their “settlement in the region of Pind”. According to Herodotus it happened during the time of the Cadmians, descendants of Cadmus, during the period when the Cadmians were powerful, before they were driven into exile. The event described in the myth “The seven against Thebes” was coined by Hesiod as “the war of the Edip’s sheep” which took place before the adventure of the Argonauts, 1225 B.C.
This event was also described in the myths about the “Epigonites”, sons of the heroes who, ten years later, took revenge for the attack on Thebes. On that occasion the Cadmians, along with their wives, children, weapons and some personal belongings which they were able to take, making use of the dark, escaped along the road through Macedonia (Graves, 1990, 107, b and 2) and went to the country of the Enheleici.
Herodotus (V, 61) confirmed this when he said that “during King Laodamant’s reign (son of Eteokle), the Argaeds expelled the Cadmians to the land of the Enheleici”. According to Eratosten’s chronology “the war of seven against Thebes” took place in 1213 B.C. and from that it follows that the war of “the Epigones”, ten years later, took place in 1203 B.C. The Cadmians were most powerful during King Lai’s reign and his guardian Lik respectively, which took place before “the war of seven against Thebes”.
The future Dorians were forced to settle the region of Pind in Macedonia and as a result of this, according to Herodotus, they were called “Macedonians”. Until that time they were anonymous barbarians. Pind, in a geographic sense, is a mountain range that extends from the end of western Macedonia to Folkida and Boeotia in the Gulf of Corinth. At that time only the small northern part belonged to Macedonia.
That part consisted of the Mountain Gramos (2520 m), the southern hillsides of Mounts Vojon (1802m) and Linko (2249m) and the northern hillsides of Hasia (2160m). Administratively these regions and the western region surrounding today’s Grevena, between the River Bistritsa (Haliakmon) and Mount Pind respectively, were Macedonian belonging to the Atintania, Paravaia and Timfaia tribes. Other neighbouring Macedonian regions such as Orestis, Elimeia and Peria were not mentioned in the mythology. During the entire Dorian stay in this remote part of Macedonia, Macedonia was stable. Because this was a mountainous and barren region, the new settlers quickly turned south along the Pind Range and went to Driopida, located between Mounts Parnas and Helika near present day Lebadia. In Driopida they changed the region’s name to Dorida and for themselves took the ethnonyme Dorians.
With Driopida and Boeotia as their stronghold, in 1050 B.C., the Dorians began attacking the Pelazgians and Aeolian Athenians but without much success. The Athenians, however, were forced to allow the Dorians to settle Marathon. But Argaed King Evristei, from the Danaid family, was against their settlement and tried with all his might to destroy the Dorians in Elada because in them he saw great danger (Apollodori, II, 8, 1).
The Dorians then three times tried to conquer Peloponnesus through the Corinthian Isthmus but without success. It took “three generations” and only after being assisted by the Macedonians did they manage to conquer the Peloponnesus but through the sea straits of Rio-Antirio, near present-day Patra, and to destroy the kingdom of the Mycenaeans. Herodotus (VIII, 43) referred to this when he said “… according to their origin they were Dorians and Macedonians” which is also confirmed in the “Great History of the Greek Nation” (Ekdotikon, Athinon, 1990, 16) where it is noted that “in addition to the Dorians, a group of Macedonians also took part in the composition of the Mycenaean world attackers”.
Temenus led the Dorians during this attack and placed Argos under his rule. When his power over the Peloponnesus was consolidated he established the Argaed Dynasty. Feydon the tyrant who ruled around 750 B.C. and who also comes from this family maintained close relations with the Macedonian court and raised his state to its highest power (Papastavrou, 1972, 106).
Following these developments in the Balkans there is an enormous information gap for the period from the 11th to the 7th century B.C., which historians often refer to as “the dark period of history”. Following that there is the archaic epoch which commences with “the second colonization” of the coastal area of the Mediterranean, Adriatic Sea, Black Sea and the shaping of a new political life in the peoples in the Balkans and in Asia Minor.
The oldest information about these events comes to us from the poets Tartey, Hesiod, Herodotus, Tukidid, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Seculus and others. The destiny of the original tribal communities in their prehistoric world changed forever after the migration of the Dorians to the south of the Balkans, Peloponnesus, Crete and to the south of Asia Minor and Cyprus.
The Pelazgians could be traced living on the territory of Pelazgia (Elada) up until the 4th century B.C. following the change of structure in the population of the Balkans. According to Herodotus (I, 57 and IX, 28) the Pelazgians were expelled from Thessaly and settled above Tersen in Krestona, between the rivers Axios and Strimon, to the south of Lake Dojran in Macedonia. Many Aeolians (Minijci, Lapiti, Tiri and Flegei) migrated to the western coast of Asia Minor through the Aegean Sea and there north of Smirna they established Eolia.
Many of the Pelazgians, Minijci, Lapiti and Jonci (Jonci were Aegean Pelazgians from the Peloponnesus, Herodotus VII, 94) also migrated to the western coast of Asia Minor, in south Smirna, where they established the Jonski Alliance. The majority of the Eolci, mainly Lapiti, Tiroi, Pelazgians and Jonci, remained in Athens and Attica where they originally lived and distinguished themselves in the social and political life in the Athenean “city-state” Polis.
Among the most prominent tribes included were the Butadi, Pizistratidi, Kodridi, Alkmeonidi and Paionidi. Other distinguished Central Balkan tribes included the Perakle, Alkibiad, Solon, Platon and others. A small number of people belonging to some of these tribes migrated from Attica to Hellespont where they established the cities Plakia, Skilaka and others. The Lemno, Imbro and other islands remained populated by Pelazgians and Aeolians who offered resistance to the Persians during the Persian Wars and to Miltiadov’s colonization of Athens in 516 B.C.
From what we have presented above it can be concluded that radical population changes took place in this region particularly in the western parts of Elada, including the Peloponnesus and Crete. This includes the formation of Sparta by the Dorians. Athens for a long time remained multinational, resulting in constant antagonism crowned by the Thirty-year War.
To be continued
By Slave Nikolovski-Katin
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