Macedonia is a geographic and historical region of Northern Greece. It’s the largest and most populous region and it’s Capital Thessaloniki has 1.057.825 people according to the 2017 census. Thessaloniki is also the second largest city in Greece and Macedonia’s largest port followed by Kavala.
It incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most well known members were Philip II and his son Alexander the Great.
According to Herodotus the tribe called ‘’Makednoi’’ was a Dorian Tribe the history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name, migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi.and the word means “Tall”, a word which Homer uses in one of his writings to describe a tall tree. Therefore, Macedonia as a word has a meaning of “Tall people”.
Herodotus also claims that a branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B.C. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The Macedonians claimed to be Dorian Greeks (Argive Greeks) and there were many Ionians in the coastal regions. Moreover, the surviving literary and archaeological evidence during Classical and Hellenistic Ages clearly shows that Macedonians considered themselves Greek, carriers to spread the Greek Language and civilization to Asia while revenging the Persians for the Persian wars.
During the Peloponnesian War, Macedonia became the theatre of many military actions by the Peloponnesian League and the Athenians, and saw incursions of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucidydes. Many Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans (both the Spartans and the Macedonians were Dorian, while the Athenians were Ionian), but Athens maintained the colony of Amphipolis under her control for many years. The kingdom of Macedon, was reorganised by Philip II and achieved the union of Greek states by forming the League of Corinth. After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon and carrying the title of Hegemon of League of Corinth started his long campaign towards the east.
The Ancient Macedon spoke the Ancient Greek as its official language, proven by the tablets found in Doric Greek dialect. The most famous tablet found, the Pella curse tablet, found in 1986 was a direct proof of the Macedonian Greek origins. That also proves that there was no Ancient Macedonian language only a Greek Doric dialect.
The ancient Roman, Persian, Indian, Jewish, Babylonian and Carthagenian testimonies are listing Macedonians among the other Hellenes, speaking the same language and in general Macedonians are portrayed as Hellenes fighting the Barbarians.
Ancient Macedonia also had the same religion as the rest of the Hellenic world, the Dodekatheon (Twelve Gods).
