To everyone,
I am so sick of students at school of 'Macedonian' background (fyrom) telling me that Greece took over Macedonian land and the Greeks are really Macedonian and Thessaloniki isn't even a Greek city, etc. There is so much tension and I really want to know the real history behind Macedonia. Was it a region in Greece or did the Greeks take over Macedonia? I need answers please, so I can tell them at school.

Dear friend,

Macedonia was a rural kingdom in todays north western greece . At the time the main economic activity of the kingdom was animal and land related. The ancient macedonians considered themselves Greeks and to prove it here are some points:

1) They worshipped the same olympic gods as the rest of the Greeks
2) They spoke Greek although they did with a heavy accent
3) They sent a lot of athletes on the olympic games with first on the list Alexander, Son of Phillip (Alexander the Great)
4) They sponsored in their royal courtyard a lot of spiritual legends, like Democritus and Aristotle.
5) They felt that they had to take revenge on behalf of Greece for the waste the Persians laid on The Persian Wars
6) Alexander himself paid honors to the tomb of Achilles (the greatest warrior-champion and an all time legend for the greeks) at Troy on his expectition to the Persian Empire.
7) He caused the burn of the Royal Palace of the Persian king in Persepolis, to start from the hands of an Athenian girl as revenge for the burn of Parthenon centuries ago.

I hope that is enough for a start.

Moreover, I have never read any historical (please, not hysterical) evidence supporting that they were NOT Greeks.

ellasrules,

If you want to find out more about Ancient Macedonia go to http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/
This site as all sources and evidence from non-biased sources that will show you what you need!

The fact is that ALL Archaeological, Epigraphic, Linguistic and Historical evidence points to the Ancient Macedonians as being an isolated Greek group.
Your question is actually one that many people have asked. There is also a huge propoganda effort coming out of FYROM that tries to promote their connection to the Ancient Kingdom. Unfortunately for them there is absolutely nothing that connects them to the Ancient Macedonians EXCEPT for the name they have decided to use, which was given to them(as an Ethnicity) by the former communist ruler of the Former Yugoslavi Josef Tito in 1946. There is no linguistic, no cultural and no historical text that connects them. The way they go about accrediting themselves as being the heirs is to try and prove that not even the Ancient Greeks thought that the Ancient Macedonians were Greek. This as you will see is completely an outrages stretch of the imagination. There were only 2 Greek in Ancient times that made any reference to the Ancient Macedonians as being Barbarian; the first is Demosthenes in which due to the political circumstances at the time he called Philip II a Barbarian due to his encroachment on Athenian territory and power. The second was a man(name slips my mind) from a suburb of Ancient Byzantium(pre-christian). Byzantium at that time(5th Century B.C.E) was under Athenian power and thus an ally of Athens so when the Macedonians tried to conquer Byzantium he called the Ancient Macedonians barbarians. These are the ONLY TWO times any Ancient Greek called the Macedonians or Philip a "Barbarian".

All this information is available at the link I provided and click on the 'Macedonia Forum' tab on top. You can read all articles without registering but if you want to post you must register. And as always a good thing to learn about yours and your forefathers history. The site discusses issues from ancient times all the way through modern.

I hope this helps! I know it is much later than your last post, but I thought I would reply anyways.