All too often I see Epirus and Macedonia excluded from ancient Greek historiography. Why exactly is that? Did they not speak Greek dialects or at least very closely related languages? We're they not intertwined with Greek politics? Did they not share the same Gods and culture (for the most part)?
I know that they were called barbarians at times, but the "official Greeks" did that among themselves too when they were sufficiently asspained. On the other hand, there were times when Epirotes and Macedonians were called Greeks by Greeks. To me "barbarian" seems like a very politicized concept rather than an authentic cultural designation. Why is it relevant to us in hindsight?
Note: This is not an invitation for contemporary nationalist crap. I find it genuinely puzzling, like excluding Catalonia and Galicia from Spanish history or Prussia from German history.
And here Epirus is recognized, but not Macedon.
>>478089
Where exactly do you see this? To exclude Alexander's conquests for example as part of Greek history seems very ahistorical.
>>478089
The study of the Archaic Period of Greek history focuses very closely on the Greek city states in the Peloponnese, Attica, Boeotia, Ionia, the Mediterranean Islands, and Magna Graecia. As you said, Epirus and Macedon are often excluded in these studies.
It's interesting because I've actually studied Archaic Greece in university quite a bit and know almost nothing about Macedonia and Epirus during the Archaic Period, which just kind of illustrates how the two regions are left out. So I'll have to make a few educated assumptions based on my study of the rest of Archaic Greece.
The first reason is that the study of the Archaic period often has to do with the changing political landscape in Greece, with the transition from monarchy to artistocracy/tyranny and then more democratic systems in Athens at least.
The tyrants especially get a lot of attention in the study of Archaic Greek history. I understand that Macedonia was a monarchy by the time of Alexander's conquests, and seeing how monarchy is the older form of government in Greece, I'd assume they never transitioned to an aristocracy or tyrannic system (could be wrong here, of course). But I've never heard of a tyrant coming out of either Macedon or Epirus.
Even more so than tyrants, I can't really think of many "famous" ancient Greeks from the Archaic Period that came out of Epirus or Macedonia. Perhaps this is a failing of the Greeks themselves for not recording many figures coming out of these areas.
Also in terms of Greek colonization it seems that areas in Macedon and Epirus were more often the subject of Greek colonization attempts than the other way around. The major Greek colonizers were in Euboea, Attica, and other city states in primarily Southern Greece and Asia Minor. I don't believe Macedon or Epirus produced many colonies and for this reason get excluded from that discussion.
(cont).
>>478369
Neither are the regions very well remembered in the arts, commerce, or sports. Just take a look at this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_winners_of_the_Archaic_period
Corfu is the only place in Epirus that seems to come up, and I don't think anyone from Macedon pops up during the Archaic period. Much like the Olympics today, these sporting events were supposed to display the prestige of the cities that the competitors came from. The fact that Macedon and Epirus produced very few winners just indicates how they were on the periphery of most of the "action" in the Greek world.
It might just be a result of our ancient sources not paying much attention to them, or perhaps in our traditional study of Archaic Greece we simply elect to not focus on either region.
The fact that I've been educated in the history of Archaic Greece and was taught almost nothing about either region just kind of illustrates how peripheral they end up being in modern history. Whether it's the result of lack of sources, electing not to cover them, or maybe they just were that peripheral and unimportant, or some combination of the three, they just aren't remembered nearly as well as the other regions of Greece.
>>478089
what even is historiography and how is it different from history
>>478670
Historiography is the study of the writing or methodology of history, rather than the history itself.
>>478682
Or the products of historians, as opposed to the concept of "history" lying outside of the works of historians.
He is a historian, he writes historiography using historiography, his historiography deals with history.
>>478369
>>478423
My personal guess is that they were focused on the Greek polis whereas the northern states were more barbaric (form of government, lack of colonies) and outright unnoteworthy until the Persians came along. There simply isn't much to say about them. It doesn't really explain why they're sometimes regarded as separate though.
Neither was a polis (city-state).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_%28ancient_kingdom%29#Involvement_in_the_classical_Greek_world
>To Greek literally writers before the Hellenistic period the Macedonians were 'barbarians'. The term referred to their way of life and their institutions, which were those of the ethne and not of the city-state, and it did not refer to their speech. We can see this in the case of Epirus. There Thucydides called the tribes 'barbarians'. But inscriptions found in Epirus have shown conclusively that the Epirote tribes in Thucydides' lifetime were speaking Greek and used names which were Greek. (Worthington, Ian (2003). Alexander the Great: A Reader)
