“The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos…The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.”

—  Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

Book II, 99,-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his a…" by Thucydides?
Thucydides photo
Thucydides76
Greek historian and Athenian general

Related quotes

“The first sentence of the actual Life of Alexander lives up to Plutarch's warning words. 'Alexander's descent, as a Heraclid on his father's side from Caranus, and as an Aeacid on his mother's side from Neoptolemus, is one of the matters which have been completely trusted.' While the Heraclid and Aeacid descent went unquestioned by ancient writers, the citation of Caranus as the founding father in Macedonia and so analogous to Neoptolemus in Molossia was not only controversial but must have been known to be controversial by Plutarch. For he was conversant with the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. which had looked to Perdiccas as the founding father in Macedonia. Caranus was inserted as a forerunner of Perdiccas in Macedonia only at the turn of the fifth century: he appeared as such in the works of fourth-century writers, such as Marsyas the Macedonian historian (FGrH 135/6 i- 14) who on my analysis was used by Pompeius Trogus (Prologue 7 'origines Macedonicae regesque a conditorc gentis Carano'). Thus the dogmatic statement of Plutarch, that Caranus was the forerunner, should have been qualified, if he had been writing scientific history. But because the statement conveyed a belief which Alexander certainly held in his lifetime it was justified in the eyes of a biographer and in the eyes of those who were more concerned with biographical background than with historical facts. If Plutarch had been challenged, he would no doubt have claimed that his belief was based on his own wide reading of authors who had studied the origins of Macedonia and provided 'completely trusted' data.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch's 'Life' and Arrian's 'Anabasis Alexandrou'", p.5, Cambridge Classical Studies

Herodotus photo

“Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably.”

Herodotus book Histories

Book 5, Ch. 20, 4 (Loeb).
The Histories

Kiro Gligorov photo

“We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Great and his Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century”

Kiro Gligorov (1917–2012) President of the Republic of Macedonia

AD
Toronto Star (March 15, 1992)

“Macedonia (or Macedon) was an ancient, somewhat backward kingdom in northern Greece. Its emergence as a Hellenic (Greek) power was due to a resourceful king, Philip II (359-336), whose career has been unjustly overshadowed by the deeds of his son, Alexander the Great.”

Mortimer Chambers (1927) American historian

"The Western Experience", p. 79, Mortimer Chambers et al, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2nd edition , 1997

Will Cuppy photo

“Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 B. C., on the sixth day of the month of Lous. He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. (Footnote) He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

Pausanias photo

“Belistiche, a woman from the coast of Macedonia, won with the pair of foals … at the hundred and twenty-ninth Olympics.”

Pausanias (110–180) Ancient Greek geographer

Description of Greece, Eleia VIII, 11 [Loeb].

Robin Lane Fox photo

“But Alexander was stressing his link with Achilles… Achilles was also a stirring Greek hero, useful for a Macedonian king whose Greek ancestry did not stop Greeks from calling him a barbarian.”

Robin Lane Fox (1946) Historian, educator, writer, gardener

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.60

“Macedonia as a whole tended to remain in isolation from the rest of Greece…”

Peter Green (1924) British historian

Alexander the Great, page 20.

Robin Lane Fox photo

“Alexander was recognized as a son of Zeus after his visit.”

Robin Lane Fox (1946) Historian, educator, writer, gardener

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.201

Strabo photo

“What is now called Macedonia was in earlier times called Emathia. And it took its present name from Macedon, one of its early chieftains. And there was also a city emathia close to the sea. Now a part of this country was taken and held by certain of the Epeirotes and the Illyrians, but most of it by the Bottiaei and the Thracians. The Bottiaei came from Crete originally, so it is said, along with Botton as chieftain. As for the Thracians, the Pieres inhabited Pieria and the region about Olympus; the Paeones, the region on both sides of the Axius River, which on that account is called Amphaxitis; the Edoni and Bisaltae, the rest of the country as far as the Strymon. Of these two peoples the latter are called Bisaltae alone, whereas a part of the Edoni are called Mygdones, a part Edones, and a part Sithones. But of all these tribes the Argeadae, as they are called, established themselves as masters, and also the Chalcidians of Euboea; for the Chalcidians of Euboea also came over to the country of the Sithones and jointly peopled about thirty cities in it, although later on the majority of them were ejected and came together into one city, Olynthus; and they were named the Thracian Chalcidians.”

Strabo Geographica

Book 7, Fragm 11
Geographica, 7 BC

Related topics