“To his ancestors (to a Persian's ancestors) Macedonians were only known as 'yona takabara', the 'Greeks who wear shields on their heads', an allusion to their broad-brimmed hats.”

—  Robin Lane Fox

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.104

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To his ancestors (to a Persian's ancestors) Macedonians were only known as 'yona takabara', the 'Greeks who wear shield…" by Robin Lane Fox?
Robin Lane Fox photo
Robin Lane Fox 20
Historian, educator, writer, gardener 1946

Related quotes

“What language did these Macedones speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means highlanders, and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', meaning 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos. The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod recorded […] has a bearing on the question of Greek speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes; as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect. Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins of Hellen's three sons - Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus-who were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century, that the Macedones were a Greek speaking people. The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive.”

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

"The Macedonian State" p.12-13)

“Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of Proto-Greek from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country… First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments) that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable.”

Eugene N. Borza (1935) American historian

"Makedonika", Regina Books, Claremont CA

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)

Robin Lane Fox photo

“No man, and only one hero, had been called invincible before him, and then only by a poet, but the hero was Heracles, ancestor of the Macedonian kings.”

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

Source: Alexander the Great, 1973, p.71

“So Britain’s monarch once uncovered sat,
While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat.”

James Bramston (1694–1744) British writer

Man of Taste (1733).

Mel Brooks photo

“No! You don't wear a hat on your gentles! You wear a hat on your head where you're supposed to wear a hat!”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)

Bertrand Russell photo

“Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 50
Context: My first advice (on how not to grow old) would be to choose you ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth, at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

Voltaire photo

“The first who was king was a fortunate soldier:
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”

Voltaire Mérope

Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux:
Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aïeux.
Mérope, act I, scene III (1743). Borrowed from Lefranc de Pompignan's "Didon"
Citas

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, — seven or eight ancestors at least, — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Alexander the Great photo

“Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Hellas [Greece] and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed leader of the Greeks, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Alexander's letter to Persian king Darius III of Persia in response to a truce plea, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian; translated as Anabasis of Alexander by P. A. Brunt, for the "Loeb Edition" Book II 14, 4

Related topics