Greece Age of Alexander the Great (Engineering an empire) part 1

http://www.history-of-macedonia.com A History channel production The Macedonian royal house was called "Argeads" or "Temenidae". According to the tradition, the founder of the royal house Perdiccas - even if the name of the founder differs in reference with the ancient source used - along with his brothers, the "Temenidae" came to the place called Macedonia from the Greek city of Argos (southern Greece). These Temenidae were descendants of Heracles, through Temenus, thus they were called also 'Heracleids'. Since the time of Alexander I, Macedonian kings participated in Olympic games, which as we all know only Greeks could take part. The Argive origin of the Macedonian royal house was well-attested and widely believed both from Macedonians, as well as the rest of Greeks. "The country by the sea which is now called Macedonia... Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos" Thucydides 99,3 (Loeb, C F Smith) "For I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery". Herodotus IX, 45, 2 (Loeb, A.D. Godley) "Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know" Herodotus V, 22, 1 (Loeb, A.D. Godley) "It is your privilege, as one who has been blessed with untrammeled freedom, to consider all Hellas your fatherland, as did the founder of your race". Isocrates, To Philip, 127 (Loeb, G. Norlin) "Argos is the land of your fathers". Isocrates, To Philip, XII, 32 (Loeb, G. Norlin) "But Alexander proving himself to be an Argive, he was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for the first place". Herodotus V, 22, 2 (Loeb, A. D. Godley) "In this period, sixty-five years before the founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors called Dido. About this time also Caranus, a man of royal race, eleventh in descent from Hercules, set out from Argos and seized the kingship of Macedonia. From him Alexander the Great was descended in the seventeenth generation, and could boast that, on his mothers side, he was descended from Achilles, and, on his fathers side, from Hercules." Velleius Paterculus, Book I Francois Chamoux, French historian: "Such a glorious ancestry was in the eyes of Greeks the hallmark of the Greek persona of the king of Macedon, who could, on the other hand, rely on fidelity of the people from which he had sprung. The Greek cities did not feel that they were allying with a barbarian, since for generations the Macedonian dynasty had been allowed, as Greeks, to take part in the Olympic Games." ("Hellenistic Civilization", Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2002, p.8, 9) David George Hogarth, English archaeologist and scholar: "From Alexander I, who rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea and proclaimed himself to the generals their friend and a Greek, down to Amyntas, father of Philip, who joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings of Macedon bid for Greek support by being more Greek than the Greeks." ("Philip and Alexander of Macedon", pp.9-10) ΕΛΛΑΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΑΣ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΑΣ ΜΑΚΕΔΩΝ ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΣ ΠΕΛΛΑ ΑΙΓΕΣ ΒΕΡΓΙΝΑ ΑΡΓΟΣ ΚΑΡΑΝΟΣ ΓΑΥΓΑΜΗΛΑ HELLAS GREECE MAKEDONIA MACEDONIA MACEDOINE GREEK MAKEDON MACEDON MEGAS ALEXANDROS ALEXANDER THE GREAT ALESSANDRO MAGNO ALEXANDER DER GROSSE PHILIPPOS PHILIP FILIPPOS AIGES PELLA VERGINA ANCIENT KINGDOM ARGOS KARANOS KARANUS ANCESTRY HYDASPES TAXILA PERSIA INDIA GAUGAMELA MAKEDONIJA