By Sarantos I. Kargakos

Had it not been for Demosthenes' slanderous characterizations against Philip - especially against Alexander - the question of the Greekness of the Macedonians would not have been raised. Every supporter of this opinion relies on Demosthenes. The other data they put forward are merely supplementary elements, which have no historical weight.

We could consider Demosthenes' insults as an outburst of political passion that drives him into the madness of insults and that's all. When someone insults, he does not mince words. That is why Demosthenes often calls Philip the barbarian, knowing that he is insulting and humiliating him. But if Philip was a barbarian (foreigner), why should this characterization bother him? Even with this designation, Demosthenes wants to portray Philip as a foreigner who usurps the freedom of Greece in order to unite all Greeks against him. In politics, the end justifies the means.

But the extent to which Demosthenes' characterizations are accurate can be seen in the insults of his great rival, Aeschines, who also calls Demosthenes a barbarian!

In particular, in the famous "On the False Embassy" oration,the insulting phrase is heard twice: "And you say this, Demosthenes, although your lineage on your mother's side is descended from Scythian nomads". And again: "On his mother's side, Demosthenes is a Scythian. A barbarian who uses the Greek language!"

His mother Demosthenes Kleoboulis was the daughter of Gylonos, who had settled in the Taurian peninsula (Crimea). But I ask: Are insults a solid basis for the scientific foundation of historical theories? With this I do not want to bypass the only "document" that Mr. J.B. quotes. Rather I will present all insults of Demosthenes chronologically in order to be able to draw the necessary conclusions. Before doing so, however, I will avoid mistaking the great orator for a common insulter and examine the meaning of the Demosthenes-Philip dichotomy, which reflects the dichotomy of the democratized southern Greek cities versus the monarchical Greek north. One element is that the Greeks had a politics of city-states. They had a city-centric view. The city was the center of all political action. In other words, Athens, Sparta, Thebes were important cities.

Macedonia, on the other hand, was a state with many cities, but they were not so important that they determined political life. Thus, the state-centered monarchical system of the northern Greeks contrasted with the city-centered democratic system of the southern Greeks. Demosthenes' opposition to Philip was thus not racial, as many propagate. It was politics. If Philip had in mind the Great State, Demosthenes, who had grown up with other political ideals, had in mind the Great Man, "the free in justice". The Citizen, not the servant of the state. The personality and character and not faceless political being. Therefore, he remained faithful to the idea of "Athenism". Only Athens gave him some guarantees for the State of Free Citizens.

Demosthenes did not reject the idea of Panhellenism. But he gave it cultural meaning. Philip made a realistic policy. Demosthenes from the 4th century BC imagines a federation of cities with a democratic form of government. Philip, on the other hand, sought a unity of Greeks by all means. He was a Machiavelli who did not write, but acted. Therefore, the conflict between Demosthenes and Philip was not a conflict of races, but a conflict of visions.

Yet despite noble visions, neither shied away from mean means. After all, they were engaged in politics, not religious preaching. Macedonia and Philip were what Prussia and Bismarck were to Germany. If Bismarck expected to unite Germany with Kant's wonderful vision of perpetual peace, he should have eternal life as well. But the politicians who create eternal work are those who know that life is short and time is running out.

Let us now turn to the "shocking" document that J.B. quotes:

"Not only a non-Greek and not related to the other Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that could be called with any honor, but like a pestilent knave from Macedonia, where one cannot even buy a decent slave" (The Third Philippic, Demosthenes' political orations ). But let us see what Demosthenes himself says: "Not only is he not a Greek, nor has he anything in common with the Greeks, but he is not even a barbarian of good stock, but a pernicious Macedonian, from whose country one cannot even buy a slave."

The reader should note that Mr. J.B. commits a scientific indecency. He translates "pernicious Macedonian," which is indeed a heavy epithet, with the phrase "pestilent knave from Macedonia," which has no correspondence with the original. No Greek researcher denied that this text, because of its verbal severity, raises the suspicion of an ethnic division between Greeks and Macedonians. It is also not absent from any Greek historiography, ancient or translated. However, what Mr. J.B. seems to ignore the psychology of language, i. e. a word that means something specific, is used with a different meaning in a specific case. We all know, for example, what history means.

Statue of Philipp of Macedon in Thessaloniki, Greece

But you have to know the psychology of the Greek language to understand the phrase "we will have histories", which means entanglements, struggles, and so on. We all know what politics means, but few know that politics in the medieval Greek language meant also whore! So, in order to understand Demosthenes' phrase, we need to know the psychology of language, which means that in relation to Philip, we need to trace the psychological transitions or upheavals that Philip's politics triggers in him. We begin with an observation: of the nine orations Demosthenes made against Philip, Philip is called a barbarian in only three (the relevant part in the "Against Stephanos" oration is a later addition). But let us start with the orations from the beginning:

1. In the "First Philippic" oration against Philip, written when the Macedonian king had reached Thermopylae and was also threatening to cut Athens off from the allied cities of Thrace and Euxinus, Demosthenes uses harsh language but never calls him a barbarian. Neither in the First nor in the Second Olynthiac oration.

2. Philip is first called a barbarian in the Third Olynthiac oration: "He is not an enemy, he does not possess what is ours, he is not a barbarian, whatever else one may say". The last sentence ("whatever else one may say") shows that the previous word "barbarian" is also used as an insult and not as a national designation. Demosthenes here stigmatizes Philip's behavior and not his origin.

3. In 346 BC, Demosthenes delivered his "On the Peace" oration. Philip has already conquered Olynthos, crushed the Phocaeans, and become a member of the Delphic Amphictyony. But now that the threat is more immediate, Demosthenes says nothing in his speech about Philip being a barbarian. Yet it would have been a wonderful opportunity for him to denounce before all Greeks that a barbarian had become a member of the amphictyony in which only Greeks participated. The reason why he did not do this is simple: he knew that all Greeks knew that Philip was not a barbarian.

4. In 341 BC, Demosthenes delivered the "On the Chersonese" oration,which is a war cry against Philip, who is not called a "barbarian" here either. And yet Demosthenes had just returned from Macedonia, where he had gone as an ambassador and stayed for three months. Therefore, he had the opportunity to learn the language, customs and traditions of the Macedonians. If he thought they were barbarians, why would he miss such a wonderful opportunity to comment on them?

5. A year later, he delivers the "On the False Embassy" oration and while he sharply characterizes Philip, he still says nothing about barbarism. This oration is of a legal nature and is directed against Aeschines, the leader of the "Macedonian party" in Athens. His aim is to show the opportunism and political immorality of Aeschines and to point out his contradictions. Specifically, he says of Aeschines, "Formerly he preached before the people and called Philip barbarian and destructive. But now Aeschines calls him the most Greek of men and the greatest friend of Athens!". With this rhetorical trick Demosthenes tries to expose Aeschines in the eyes of the Athenians as well as in the eyes of Philip.

6. Finally, in "third against Philip" is found the sentence to which J.B. refers and modifies in the translation. In this oration from 341 (three years before the battle of Chaeronea) Demosthenes, desperate to see Philip's omnipresence, has lost control of his words, treats Philip like a gladiator, and uses the worst insults against him. This verbal frenzy and verbal jibes are aimed at insulting Philip personally and his country in general. This is also evident in the sentence of the ancient commentator of Demosthenes, who examines the characterization of "barbarian" in the third Olynthiac:

"Because Demosthenes wants to insult Philip, he calls him a barbarian. But if he really wanted to investigate, he would find that he is a Greek from Argos, descended from the lineage of Hercules, as all historians confirm."

Statue of Alexander the Great in Thessaloniki, Greece

Personally, I do not like simple interpretations. Demosthenes has a political goal in the sense that he wants to destroy Philip by any means. He sees the Macedonian monarch as an enemy of Greek freedom, i.e. the autonomy of the Greek cities. Therefore, with the last sentence, he actually wants to portray him as a foreigner in the eyes of the other Greeks and the Macedonians as foreigners seeking Greek independence in order to achieve a panhellenic alliance against them. So passionate is he that he does not hesitate to recommend to the Athenians an alliance with the Persians against Philip (Fourth Philippic):

"I think you should send a legation (to the Persians) to converse with the Persian king, leaving aside the silly phrase "the barbarians are the common enemy of everything and everyone".

Thus Demosthenes frees the Persian king from the status of barbarian and assigns it to Philip, whom he also calls "the robber of the Greeks" and implores the gods to destroy him.