ABSTRACT
There was a distinction in the ancient Greek world between those who lived south of Mount Olympus and those who lived to its north, the Macedonians. The proper term for these people was ‘Makedones’, a name that is Greek in root and ethnic terminations, and may have meant ‘highlanders’. However, the Greeks referred to them as ‘barbarians’ as late as the last quarter of the fourth century (Din. 1.24), perhaps an indication that they did not see them as Greek. Much has been written on the ‘ethnicity’ of the Macedonians, an issue that will never be solved.
