Macedon
It sat on the periphery of an age and place of great intellectual, political, and social ferment. Its inhabitants were seen and treated as peripheral, but thanks to some natural advantages and two brilliant rulers, they would become the masters of the known world. They brought an end to the ancient Near Eastern world and inaugurated the Classical world dominated by Greek practice and thought. They are the Macedonians of Macedon.
Macedon derives from a Greek term for “high, tall,” and either refers to the people as tall or as the highlanders. Ancient Macedonia was a kingdom in modern-day northeastern Greece, but we should not project the borders of the modern country onto the ancient world. While the Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect, believed in the Greek gods, and shared in other Greek socio-political and cultural customs, the Greeks of the Peloponnesus and “Continental” Greece to the south would not have considered the Macedonians as fully part of them. To the Greeks of the south, Macedon was one of the peripheral groups of Greek speaking people, like Epirus to the west and Thessaly to the south, but not the main center of Greek culture, which would be defined as Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Thebes, and their environs; Macedonians would have been seen as semi-Greek and backward.
The Greeks may have considered Macedonia backward, but they could not deny the material resources enjoyed by the Macedonians. Most of Greece is very mountainous; Macedonia has mountains but also a wide, fertile plain by the Aegean Sea. The Macedonians would continually export crops from the plains and timber from the mountain regions. But Macedon also found itself sitting between Greece and Asia Minor and all Asia, and would experience many an army marching through it.
During the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, Macedonia was known as Emathia; at some point around the seventh century BCE, the Macedonians entered the land and displaced the Illyrians and Thessalians who had been living in it. They spoke a rough northwestern Greek dialect and were simultaneously viewed as Greek but also not Greek for many generations.
During the Persian Wars Macedon submitted to Persian rule and its soldiers fought for Persia against the Greeks (ca. 490-480 BCE). After the Persians were expelled from the European continent, the Macedonians were able to maintain friendly relations with at least some of the Greek city-states, with its kings often shifting alliances between Athens and Sparta. Everything for everyone would change, however, beginning around 359 BCE when Philip II ascended to the Macedonian throne.
Philip had lived as an aristocratic hostage in Thebes in Greece. Perhaps Philip had learned some military strategy thanks to the Thebans; perhaps Philip simply enhanced practices and theories developed by those who came before him. For whatever reasons, Philip entirely re-organized the Macedonian army and introduced long pikes known as the sarissa which would immediately prove to be a great advantage in the field. The Greek city-states were embroiled in wars against one another as usual throughout the fourth century BCE and Philip took advantage of the situation. In 356 BCE he conquered a town named Crenides and renamed it Philippi of later Roman and New Testament fame. By 345 BCE, through diplomacy and war, Philip had gained control or influence over much of Thessaly and Thrace. The Greek cities to the south became wise regarding the threat of domination under Philip and came together to fight against Philip at Chaeronea in 338 BCE. Philip’s forces broke and destroyed the allied Greek army, and Philip II of Macedon had proven successful where everyone else had failed in uniting Greece under one ruler.
Philip now set his sights on the Achaemenid Persian Empire and marshaled his forces. Yet Philip had also taken multiple wives and had many children from those wives. The court was full of intrigue; Philip was assassinated by his bodyguard in 336 BCE. Philip II was succeeded by his son Alexander III.
Alexander had been tutored by the great Greek philosopher Aristotle and had gained experience in the ways of war. He would succeed his father and exceed him in every respect. Alexander soon consolidated power and set off on the campaign against Persia for which his father had prepared. He defeated the Persian army at Granicus in 334, Issus in 333, and Gaugamela in 331, decisively overthrowing the Persian military and control over its empire. It only took Alexander three years to overthrow the mighty Achaemenid Persian Empire and put an end to what we deem the ancient Near East, which is why he has been known forever since as Alexander the Great.
After continuing east to the Indus River, Alexander was forced to begin a return journey by his army; he contracted an illness in Babylon and died in 323 BCE. Over the next few years Alexander’s generals, known as the diadochi, would argue and fight over how to divide the extremely large empire which the Macedonians had gained. In the end the empire would be divided into four major parts.
Macedon proper was first ruled by Cassander, most famous for founding a city in the name of his wife Thessalonike, which would become Thessalonica of Roman and New Testament fame. But he would not last, and Antigonus and his descendants would rule over Macedon and maintain some kind of influence over Greece until the last Macedonian king died in battle against the Romans in 166 BCE.
Alexander’s general Lysimachus would develop a kingdom centered on western Asia Minor which would eventually become the Kingdom of Pergamum ruled over by the Attalids. They would persevere until Attalus III died without an heir in 129 BCE and gave the kingdom over to the Romans in his will.
Alexander’s general Ptolemy took control of Egypt and the southern Levant, including Judea, and created the Ptolemaic Dynasty and Kingdom in 305 BCE. The Ptolemies would rule over Egypt, maintaining a Macedonian dynasty through sibling and cousin marriage until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, resisting Roman domination longer than all other Macedonian kingdoms.
As rulers of Judea the Ptolemies proved tolerant. Alexander had founded the city of Alexandria and the Ptolemies developed it into a great center of culture and learning, attracting many members of the Jewish diaspora. According to the legend contained in the Letter of Aristeas, Ptolemy II Philadelphus commissioned some Jewish sages to translate the Torah into Greek, beginning what we now know as the Septuagint (ca. 281-246 BCE). Ptolemy II Philadelphus was known for collecting and cultivating the books and wisdom of the known world in growing the great library of Alexandria, and few doubt that the first translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek took place most likely in Alexandria around this time.
Yet the bulk of Alexander’s conquests would be ruled over by his general Seleucus, which would become known as the Seleucid Empire. In its first century the Seleucid Empire would cede control of its most western and eastern territories to the Attalids and Mauryan Indians respectively. In its second century, however, its fortunes were revived; Antiochus III the Great restored his presence in the east, and in 200 BCE defeated Ptolemy V Epiphanes Eucharistos and took over control of Coele-Syria, including Judea.
Antiochus’ son Antiochus IV Epiphanes set his sights on Egypt, defeated the Ptolemies, and was on the cusp of conquering Alexandria when the Romans made it clear to him it would not go well for him if he continued in his pursuits. It was on his return trip from this setback in which Antiochus took out his anger and frustrations on some recalcitrant Jewish people in Jerusalem and set his soldiers to plunder Jerusalem and defiled the Temple in 167 BCE. In his attempts to fully Hellenize his empire, Antiochus then banned the observance of the Law of Moses and made circumcision a capital offense. These travesties catalyzed the Maccabean revolt, led by the sons of Matthias the priest with Judah “the Maccabee” as the great champion and hero who would win many battles against Macedonian forces. By 164 BCE Judah the Maccabee was able to recover the Temple Mount and restore the appropriate sacrifices and services; Hanukkah is the observance of this event, and all these events are described for us in the book of 1 Maccabees and by Josephus in the Antiquities of the Jews.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes died in 164 BCE and his empire would remain unstable for the rest of its existence. Rulers rose and fell, at times fighting against the Maccabees, and at times seeking their alliance. The Parthians arose as a major power and took over all the Seleucid Empire east of the Euphrates River by 129 BCE. Thirty years later the Seleucid Empire was reduced to Antioch of Syria and its environs, and it was finally put to an end by Tigranes of Armenia in 83 BCE. Attempts at revival were fully extinguished by the Romans who took over the whole area by 63 BCE.
Even though Macedon was on the periphery of the ancient Greek world, it would be the Macedonians who would spread Greek architecture, art, culture, philosophy, and religion throughout the world of the ancient Near East. In modern-day Afghanistan, Bactrian kingdoms claiming descent from the Macedonians would endure for a very long time, and Greek influence would persevere in art and culture even longer. What Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to impose by force in Judea was being accepted without such compulsion throughout the lands of the ancient Near East. Jewish people might still speak Aramaic, but Koine Greek would become the lingua franca from Babylon to Alexandria. The gods of the Anatolians, Mesopotamians, and Syrians would become expressed and understood in terms of Greek gods: Artemis of Ephesus, Heracles of Tyre, etc. Cities throughout Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia would build gymnasiums, libraries, temples, and theaters in Greek style. Even despite all their resistance to Hellenism, the Jewish people could not help but absorb some Hellenistic philosophy and ideology. The Macedonians brought an end to the world of the ancient Near East and inaugurated the Hellenistic and Classical periods in Eurasia; such is why the world of Ezra seemed far more remote to Jesus than the world of David would have seemed to Ezra.
The Gospel of Jesus would come to Macedon in the days of the Romans, and the prominent Macedonian cities of Philippi and Thessalonica remain famous because of the churches founded there and their correspondence with the Apostle Paul. Such proved possible, in large degree, on account of the accomplishments of Philip, Alexander, and the Macedonians. May we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as did the ancient Christians of Macedonia, and share with them in life in Christ!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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