In Greek mythology, Makedon (), also spelled Makednos () or transcribed Macedon, was the eponymous ancestor of the Makedones according to various ancient Greek fragmentary narratives. In most versions, he appears as a native or immigrant leader from Epirus, who gave his name to Macedonia, previously called Emathia according to Strabo,Strabo, 7, fr. 11: "What is now called Macedonia was in earlier times called Emathia. And it took its present name from Macedon, one of its early chieftains. And there was also a city Emathia close to the sea." which according to Marsyas of Pella was until then a part of ancient Thrace.
Etymology
Μακεδών (Makedón) is related to the Greek μᾰκεδνός (makednós, “tall, slim”).Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), “μακεδνός”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume I, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 894 Both adjectives traditionally derive from the Indo-European root *mak- or *meh₂k-, meaning "long, slender", cognate with poetic Greek makednós or mēkedanós "long, tall",Article μακεδνός in: Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie: A Greek–English Lexicon (= LSJ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 91925. Retrieved 19 May 2016. Doric mãkos and Attic mẽkos "length",Article μῆκος in: LSJ. Retrieved 19 May 2016. Makistos, the mythological eponym of a town in Elis and an epithet of Heracles, Avestan masah "length", Hittite mak-l-ant "thin", Latin macer "meagre" and Proto-Germanic *magraz "lean, meager". The same root and meaning has been duly assigned to the tribal name of the Macedonians,Article māk̑- in: Gerhard Köbler: Indogermanisches Wörterbuch. Online edition, 2014 (based in part on Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Francke, Bern 1959, 52005). Retrieved 19 May 2016. which is commonly explained as having originally meant "the tall ones" or "highlanders" in Greek.Nigel Guy Wilson (2009). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, p.439: "The latest archaeological findings have confirmed that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the Makednoi."
Genealogy
Son of Thyia and Zeus The genealogy of Makedon according to Hesiod's Catalogue of Women
A fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, quoted by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, states: "Macedonia the country was named after Makedon, the son of Zeus and Thyia, daughter of Deucalion, as the poet Hesiod relates; and she became pregnant and bore to thunder-loving Zeus, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, the horse lover, those who dwelt in mansions around Pieria and Olympus".Hesiod, Catalogue of Women fr. 7 Most, pp. 48, 49 [= fr. 7 Merkelbach-West = Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Thematibus, 2 (Pertusi, pp. 86–7)].De Thematibus 2 p. 48B The poetic epithet "hippiocharmes" can alternatively be translated as "fighting on horseback" or "chariot-fighter"LSJ: charma , charmê and has also been attributed to Aeolus son of Hellen, Troilus and Amythaon. A fragment of the Macedonian historian Marsyas of Pella (4th century BC), through a scholiast of Iliad xiv 226Frg 13, Greek text: confirms the genealogy as found in the Catalogue of Women: "Makedon son of Zeus and Thyia, conquered the land then belonging to Thrace and he called it Macedonia after his name. He married a local woman and got two sons, Pierus and Amathus; two cities, Pieria and Amathia in Macedonia were founded or named after them". The rare name of his mother Thyia, has been corrupted in transmission to Aithria or Aithyia through the phrase . Thyia in the Delphic tradition was an eponym naiad of the Thyiades, alternative name of the Maenads in the cult of Dionysus, certainly practiced also in Macedonia. Despite the name Catalogue of Women, the ancient genealogies were patrilineal. The primary building blocks were men, and women were the mortar.
The mythological chronologization of the Hesiodean passage indicates a time before the Trojan War and Iliad, since then the Magnetes dwell in Magnesia, Thessaly. The Catalogue of Women, which is variously dated mostly between the 8th and 6th century BC, provides the earliest and only reference to a Macedonian element before the 5th-century BC historiography. Makedon's mother Thyia, was the sister of Hellen, the progenitor of the Greeks; Makedon was therefore a nephew of Hellen. Furthermore, Magnes, the brother of the eponymous Makedon, was the progenitor of the Magnetes, an Aeolian Greek tribe.
According to Robert Fowler, the genealogy acknowledges the Macedonians' affinity to the Hellenes through their direct descent from Deukalion, whilst depicting that link as oblique, due to their indirect connection to Hellen; he compares the Macedonians to the Graikoi, who likewise descended not from Hellen, but a sister of his, and the Locrians, who descended from the Leleges, sprung directly from the stones thrown by Deukalion and Pyrrha. Martin Litchfield West interprets the passage as a statement that the Macedonians are not Hellenic, though he specifies that the Hellenes symbolised by the figure of Hellen are a Phthian tribe rather than the Greeks as a whole; he writes that this genealogy is focused "on a constellation of north Greek tribal groups", and that the tribes whose eponyms are not descended from Hellen are "not non-Greek, or at any rate not necessarily non-Greek, but they lie outside the scope of heroic myth."
According to Karren Stoppie, Hesiod didn't count the Macedonians as Hellenes, and adds that the adoption of his genealogy by the Macedonian historian Marsyas of Pella indicates that the Macedonians didn't consider themselves Hellenes.: "According to this source, Makedon was related to Hellen only via Deukalion, which means that the Macedonians were not Hellenes. Barbarian people could also play a role in Hellenic mythology by descent from Deukalion... The fragment ascribed to Marsyas confirms the genealogy as found in the Catalogue of Women: this source, too, mentions Makedon as the son of Thyia. Marsyas adds that Makedon had two children with an indigenous wife, Pieros and Amathos, the eponyms of the Macedonian cities Pieria and Amathia. From this source we learn the point of view of the Macedonians themselves. It appears that not only the Hellenes but also the Macedonians accepted the tradition that the Macedonians were not Hellenes. We conclude that the Macedonians felt less related to their neighbours in the south than many people today want to believe." Jonathan M. Hall compares Magnes and Macedon to other excluded tribes from direct lineage to Hellen, and later Olympic participants, such as Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians. J. M. Hall suggests that "although Deucalion's paternity of Thuia made the latter Hellen's sister, Macedon was not himself descended directly from Hellen, thus excluding the Macedonians from the Hellenic genealogy",; and proposes that "the Thessalians assigned this patronymic to Macedon and Magnes because they wanted to assert their priority, in terms of religious and other rights, over Magnesian and other rivals in that region", which Patterson also finds convincing.
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood suggests that because the Magnetes were considered Greek and because their eponym, Magnes, occupies a genealogically equivalent position to Makedon, the Macedonians are presented by the poem as Greek. N. G. L. Hammond and Johannes Engels suggest that Hesiod counted the Macedonians as Greeks, and more specifically Aeolians, since Magnetes, descending from Magnes, brother of Makedon, were another Aeolic tribe.;.
Eugene N. Borza cites Hall's argument that the Greeks had a dynamic view of their identity, and he cautions against using mythical genealogies as conclusive evidence of ethnic identity because myths of common ancestry are part of a continuing process of redefinition of their own identity.
Son of Aeolus In a fragment of a chronological work of Hellanicus called "Priestesses of Hera at Argos", and preserved by Stephanus, Makedon is son of Aeolus, as Hellanicus relates in the first (book or archive list) of his "Hiereiai tes Heras en Argei", and of Makedon, the son of Aeolus, the present Macedonians were named so, then living alone with the Mysians.Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica s.v. Makedonia with Hellanicus, Hiereiai tes Heras en Argei as the authority; Hellanicus fr. 74 (Fowler 2013, p. 155) The fragment does not clarify who of the three Aeoli is Makedon's father but Eustathius reported him as one of the ten sons of Aeolus,Eustathius of Thessalonica. A commentary on Dionysius Periegetes 427 thus the son of Hellen. In later traditions, Magnes is also reported as one of the ten sons of Aeolus and father of Pierus. N. G. L. Hammond, based on the passage of Hellanicus, as well on the Thessalian Magnes being brother of Macedon, suggested that Macedonian was an Aeolic Greek dialect. K. Stoppie suggested that Hellanicus probably stayed at the Macedonian court and that it is possible that this genealogy was part of Archelaus’ political propaganda.
Son of Osiris In "The antiquities of Egypt", first chapter of Bibliotheca historica by Diodorus Siculus, which is based mainly on Aegyptiaca of Hecataeus of Abdera, Greek and Egyptian mythology have been syncretized. Osiris has taken the place of Dionysus in his various myths and expeditions. According to Herodotus Osiris was the Egyptian Dionysus and the house of Ptolemies claimed descent from Dionysus. (see also Osiris-Dionysus deity). Diodorus relates:Diodorus 1.18. Translation by Charles Henry Oldfather. Read the whole passage in translation by Edwin Murphy "Now Osiris was accompanied on his campaign, as the Egyptian account goes, by his two sons Anubis and Macedon, who were distinguished for their valour. Both of them carried the most notable accoutrements of war, taken from certain animals whose character was not unlike the boldness of the men, Anubis wearing a dog's skin and Macedon the fore-parts of a wolf; and it is for this reason that these animals are held in honour among the Egyptians. Macedon his son, moreover, he left as king of Macedonia, which was named after him." Makedon has taken the place of the Egyptian wolf-god of Lycopolis, Wepwawet and in later traditions Makedon is mentioned as a son of the were-wolf Lycaon.
Son of Lycaon According to Apollodorus,Apollodorus, 3.8.1 but not present in the list of Pausanias or Hyginus, Macednus is the tenth of the fifty sons of the impious Lycaon king of Arcadia. His mother may either be the naiad Cyllene,Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 1.13.1 NonacrisPausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 8.17.6 or by unknown woman. The closest brother to him by region is Thesprotus. In the story of Pindus and the Serpent by Claudius Aelianus, Makedon is the son of Lycaon king of Emathia, "after whom the land was called Macedonia no longer preserving its ancient name".
Eustathius, summarizing the genealogies, relates: "Emathion son of Zeus and Electra preceding the birth of Makedon son of Aeacus" (instead of Lycaon).A History of Macedonia: 550-336 B.C By Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, Guy Thompson Griffith v. 2 (1979) Page 39 Strabo just called him archaios hegemonStrabo, VII, fr.11 (old chieftain), and Pseudo-Scymnus,Periegesis 620 gêgenês basileus (earth-born king). Isidore of Seville, "rege Deucalionis materno nepote" (king, maternal grandson of Deucalion).Opera omnia quae extant IX 78
Descendants