How did ancient peoples identify themselves?

[Ayce]

But the Maks and Thracians aren't Greek. Well the Maks got severely hellenised after Macedon's death (and the subsequent takeover by greeks of his emire), while the Thracians only slightly, instead siding with the Romans later on when it came to culture (actually so did some of the Maks, and their history leads me to believe that Macedonians are Thracian)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But the Maks and Thracians aren't Greek. Well the Maks got severely hellenised after Macedon's death (and the subsequent takeover by greeks of his emire), while the Thracians only slightly, instead siding with the Romans later on when it came to culture (actually so did some of the Maks, and their history leads me to believe that Macedonians are Thracian)

No one knows what the Makedonians really were and no one knows if Macedon was a real figure or not. However, Hesiod places him as a first cousin with Hellen the mythical Hellenic ancestor.

[Ayce]

AFAIK he had to learn Greek when he was 9 years old, so he couldn't be Greek and Greece considered him and Macedonians the enemy. Only after his conquests and subsequent death did he become adopted into Hellenism (for pride and glory purposes), so...

Anyway, Thracians avoided association with Greeks, they were just culturally influenced (oh and the fascination of geometry and geometrical structure was handed down to the Greeks by the ancestors of the Thracians (due to some aspects of belief in the gods Gebelesis and Bendis I think)), so they didn't consider affiliation to Hellenism more important than ethnic affiliation. However tribal affiliation may be the dominant one in their case (it was certainly for Dacians until the very late period).

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

AFAIK he had to learn Greek when he was 9 years old, so he couldn't be Greek and Greece considered him and Macedonians the enemy. Only after his conquests and subsequent death did he become adopted into Hellenism (for pride and glory purposes), so...

Anyway, Thracians avoided association with Greeks, they were just culturally influenced (oh and the fascination of geometry and geometrical structure was handed down to the Greeks by the ancestors of the Thracians (due to some aspects of belief in the gods Gebelesis and Bendis I think)), so they didn't consider affiliation to Hellenism more important than ethnic affiliation. However tribal affiliation may be the dominant one in their case (it was certainly for Dacians until the very late period).

What on Earth are you talking about? Hesiod the 7th/8th Century poet is the first to mention Macedon, as the cousin of Hellen, in his Theogony.

What you are talking about sounds like a later Hellenistic rationalising of Myth.

[Maion Maroneios]

AFAIK he had to learn Greek when he was 9 years old, so he couldn't be Greek and Greece considered him and Macedonians the enemy. Only after his conquests and subsequent death did he become adopted into Hellenism (for pride and glory purposes), so...

I'm sorry to tell you this my friend, but you speak nonsense. Just because southern Greeks saw the Macedonians as enemies doesn't mean they where non-Greeks. Sparta saw Athens as an enemy and vice versa during the Peloponnesian War, when they slew each other brutally. Was it because they where different? OK, the Spartans where Dorians and the Athenians where Ionians but they both where GREEKS.

As for Macedonia; Southern Greeks called them ''barbaroi'' very frequently. You know why? A ''barbaros'' wasn't necessarily a demeaning word, it meant non-greek or someone who had different beliefs, dresed differently, ate differently, drank differently and/or spoke differently than them. The Macedonians where engaged with Thracians, Celts and Illyrians in such an extensive rate, that many Hellenes believed they became like them (the Macedonians). And they where, in a certain degree, influanced by their neighbours. If you face endless hordes of enemies all the time, you adapt to survive. Anyway, we can talk all we want about this but everyone has his own oppinion. I will support mine, as it suits me best. Any other, will do differently, again to his own liking (FYROM, Albania for example).

When Hesiod or I don't remember who called the Pelasgians barbaroi, he was just stating the difference between his people and them. The latter is for every albanian out there with their ourageaous bombardment of ''historical facts'' about their roots in such a short period of time.

[Cambyses]

Ooh, I love this topic - actually did a course on it at UNI

Having said that, not sure we ever really covered the Celtic/Germanic peoples especially. But I think the general consensus was something like people more or less defined themselves then as they do today. And along the lines people have already expressed here. People tended to group themselves in ever expanding circles. Family, village, tribe etc. A Celt from what is now Northern Italy would certainly have appreciated the difference between ie another Celt and a Roman and felt kinship with the one even if that other Celt lived in England. What they would then have done about it in a conflict situation is another matter...

The most interesting thing I think is that peoples seemed to define themselves by their differences to other peoples rather than any similarities. Something we still do today...

For example the Classical Hellenes would look at the fancy hairstyles of the Persians and think they were all tough and manly in comparison to these effeminate fools. Only to have the Romans think the same of them a couple of hundred years later...

The "did the Macedons think they were Greek/Hellenic" question seems almost unanswerable today as the ancient sources seem quite confused about it themselves.

[Tiberius Nero]

AFAIK he had to learn Greek when he was 9 years old

When you say "Greek" you probably mean "Attic Greek" that is the dialect of the Athenians; we don't know much about the Macedonian language to be sure whether it was another Greek dialect or just a language very closely related to Greek; the 200 or so words of Macedonian we have from lexicographers are very similar to Greek ones and one could say Macedonian is a Greek dialect, but then again with a language we pretty much know nothing about, it is a moot point.

The only reason I would find to say that Macedonian was probably a Greek dialect, is the personal names like "Philippos", "Alexandros', "Krateros" etc which are of Greek etymology, that is they mean something in Greek, and furthermore they are not loan names from other (?) Greeks, they are regional names, just as there are names only the Athenians or only the Spartans would use, and so on.

The "did the Macedons think they were Greek/Hellenic" question seems almost unanswerable today as the ancient sources seem quite confused about it themselves.

It is more like, the ancient sources are not definitive; we have probably no way of knowing what "working class" Macedonians thought of themselves regarding their national (?) identity (or indeed if such a question would even be meaningful to them), but we have enough evidence that their ruling caste at least thought of themselves as Greeks from long before Alexander the Great, for whatever reason that might have been. The one example I can remember of now is Alexander (the first, I think), at the time of the (first?) Persian invasion, warning the Greeks about the Persian's movements, because, though he was a vassal of the King of Kings, he felt he had a duty to his Greek brethren.

[Ayce]

Correct, we can't tell yet what they thought of themselfs. Though I could bring a possible Thracian etymology for Alexandros (dros=deer).

Now back to the subject, most people in the classical period would primarily associate with their „tribe”.

[Tiberius Nero]

Correct, we can't tell yet what they thought of themselfs. Though I could bring a possible Thracian etymology for Alexandros (dros=deer).

Now back to the subject, most people in the classical period would primarily associate with their „tribe”.

Back to the subject indeed (I thought it was part of the subject though), but "Alexandros" is quite clearly from the Greek verb "alexo" (=repel) and "aner"(=man, stem: andr-), so "one who repels men(=enemies)", that is "invincible". Not much dispute about this etymology really.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Quite, particually as it appears in the Iliad as the alternate name of Paris.