Some really obscure points on this thread, and some very interesting ones as well. Ok, let's start from the most idiotic statement
"Greece=Rome"
GOSH! Where did
you learn your history? The Roman civilization has nothing to do with Greece. Actually, the Greeks believed that the Romans were the offspring of the Troyans (remember Troy?) and King of Hepirus Pyrhos did dreamed of "destroying the offspring of the Troyans just as his ancestor Achileas destroyed the Troyans themselves".
The Romans were influenced heavily from the Greeks - so much is true. The Latin alphabet (the one used in the whole western world nowadays) is a Roman adoption of a Greek alphabet (and the greek alphabet is an adoption from the phoenician -
I know) carried to Italy by some of the (many) Greek settlers that created "Hellas Megisti" or "Magna Graecia" in the southern part of the Italian peninsula and Sicily.
After the Roman conquered the Greeks in the 2nc century BC, they adopted much of their neighbours traits and especially the language, the philosophy and the scientific breakthroughs.
But to call those two civilizations "the same" or even "very similar" is so unhistorical, that I cannot find words to characterize it.
The Greeks - due to the land maybe? harsh and not really fertile, and without great openings and very hard to travel through - had a basic mindset that was both individualistic (very) and open-minded. The Greeks were proud people, with loose ties to the general "Hellenes" concept (but strong enough to bring them together in times of trouble and to call all non-Greeks "barbarians") and also a great notion of personal responsibility and pride.
They were the most democratic people ever lived on this planet - they never believed in Monarchy and they believed that all free men are equal.
That free spirit gave birth not only to the REAL democracy they used in their Polis, but also to the first real scientific thinking and process. And that's the Greek heritage to the humanity - free thinking and science.
The Romans were other kind of people. Not as individualistic as Greeks, usually the average Roman was pretty happy if fed and entertained enough - they accepted the oligarchy first and the imperial rule later without much fuss.
They excelled in masonry (much better than the Greeks) and had some pretty advanced machinery for the times - but in all the other aspects (well, ok, military technology excluded) they were vastly backwards when compared to Greeks.
About Macedonia
Well, they were of Dorian ancestry (even the Greeks of the time gave them that) their leaders participated in the Olympics (a CLEAR fact of hellenes - only hellenes could take part in the Olympics) BUT at the same time many southern Greeks thought them as "Semi barbaric". From as much as I have studied, I can tell this is due to three factors:
- The Macedonian kingdom allways had many other tribes inside it's borders not of Greek origin (like Thracian, Illyrians and others)
- The Macedonian were cut off from the mainland Greece for a great period of time and they didn't have much to do with Greeks - their art started to flurish only in the late 5th century, when in lower parts of Hellas it was flurishing for more than a milenia)
- They had a
KING. Now, that is something Greeks never forgive. Only barbarians can have kings - who Greek philosopher said that? It escapes my memory right now. But Greeks (with the basic mindset I described above) were absolutely against the Royal rule of someone the people couldn't elect themselves and at the same time question his desicion everyday (the fact in aristocratic regimes like Sparta - in democratic there was nothing like a king, just the
Demos). So, the Greeks of the time thought, if the Macedonians have a royal house and kings they can't be "real" Greeks. Despite the fact they talk Greek, their art is Greek and they claim to be Greeks.
Some historians suggest that the ruling class of Macedonia was
pure Greeks and the peasantry just
hellenized barbarians. But nonetheless, the Macedonians regarded themselves Greeks, acted like Greeks - they were culturally Greeks.
And the civilization they brought with them in Alexander's conquest was not that of some imaginary Macedonian civ - they brought the fruits of the glorious Greek civilization.
Same with Pyrhos, king of Hepirus. He was the king of a volk called "Molosses". Some argue that those were not Greeks. Well, maybe. But they were
conquered by the mighty Greek civilization - not by arms, by the values of the civilization. So they were hellenized beyond any doubt.
Their roayl house and aristocracy though were certainly of Greek origin - so much is known for sure.
Just some comments by a lover of ancient history
My posts are not at all about whether Macedonians are/were ethnic greeks or spoke a dialect which is more or less close to dorian, ionian etc. But they had a hard time to get accepted as such.
yup i agree with that and also our third grade's (highschool)history book agrees with u or maybe u agree with it 
