" 

 :::The Greeks weren't Greeks even. They were Atheneans, Spartans, Thebans, etc. Before that was Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians. The Greek cities also had so many slaves of unknown origins, probably some were conquered natives. What is true is that the ruling civilization of the general area that colonized vast areas was what we now call Greek in the English language. And like Atheneans fought against Spartans and Thebans etc, so did the Macedonians fight with them eventually. There is no reasonable doubt that the Macedonian ruling civilization was ""Greek"" long before Alexander the Great and also more importantly there's no evidence of any prior civilization in that area using the name Macedon and not being ""Greek"". They used other names before that in that area. I'm glad you agree that FUROMians are just Slavs (Bulgarians, etc) and Albanians (with a few Greeks there too, even their president has Greek grandparents) and that their Macedonian claims are ridiculous, but I just don't think they are not serious challenges at all. If there was no seriousness then the other countries of the world would have ridiculed them already instead of recognise them and they would stop all their current BS already. Instead the FYROMian agencies are involved in a pathetic brainwashing campaign to brainwash their own population and that creates a bad relations nightmare for the next century. Their people are fed lies and propaganda and it's kinda sad that no one is doing anything to help them. Quite the opposite really, people laugh and ridicule Greece for being on the side of truth (well mostly at least, we have nut-cases too).   "