I. Name
Makedon (‘Macedonian’) is the eponymous hero of the inhabitants of Mace-donia in northern Greece. Macedonia and Macedonians figure in both Apocrypha and NT.
II. Identity
Macedonians particularly need an eponym (Thessalos), as Macedonia had only marginal claims to Greek status before the conquests of Philip II (359–336) and Alexander the Great (336–323). Their speech seems to have been intermediate in status between a dialect of Greek and a closely related language (Indo-European *bh gives b not ph: …