1. Introduction

The homeland of the Macedonians is a matter of dispute. Whatever their origin, the core of their kingdom was so-called Lower Macedonia, the coastal plain along the Thermaic Gulf watered by the rivers Axios and Haliacmon and encompassing Pieria and Bottiea between Thessaly to the south and Paeonia to the north. Throughout the 5th-4th c. BCE, the Macedonian kingdom dominated Upper Macedonia (Elimeia, Almopia, Orestis, Lyncestis, Pelagonia) up to the Pindos range in the west and M…