Hardly exclusive to Macedonia but the Greeks being divided between themselves due to living in different areas lasted A LOT longer than that. Greeks would call their specific areas their "country" at least until the early 19th century and this divide was a deciding factor during the Greek rebellion of 1821. Some remnants of this divide actually still persist in modern Greece.
Syracusan and Pelopenessian?
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True. Still, what I mean is how in the Alexander sources they are consistently referred to as "Greeks and Macedonians". I can't vouch for whether that blurs a bit in e.g. Polybius.
Hellenistic Syracuse had about as large a population as Attica or Lacedaimon, so in my opinion it is large enough to warrant its own culture. But I agree that not all Sicilian Greeks should be Syracusan culture.I don't particularly mind Macedonian or Peloponnesian. In fact, the former is a must anyway since the Macedonians and Greeks both saw the other as distinct from each other until at least Alexander's death (probably a fair bit longer). But just to state the obvious... Syracuse is a city. So I hope we don't get Syracusan but rather e.g. Sicilian Greek pops in other Sicilian cities
The Classical Greek dialects were literary languages and had very little to do with Greek culture during the Hellenistic age.
I like that the Greeks are broken up into many different cultures instead of one generic Greek culture, or a few of them. Considering how much different poleis, and later kingdoms, could differ from each other it only made sense that we would get many versions of the Greeks. I'll be looking forward to see the exact list of course but so far so good.
They’re consistently referred to as “Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks”.
In fact there are many ancient sources treating both parties as one. One such source is Alexander himself.
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Here are a few examples from Polybius
“The Histories”, 7.9.1
About the Treaty between Hannibal and King Philip of Macedon
...in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece.
...That King Philip and the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks who are their allies shall protect the Carthaginians, ...
"The Histories”, 18.4.8
(Philip V of Macedon speaking) For on many occasions when I and the other Greeks sent embassies to you begging you to remove from your statutes the law empowering you to get booty from booty, you replied that you would rather remove Aetolia from Aetolia than that law.
"The Histories”, 9.34.1-3
(About Alexander) ...he inflicted punishment on the Persians for their outrages on all the Greeks, and how he delivered us all from the greatest evils by enslaving the barbarians and depriving them of the resources they used for the destruction of the Greeks...how in a word he made Asia subject to Greece.
“The Histories”, 9.38.8
The 38th book contains the completion of the disaster of the Hellenes. ... In the time I am speaking of a common misfortune befell the Peloponnesians, the Boiotians, the Phokians, the Euboians, the Lokrians, some of the cities on the Ionians Gulf, and finally the Macedonians”
And then we have undoubted evidence on the Greek ethnicity of Ancient Macedonians in “The Histories”, 9.37.6-8
“A mighty similarity exists, no doubt, in your minds, and no diversity at all! Then you were contending for glory and supremacy with Achaeans and Macedonians, men of kindred blood with yourselves, and with Philip their leader;
Well, gee, 200 years after being conquered by the Macedonians, and well after the local dialects were subsumed into the Koine, there were Greeks who accepted Philipp's and Alexander's claim that they were Greeks just like them. That doesn't really prove anything about what contemporary Greeks thought, though.
And yet, the Hellanodikai (Greekness judges) of the Ancient Olympic Games concluded tha Alexander I was Greek enough to participate in a “Greek exclusive” event.
But there are also countless sources contemporary of Alexander and Philip that say the same.
Fun fact: Commanding a huge army automatically qualified you to enter any "Greek exclusive" event you chose.
Fun fact : Alexander the I had no huge army. In fact Macedon was a Persian vassal back then. So no.
I think you’ve mistaken him for Alexander the great.
Perhaps Trinacrian, derived from one of the Ancient Greek names for Sicily, could be a suitable name for Greek Sicilian culture.
Additionally, when it comes to Greek regional cultures and their names, I'd prefer if we had Attic and Lacedaemonian instead of Athenian and Peloponnesian, if Athenians and Boeotians, at least I think I saw Boeotian, and not Theban, on one of the screenshots, get a separate culture than I see no reason why should Spartans be lumped together with other Peloponnesians.
That said, I would be OK with just Greeks being divided into their traditional groups such as Ionians and others.
What you say is right, infact the term for all the sicilian greeks was "Siceliotes" (Sikeliotai), and the name for the greeks in the italian peninsula was "Italiotes" (Italiotai), Infact there are many "levels" of identity. There is the identity as "Polis", the identity as "ethnos" (dorian, etc...), the geographical identity (We said Italiotes, Siceliotes, and also the Thessalian have their own charateristics for example), and many other.
The Siceliotes where somewhat doric, itaiotes were more diverse (With a lot of famous infighting) but at some point they add also an Italiote League opposed to Syracuse. Talking about Syracuse, we had at some point also the ambition of Sicilian kindom with Agathocles. Phyrrus was called in Sicily as ruler becuase was is son-in-law.
Indeed we don't need to made up names, because it exist and its "Siceliotes"
However I'll expand the information on that, Sicily was divided in five populations at time.
1) Siceliotes, Sikeliotai (Greek Colonies, this is your culture name for Sicilian greeks)
2) Sicels, Sikeloi (italic indegenous people, heavily hellenized, the nearest to the eastern coast of sicily)
3) Sican, Sikanoi (oldest indigenenous people, in the middle of sicily, their origin it's more problematic and probably not italic, they were hellenized too)
4) Elymi, Elymoi (indigeneous people influenced both by pheonicians and by greeks, usually allied with Cartage, allied with Rome on the end, they claimed their origin from Troy and following some Myth also from Eracles)
5) Phoenicians (Carthaginian holding cities, fortress and trade posts)
All the indigeneous people at some point received (as many others) and high hellenic influence in their culture, we have many example in architecture, but mantained their identity somewhat at least until some point (but probably even more), infact the Sicels, when heavily hellenized opposed the Siceliotes with Ducetious
This is to say that especially in the middle of Sicily a lot of cities (I don't know what cities they putted in, but there are a lot of cities there) are not even founded by Greeks or Phoenicians, but by indegeneous people strongly hellenized at some point.
In this map you can see the Island before the greek arrival, many of these cities were founded by indegenous people, others were instead founded by greeks but in places already controlled by others. For example it's the case of "Lentini"
It's surprising but the english wikipedia it's very poor on these arguments, off course italian wiki it's more filled about that. I own also some book on the argument when I studied greek history at university, but it's in Italian, so for now I have no better english links for who is more curious.
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