The relationship between Macedon and the Greek city-states before Alexander is a fascinating study in the complexity of Greek political identity. Was Macedon Greek? The answer depended on whom you asked and when.

The Macedonian kings from the Temenid dynasty (who claimed descent from Heracles and hence from Argos) sought acceptance into the Greek world from an early date. Alexander I's admission to the Olympic games in the early 5th century BC — which required demonstrating Greek descent — was contested by other competitors who called Macedonians barbarians, but eventually accepted. This was a political and cultural negotiation, not a simple ethnic determination.

The Macedonian language, known only through glosses and proper names, was either a dialect of Greek or a closely related language. Modern scholarly consensus leans toward its being a dialect, perhaps closest to the northwestern Greek dialects, but the evidence is thin. Educated Macedonians spoke Attic Greek; Alexander himself was educated by Aristotle and was deeply immersed in Greek culture, particularly Homer.

The Athenian political orators of the 4th century BC — particularly Demosthenes — consistently portrayed Philip II and Alexander as barbarian threats to Greek freedom. This was in part genuine cultural anxiety and in part political rhetoric designed to build a coalition against Macedonian expansion. The reality was that Philip II transformed Macedon into a Greek-style polis with Macedonian characteristics, and that the Macedonian expansion was as much a participation in Greek interstate politics as a conquest from outside.