The inhabitants of this primitive Macedonia doubtless differed much in ancient times, as they do now, according as they dwelt on mountain or plain, and in soil and climate more or less kind; but all acknowledged a common ethnical name and nationality, and the tribes were in many cases distinguished from each other, not by having substantive names of their own, but merely by local epithets of Grecian origin. Thus we find Elymiotæ Macedonians, or Macedonians of Elymeia,—Lynkestæ Macedonians, or Macedonians of Lynkus, etc. Orestæ is doubtless an adjunct name of the same character. The inhabitants of the more northerly tracts, called Pelagonia and Deuriopis, were also portions of the Macedonian aggregate, though neighbors of the Pæonians, to whom they bore much affinity: whether the Eordi and Almopians were of Macedonian race, it is more difficult to say. The Macedonian language was different from Illyrian,[19] from Thracian, and seemingly also from Pæonian. It was also different from Greek, yet apparently not more widely distinct than that of the Epirots,—so that the acquisition of Greek was comparatively easy to the chiefs and people, though there were always some Greek letters which they were incapable of pronouncing. And when we follow their history, we shall find in them more of the regular warrior, conquering in order to maintain dominion and tribute, and less of the armed plunderer,—than in the Illyrians, Thracians, or Epirots, by whom it was their misfortune to be surrounded. They approach nearer to the Thessalians,[20] and to the other ungifted members of the Hellenic family. [19] Polyb. xxviii, 8, 9. This is the most distinct testimony which we possess, and it appears to me to contradict the opinion both of Mannert (Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. vol. vii, p. 492) and of O. Müller (On the Macedonians, sects. 28-36), that the native Macedonians were of Illyrian descent. [20] The Macedonian military array seems to have been very like that of the Thessalians,—horsemen well-mounted and armed, and maintaining good order (Thucyd. ii, 101): of their infantry, before the time of Philip son of Amyntas, we do not hear much. “Macedoniam, quæ tantis barbarorum gentibus attingitur, ut semper Macedonicis imperatoribus iidem fines imperii fuerint qui gladiorum atque pilorum.” (Cicero, in Pison. c. xvi.)