ascertain whether the Macedonians were of _Thracian_ or _Illyrian_ descent. 24. We shall gain one step towards a conclusion by inquiring in what region were the original settlements of the Macedonians; a question which should carefully be distinguished from the former investigation as to the first station of the Temenidæ. Now in pursuing this inquiry, we soon perceive that even of Macedonia Proper, from which Bottiæa, Pieria, and Eordæa were conquered, a large part was not always in the possession of the Macedonians. Homer, for example, places Emathia, not Macedonia, between Pieria and Chalcidice.(2039) Several writers state in general that Macedonia had anciently been called Emathia;(2040) but, as will be presently shown, they do not so much mean the highlands as the country about the mouths of the three rivers and near Edessa.(2041) The fabulous name was renewed in later times; and Ptolemy(2042) even mentions the district of Emathia, in which were the towns of Cyrrhus,(2043) Eidomenæ, Gordynia, Edessa, Berrhœa, and Pella. According to Thucydides(2044) and others, Eidomenæ and Gordynia must have been situated in the region near the Axius, in the early subdued country of Pæonia;(2045) whence it may be understood how Polybius(2046) could say that Emathia, at a distance from the coast, had in early times been called Pæonia. For the ancient name of Emathia had evidently been extended to a tract of land belonging to Pæonia, which had, perhaps, previously to the Pæonian conquests, once borne the name of Emathia. 25. Now although the country round Edessa, and nearer to the sea, was not originally called Macedonia, yet we find traces of the existence of the name of the Macedonians under its ancient forms of Μακέται and Μακεδνοὶ, in the hill-country near the ridge of Pindus. Herodotus says that the Doric race, having been driven from Hestiæotis, and dwelling under mount Pindus, was called the _Macedonian nation_.(2047) By this statement he plainly means that the Dorians were first known by that name in Peloponnesus;(2048) and indeed his other notions on the progress of this people are only suited to the childhood of history. But notwithstanding the erroneous conclusions of the narrator, it is allowable to infer from his statement that the Macedonians had once dwelt at the foot of Pindus—_i.e._, probably in one of the districts of Upper Macedonia; of which provinces Orestis may be considered (on the faith of a conjectural emendation) as the ancient Maceta.(2049) For it cannot be a Thessalian district that is alluded to, since Maceta was, as we know from certain testimony, in fact a part of Macedonia. This hypothesis is also supported by the ancient patronymic surname of the Macedonian kings, “Argeadæ;” if it is rightly derived by Appian from Argos in Orestis.(2050)