Characterisation of genetic diversity in a large number of European pig populations has been undertaken with EC support. The populations sampled included local (rare) breeds, national varieties of the major international breeds, commercial lines and the Chinese Meishan breed. A second phase of the project will sample a further 50 Chinese breeds. Neutral genetic markers (AFLP and microsatellites), with individual or bulk typing, were used and compared.

DNA from 59 European pig populations was extracted on samples of about 50 individuals per population. Individuals were typed for 50 microsatellites and for 148 AFLP bands. A subset of 25 populations was typed for 20 microsatellites on pools of DNA. Allele frequencies were estimated by direct allele counting for the co-dominant markers. Frequencies of AFLP negative alleles (absent bands) were obtained by taking the square root of absent band frequencies. Within-breed variability was summarised using standard statistics: expected and observed heterozygosity, mean observed and effective numbers of alleles, and F statistics. Between-breed diversity analysis was based on a bootstrapped Neighbor-Joining (NJ) tree derived from Reynolds distances (DR). The standard distance of Nei (DS) was also calculated.

This article deals with the inscriptional and literary evidence for the ethne of Epirus and Upper Macedonia. It is argued that the term ethnos was used not of a rural settlement but of both nomadic and settled groups of persons, each of which believed itself to be of common racial descent. Both areas were exceptionally well suited in terrain and in climate to the practice of transhumant pastoralism by small nomadic or semi-nomadic ‘companies’.

In this article I try to give a precise meaning to the political terms which are used in the sources, and to use those terms for an understanding of political developments. I take these developments in their historical order, and at the end of each period I assess the value of the evidence. I finish with reflection on the contributory system and the hegemony of the Thebans.

In 1996 Dr M. B. Hatzopoulos published a large amount of new evidence in his two volumes of The Macedonian Institutions under the Kings, and further evidence appears in the Astronomical Diaries of Babylon. In this evidence the epistates holds an important place. With the opening of a new chapter in Macedonian studies, it seems desirable to provide an overall view of the roles of the epistates in all Macedonian contexts, including the Alexander-cities in Asia.

The evaluation of speeches in ancient histories by modern scholars is very varied. Tarn (p. 286) opened his discussion of ‘The speeches in Arrian’ with the following words:

Speaking generally, one expects a speech in any ancient historian to be a fabrication, either composed by the historian himself or by a predecessor, or else some exercise from one of the schools or rhetoric which he had adopted.

On the other hand, according to Fornara (p. 143), ‘the fact does not seem to have been sufficiently appreciated that the ancients unfailingly endorsed the convention that speeches must be reported accurately’. When Fornara made a generalization, he wrote as follows:

The ancients had unanimously adopted the Thucydidean principle of honest reporting of the things that were said as well as the things that were done.

On the subject of the Branchidae there are a few facts and some outstanding questions. The facts may be stated first. They are provided by literary evidence and one piece of archaeological evidence, which are generally accepted.

Even the sites of the Eretrian colonies Methone, Dicaea and Mende in the area of the Thermaic Gulf were unknown ten years ago. Topographical research and excavation reports by Greek scholars have now provided much information on which this article is based.

The bronze cover of a phalanx-man's shield, found in Upper Macedonia and published by P. Adam-Veleni, was inscribed ‘of king—’, the name being illegible. From the inscription and the decoration one can estimate that the Macedonian ‘foot’ was in the upper category of length. It is suggested that the king—probably Antigonus Gonatas—had these shields manufactured, and that he issued them to his infantry guard.

The excavations at Torone, Mende, and some other sites have produced evidence of continuous contact between Chalcidice and southern Greece from early in the Iron Age. We can now understand more clearly the relationship between the earliest Greek settlers and those of the colonizing period, and we can tackle some problems of topography in the Chalcidian peninsula from a new angle.

It was a characteristic of Macedonian custom that a name was used in a special and in a general sense. For example, ‘Foot-Companions’ was the name of a Bodyguard of Philip and also of the men of the Phalanx-Brigades from Lower Macedonia, and ‘Hypaspists’ was the name of Infantry-Guardsmen of Alexander and also of the men of three Hypaspist Phalanx-Brigades. Geographical names were repeated: there were at least two regions and two cities called ‘Emathia’, two or three regions called ‘Doberus’, four cites called Philippi or Philippopolis, and Alexandrias galore. To a modern mind this makes for confusion. That is certainly the case with the names ‘Macedonia’ and ‘Macedones’, which I shall treat separately in this article.