If the wars had gone differently, Greek historians would have recorded a glorious defeat of the northern barbarians by the Greeks. Alexander won, and so the story features "awarding a generalship."
I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Greek or not Greek. I also think this meant different things at different times. Modern nationalism is a very dominant paradigm in our times. It is new though. Even though it's hard to imagine it, "nationality" was not a dominant paradigm either for personal identity or politics throughout most of history. Alexander didn't seem to give much of a damn about nationality.
I'm not making the case for either narratives. I'm making the case that both narratives are fictions, a symbolic language narrating a one-damned-thing-after-another truth. I don't think Alexander/Macedonia was "really" Greek or not Greek. I also think this meant different things at different times. Modern nationalism is a very dominant paradigm in our times. It is new though. Even though it's hard to imagine it, "nationality" was not a dominant paradigm either for personal identity or politics throughout most of history. Alexander didn't seem to give much of a damn about nationality.