The words "Argead" and "Argive" derive (via
) from the
), "of or from
which is first attested in Homer
, where it was also used as a collective designation for the Greeks ("Ἀργείων Δαναῶν",
The Argead dynasty claimed descent from the Temenids
of Argos, in the Peloponnese
, whose legendary ancestor was
, the great-great-grandson of
. In the excavations of the royal Palace at
Manolis Andronikos discovered in the "tholos" room (according to some scholars "tholos" was the throne room) an inscription relating to that belief.
This is testified by Herodotus
, where he mentions that three brothers of the lineage of Temenus,
, fled from Argos to the
and then to Upper Macedonia
, to a town called Lebaea, where they served the king. The latter asked them to leave his territory, believing in an omen that something great would happen to Perdiccas. The boys went to another part of
, near the garden of
, above which mount Bermio stands. There they made their abode and slowly formed their own kingdom.
Herodotus also relates the incident of the participation of Alexander I of Macedon
in the Olympic Games
in 504 or 500 BC where the participation of the Macedonian king was contested by participants on the grounds that he was not Greek. The Hellanodikai
, however, after examining his Argead claim confirmed that the Macedonians were Greeks and allowed him to participate.