An argument for Romanians' and Moldovans' links to the ancient Dacians
(Presented at the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo - 8 May, 2009)
The identification of Macedonians as the southest Dacian/Thracians is also unquestionable, although the wording differs from author to author. Polybius calls the Thracians and the Macedonians homogenous i.e. people of the same nation, stock or race
Pliny speaks of Mysomacedonians
in Asia Minor, who "get together (convenient) at Ephesus" .
Appian calls the Sinti a Macedonian tribe; Strabo calls them Thracian
. Both are right, of course.
Dio Chrysostom observed, at the beginning of the second century A.D., that the population of Nicomedia consisted of "leaders among both Greeks and Macedonians"  making a clear distinction between the two races.
Nicomedia at that time was the greatest city of Bithynia. It was founded, says Pausanias, by Zipoetes "a Thracian by birth to judge from his name" .
Strabo explains that "the Bithynians ... received this name from the Thracians ... who settled the country in question" and he refers to Nicomedes III as "the Bithynian" .
Four centuries later Zosimos quoted an oracle in which Nicomedes II is considered to be the "Thracian King
" , while Ioannes Malalas says that Nicomedes I was "of Macedonian" origin"
Of interest in this connection are a couple of facts: Euripides (Rhesus, 404) making Hector call the Thracian king Thesus, he considered the Trojans to be of the same stock or race as the Thracians from Macedonia.
Another similar instance is provided by Conon. In his 46th Narration Conon speaking of Orpheus who "reigned over the Macedonians and the country of the Odrysians", he then refers to the "people of Thrace and Macedonia"
and to "a crowd of Thracians getting together at Leibethra", where Orpheus is believed to have died at the hands of "the women of Thrace and Macedonia" .
Euripides and Conon may have written for entertainment only, but Pausanias, a contemporary of Conon, gives an accurate description of Greece and its knowledge. To him, Orpheus was a Thracian from north aria of Danubiu , in fact Dacian, while five centuries later Ioannes Malalas calls Orpheus "the most famous lyric poet, an Odrysian from Thrace" .
Eight centuries later, the identity of the Dacians and Macedonians is attested by Nicephorus Gregoras in a letter which he wrote in the year 1325 or 1326, describing his trip through Macedonia; we learn that the majority of the local people were "from the very beginning Moesians (Mysian) who lived and intermingled with our own people
Gregoras rejects any nonsense about a subsequent arrival of Thracians (Mysians) in Macedonia. He does not tell us when the first Greek settlers arrived in Macedonia, but Pompeius Trogus says that they came under the leadership of Caranus, an event occurring around 810 B.C. Prior to that time, the whole of Macedonia was settled by Dacian/Thracians people .
The origin of the name Macedonia also has some relevence to our topic. According to a legend - the Egyptian king Osiris, later promoted by the religious caste to the rank of god, had two sons, Anubis and Macedon. The second one was left by his father as a ruler of Macedonia, earlier named Emathia, and from him the country got its name .
From figures supplied by Manetho, it is believed that Macedon was ruling in the year 2326 B.C. . Hesoid, like a good Greek poet, endowed Macedon with a Greek ancestry: he make him the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion's daughter . Hellanicus believed Macedon to have been the son of Aeolus when Macedonians "inhabited the land together with the Mysians
Regardless of the margin of error, the Macedonian name must have been familiar throughout the East at the time of the Trojan War. Why, then is there no mention of it in Homer?
Nobody so far has suggested a plausible explanation. Yet, faced with the fanatic zeal with which Greek writers strove to blot out some "barbaric" names we are glad to be able to make a correction. Homer may not have cared to admit that without the help of some Macedonians, the Greeks would have been destroyed before the walls of Troy. Thus, either he, or someone like him, may have thought of replacing the Macedonians with Myrmidones.
And it just so happens that for Ioannes Malalas, the Homeric Myrmidons were identical with those whose home was once in Thessaly - a Macedonian district . From the first century of our era a very important part in the history of Central and South-Eastern Europe is played by the Dacians/Getae people. Some writers have called the Dacians, Getae.
 Book XXIX.6.2
 Appian, Mithr., 55. 224 (tebner, 1962, t. 1, p.567); Strabo, 12.3.20 and
Frag. 45 (46) - Loeb., t.3, p.367.
 39th Discourse, 1. (Loeb, t.4, p. 97.)
 12.3.3 and 12.3.40. (Loeb, t.5, pp.375 and 449.)
 39th Discourse, 1. (Loeb, t.4, p. 97.)
 Historia Nova, II.37. (Engl. Transl. By J.J. Buchanan and H.T.Davis,
TrinityUniversity Press, San Antonio, Texas, 1967, p. 77.)
 Cronographia, IX (0 285). (CSHB, p.221.)
 In Photiusw, The Library,cod.186.(BL.,Paris,1962,t.3,p.33-34.)
 Book VI (Elis II), XX.18. (Loeb, t.3, p. 129.)
 Op. Cit., IV. (CSHB, p. 72)
 Correspondance, BL, Paris, 1927, p.38
 It is common knowledge that Eumolpus was a leader of the Thracians thatin Attica. Ancient Greek literature is replete with references to Thracians throughout the country, including the islands. The presence of Thracians in Phocis is evidenced by the "legend" about Tereus and Philomela. Prominent men, such as philosophers Antisthenes, Pittacis, Themistocles and Iphicrates, were half-Thracian. Menander was proud of his Thracian origin. Pompeius Trogus testifies that the oldest name of the Macedonians was Pelasgians. (Book VII.1, ed. Garnier, Paris, 1936, t.1, p. 155 of Justin's Epitome.) These Pelasgians occupied the whole of the Peloponnesus.
It was not without some perfidy that, around 1528 B.C. (computed from Orosius, Book I.11), Danaus, fleeing from Egypt, came to the Peloponnesus and occupied the main city there (Argos), after which he ordered that the name of the country and the people be changed to his own name. Computations based on the chronologies of Manetho, Eusebius and Orosius, as well as on the Parian Marble, all converge to 16th century B.C. as the probable time of arrival of the first Greek colony from Egypt.
 Diod. Sic., Book I.18.1-3
 See the Loeb edition (1956), p.16
 See the Loeb edition (1959), pp. 156-157.
 Quoted by Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De thematibus, 2.38.B. Another interesting detail: Livy (XXXI.XXX.15) says that Macedonians, Acarnanians and Aetolians used the same speech. On the other hand, the Acarnanians are identified with the Thracians in a roundabout but nonetheless very persuasive way. The mother of Themistocles, according to Cornelius Nepos, was an Acarnanian. When, later on, Plutarch wrote his biography of Themistocles, he called her a Thracian. This is not the only evidence. (...)
 Op.cit. (CSHB, p. 97).)