Countries Settled by the Ancient Greeks

The ancient kingdon of Macedonia was in fact confined to modern-day Greece, with dependent territories outside Greece's borders first appearing during the reign of Philip II. How and why you label the truth as "nationalist propaganda" is beyond me. The fact that you just called Greek Macedonia "Thrace" only adds to the mystery.

Because what you are saying is not so, even by your own admission you acknowledge that territories were added during the reign of Philip II. You are trying to score political points over some completely asinine argument. The Louisiana Purchase expanded the borders of the United States during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was not the first American president, but that doesn't mean that every state west of the Mississippi is not really part of the USA. And 2000 years from now if there is some independent country centered around Philadelphia and then some other country in California that calls itself the Republic of America, and the people who reside in the first country try to insist that those in the second don't live in America because of this, the people in the first country will be total knobs.

Thrace and Macedonia were distinct regions in ancient times but borders shifted frequently or overlapped. I wasn't trying to say they were synonymous.

If you want to rule out anything that happened from Philip II onward as not truly Macedonian then why are you so obsessed with his son Alexander? Was Alexander not Macedonian, either? I mean aren't you guys constantly whinging about who has the right to build statues of the guy? Then why would it be relevant to your argument that the kingdom two generations before he was born only controlled some parts of Macedonia (when after he was born it controlled all of it)? Is that really your best argument? Please note I'm not siding with anyone I just think it's incredibly dumb we're even having this conversation. (again)

I never ruled out Philip's or Alexander's reign! I was just trying to point out that your complete dismissal of what BlackJohn said as "nationalist propaganda" is uncalled for, since the statement is largely true, at least up to a certain point in time. Besides a distinction can be made between the "core" of the Kingdom of Macedonia and dependent territories, as you can see in this map. Of course, Philip and Alexander greatly expanded the kingdom, conquering not just modern-day North Macedonia and Bulgaria but also Turkey, Syria, Iran etc. I didn't really want this discussion to start all over again, so my apologies for that. But in that context, picking out the former two countries, bashing a largely true statement as propaganda and even calling Greek Macedonia something quite different do sound more politically charged than anything I said.

Just seems to me like if you're going to obsess about Alexander II (Greeks frequently point out he was born in Pella which is currently within the borders of Greece as if this is a slam-dunk victory) then why wouldn't you at least count the lands that were part of Macedonia before he even became king as the "core" of Macedonia? Who decided what the core was? Did they have a political agenda? Did that agenda support some nationalist narrative?

It's quite simple: that's where the Macedonians actually lived, as we know from historical sources and archaeological findings. Much like Metropolitan France was quite different from Algeria, even though the latter was one of the first and nearest French colonies. No political agenda or whatnot involved. The more so since there's real proof that ancient Macedonia was Greek, not just geographical correlations.

more nationalist propaganda you have greedily ingested and regurgitated

Possibly not the Vatican, as I don't think Rome was ever under Greek control. Unless of course those who think the Romans descended from the Trojans are correct, but that seems unlikely. They traded with and were heavily influenced by the Greeks, but were not Greek themselves.