The question of whether Alexander the Great was a Greek still stirs up controversy today. Mary Beard has written about it in her Times Online column, A Don's Life: Was Alexander the Great a Slav?. The contention that Slavs were Macedonians is only one of the issues Beard takes to task -- one that seems far simpler to answer. As to the Macedonian=Greek equation, as Beard indicates, there is a substantial following among Classicists who make that connection. Mary calls the founding story of the Macedonians from the Argives a myth.
What do you think?

... an ass. Just assume your would-be detractor is saying you're a wild one, known as an onager. One of the renowned Sassanid Great Kings, Bahram V was known as Bahram the Onager. As Giusto Traina explains in 428 AD, the epithet signified that Bahram was powerful and great, because the onager itself was the fastest animal in the desert and could produce such intense bursts of speed that when the Greeks invented a siege machine that launched large stones, they named it the onager (according to Traina).

I think it was actually the Romans (before those living in the Roman Empire might be known as Greeks) who named the device onager. If you have more information about this device of siege warfare, please post in the comments.

On this day in 419, the future Roman Emperor Valentinian III was born in Ravenna, the capital of the Western Empire [see Rome]. The most noteworthy event in his life was the invasion of Africa by the Vandals. Valentinian was only 10 at the time, but he'd already been emperor for a few years. Valentinian's life was dominated by two major figures, his mother Galla Placidia, and his Master of the Soldiers, Aetius.

Read more about Valentinian III.

Valentinian III coin ©Trustees of the British Museum, produced by Natalia Bauer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi
CC Flickr User borderlys

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday