14–17 million lt;ref>http://books.google.co.uk/books?id2c6ifbjx2wMC&pgPA273&lpgPA273&dqgreek+diaspora+million&sourcebl&otsNepd1Qc6cQ&sigvaJkVUB6w8kp27fT4QXEPrPoCUc&hlen&eiB6CsTNCbDpHZ4gas2q3jBw&saX&oibook_result&ctresult&resnum5&ved0CBUQ6AEwBA#vonepage&qgreek%20diaspora%20million&ffalse Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the"">.... Read More

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Greek astrology is often, and more properly, referred to as Hellenistic astrology. It actually originated in Egypt at some point after the conquest by Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Christian era. Hellenistic astrology also comprises Byzantine and Roman astrology. Its therefore more a reference to the general geographic area and an era in history, rather than to one particular society or culture.

While Hellenistic astrology cant be linked to any one individual or culture, it is the root of all modern, or Western astrology. There are numerous documents written in Greek, although some are written in Latin, that are devoted to natal astrology. This is the branch of astrology that concerns the individual. Part of the reason that its difficult to source these documents to any one individual or culture is that they span a period of time of about 800 years. But that doesnt mean that important Greek philosophers and scientists havent been part of the development of astrology.

Hippocrates used astrological interpretations as part of his medical diagnostic system. Pythagoras studied in Egypt, and while nothing in writing exists of Pythagoras theories, he is attributed with stating that the Earth, Planets and fixed stars revolved around the sun, thousands of years before Galileo! Later though, his theory was refuted by Aristotle who declared that the Earth was the centre of the world. Following Alexanders conquest of Mesopotamia, Greek astrology began to take on a more personal approach. The Zodiac and planets being made to correspond to figures from their mythology; the Stoic philosophers are especially receptive to astrology. Greek astrology influences the metaphysical astrology of India. In approximately 70 BCE, the Greeks devised the first personal horoscope based on time of birth and in 30 BCE, the Emperor Augustus had his horoscope charted and interpreted by Thrasyllus.

Leonidas I •}} Pericles •}} Herodotus •}} Hippocrates lt;br/>2nd row: Socrates •}} Plato •}} Aristotle •}} Alexander the Great Archimedes lt;br/>3rd row: Hypatia •}} Basil II •}} Alexios I Komnenos •}} Gemistos Plethon •}} El Greco lt;br/>4th row: Rigas Feraios •}} Theodoros Kolokotronis •}} Laskarina Bouboulina •}} Georgios Karaiskakis •}} Ioannis Kapodistrias •}}
5th row: Eleftherios Venizelos •}} Constantine Cavafy •}} Georgios Papanikolaou •}} Archbishop Makarios •}} Pyrros Dimas |population 14–17 million lt;ref>http://books.google.co.uk/books?id2c6ifbjx2wMC&pgPA273&lpgPA273&dqgreek+diaspora+million&sourcebl&otsNepd1Qc6cQ&sigvaJkVUB6w8kp27fT4QXEPrPoCUc&hlen&eiB6CsTNCbDpHZ4gas2q3jBw&saX&oibook_result&ctresult&resnum5&ved0CBUQ6AEwBA#vonepage&qgreek%20diaspora%20million&ffalse Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the present, Volume 1.]http://www.kythera-family.net/download/WorldpopoGrks.pdf |region1 |pop1 10,219,255(2001 census) |ref1 http://www.eurfedling.org/Greece.htm www.eurfedling.org] The main ethnic groups were Greeks 93.76%, Albanians 4.32%, Bulgarians 0.39%, Romanians 0.23%, Ukrainians 0.18%, Pakistani 0.14%, Russians 0.12%, Georgians 0.12%, Indians 0.09% and others 0.65%.http://aei.pitt.edu/2870/1/IMEPO_Final_Report_English.pdf] information from the 2001 Census: The Census recorded 762.191 persons normally resident in Greece and without Greek citizenship, constituting around 7% of total population. Of these, 48.560 are EU or EFTA nationals; there are also 17.426 Cypriots with privileged status. |region2 |pop2 1,390,439http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bmy&-geo_id01000US&-ds_nameACS_2009_1YR_G00_&-_langen&-redoLogtrue&-mt_nameACS_2009_1YR_G2000_B04003&-format&-CONTEXTdt Toal ancestry reported United States Census Bureau 2009.]-3,000,000(2009 est.) |ref2 lt;/ref> |region3 |pop3 650,000(2011 est.) |ref3 lt;/ref> |region4 |pop4 400,000 (estimate) |ref4 lt;/ref>}} |region5 |pop5 365,120lt;/ref> (2006 census)-700,000 |ref5 lt;/ref>}} |region6 |pop6 294,891 (2007 est.) |ref6 lt;/ref>}} |region7 |pop7 242,685(2006 census) |ref7 lt;/ref>}} |region8 |pop8 approx. 200,000 |ref8 lt;/ref> |pop9 97,827 (2002 census) |region9 |ref9 |region10 |pop10 91,548 (2001 census) |ref10 lt;/ref>}} |region11 |pop11 90,000-120,000 |ref11 http://www.absolutgrecia.com/los-griegos-de-chile/ Embajada Griega en Chile.]}} |region12 |pop12 90,000(estimate) |ref12 lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>}} |region13 |pop13 55,000 (2008 estimate) |ref13 lt;/ref>}} |region14 |pop14 50,000 |ref14 lt;/ref>}} |region15 |pop15 35,000(2009 est.) |ref15 http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/el-GR/Policy/Geographic+Regions/Europe/Relationships+with+EU+Member+States/France/ |region16 |pop16 35,000 |region17 |pop17 30,000 (2008 estimate) |ref17 lt;/ref>}} |region18 |pop18 15,742 (2007) |ref18 lt;/ref>}} |region19 |pop19 15,166 |ref19 Eurominority: http://www.eurominority.org/version/eng/minority-detail.asp?id_alpha7&id_minoritesge-grec Greeks in Georgia] |region20 |pop20 12,000–15,000 |ref20 lt;/ref>}} |region21 |pop21 13,000 (est) |ref21 lt;/ref>}} |region22 |pop22 11,000 estimated |ref22 lt;/ref>}} |region23 |pop23 9,500 estimate |ref23 lt;/ref>}} |region24 |pop24 6,500 2002 census |ref24 lt;/ref>}} |region25 |pop25 5,000-20,000 |region26 |pop26 4,000 |ref26 Hellenic Republic: Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/en-US/Policy/Geographic+Regions/Europe/Relationships+with+EU+Member+States/Austria/ Austria: The Greek Community] |region27 |pop27 4,000 |ref27 http://www.minorityrights.org/4412/turkey/rum-orthodox-christians.html minorityrights.org] |region28 |pop28 3,916 |ref28 http://www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/xftp/idoszaki/nepsz2011/nepsz_orsz_2011.pdf Hungarian Census 2011.] |region29 |pop29 3,408 |ref29 http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Ethnos.htm Bulgarian Census statistics.] |region30 |pop30 3,400 |ref30 lt;/ref> |region31 |pop31 1,500 |ref31 http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/en-US/Policy/Geographic+Regions/Mediterranean+-+Middle+East/Bilateral+Relations/Syria/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs] |region31 |pop32 1,176 (2002 census) |ref32 National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia: http://docs.armstat.am/census/pdfs/51.pdf 2002 census] |religions † Eastern Orthodox Church lt;br>(Greek Orthodox Church |languages Greek language others (mainly those of Greek descent who are assimilated) |footnotes Citizens of Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. The Greek and Cypriot governments do not collect information about ethnic self-determination at the national censuses.
Higher figure includes those of ancestral descent.
Those whose stated ethnic origins included "Greek" among others. The number of those whose stated ethnic origin is solely"Greek" is 145,250. An additional 3,395 Cypriots of undeclared ethnicity live in Canada.
pprox. 60,000 Griko people and 30,000 post WW2 migrants.
"Including descendants".
n Turkey at least 300,000 speak Greek language as their mother tongue,lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> while nowadays several million can claim ancestral descent as a result of Devşirme and other Turkification and assimilation practices during the Ottoman Greece }} The Greeks also known as the Hellenes (, are an ethnic group native to Greece Cyprus and other regions. They also form a significant Greek diaspora with Greek communities established around the world. Greek colonies and communities have been historically established in most corners of the Mediterranean Sea but Greeks have always been centered around the Aegean Sea where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity.lt;/ref> Until the early 20th century, Greeks were uniformly distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Anatolia Pontus Egypt Cyprus and Constantinople many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of the ancient Colonies in antiquity Greek colonies lt;/ref> In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) a large-scale population exchange between Greece and Turkey forced relocation Christian from Republic of Turkey except Constantinople (effectively ethnic Greeks) into the borders of the Republic of Greece and Cyprus Other longstanding, historic ethnic Greek populations can be found from Greeks in Italy to the Greeks in Georgia and in Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church CIA World Factbook on Greece: Greek Orthodox 98%, Greek Muslims 1.3%, other 0.7%. Greeks have greatly influenced and contributed to culture, arts, exploration, literature, philosophy, politics, architecture, music, mathematics, science, technology, cuisine, and sports, abroad and worldwide.

History

File Proto Greek Area reconstruction.png ]] The Greeks speak the Greek language which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European languages family of languages, the Hellenic languages They are part of a group of pre-modern ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an "archetypal diaspora people".lt;/ref>lt;/ref>

Origins

The Proto-Greeks probably arrived at the area now called Greece, in the southern tip of the Balkans at the end of the 3rd millennium BC,lt;/ref>lt;/ref> though a later migration by sea from eastern Anatolia, modern Armenia has also been suggested.lt;/ref> The sequence of migrations into the Greek mainland during the 2nd millennium BC has to be reconstructed on the basis of the ancient Greek dialects as they presented themselves centuries later and is subject to some uncertainties. There were at least two migrations, the first of the Ionians and Aeolians which resulted in Mycenaean Greece by the 16th century BC,lt;/ref> and the second, the Dorian invasion around the 11th century BC, displacing the Arcadocypriot Greek which descended from the Mycenaean period. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Bronze Age and the Doric at the Bronze Age collapse There were some suggestions of three waves of migration indicating a Proto-Ionian one, either contemporary or even earlier than the Mycenaean. This possibility appears to have been first suggested by Ernst Curtius in the 1880s. In current scholarship, the standard assumption is to group the Ionic Greek together with the Arcadocypriot group as the successors of a single Middle Bronze Age migration in dual opposition to the "western" group of Doric Greek

Mycenaean

The Mycenaeans were ultimately the first Greek-speaking people attested through historical sources, written records in the Linear B script,lt;/ref> and through their literary echoes in the works of Homer a few centuries later. The Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and by the 15th century BC had reached Rhodes Crete Cyprus where Teucer is said to have founded the first colony, and the shores of Anatolia lt;/ref> Around 1200 BC the Dorians another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus lt;/ref> Traditionally, historians have believed that the Dorian invasion caused the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization but it is likely the main attack was made by seafaring raiders (sea peoples who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean around 1180 BC.Chadwick John. (1976).The Mycenean worldCambridge Univ. Press .p 178 ISBN 0-521-21077-1 The Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic Greece and Classical Greece was discernible. In the Homeric epics the Greeks of prehistory are viewed as the ancestors of the early classical civilization of Homers own time,lt;/ref> while the Mycenaean pantheon included many of the divinities (e.g. Zeus Poseidon and Hades attested in later Religion in ancient Greece lt;/ref>lt;/ref>

Classical

File Diadochen1.png (dark blue) and the [[Seleucid Empire]](yellow).]] File Kleopatra-VII.-Altes-Museum-Berlin1.jpg Altes Museum Berlin ]] The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is marked, according to some scholars, by the first Ancient Olympic Games in 776 BC, when the idea of a common Hellenism among the Greek-speaking tribes was first translated into a shared cultural experience and Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture.lt;/ref> The Classical antiquity of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC (some authors prefer to split this period into Classical, from the end of the Persian wars to the end of the Peloponnesian War, and Fourth Century, up to the death of Alexander). It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras.lt;/ref> While the Greeks of the classical era understood themselves to belong to a common Greek genos lt;ref>lt;/ref> their first loyalty was to their city and they saw nothing incongruous about warring, often brutally, with other Greek Polis The Peloponnesian War the large scale Greek civil war between Classical Athens and Sparta and their allies, is a case in point.lt;/ref> Most of the feuding Greek city-states were, in some scholars opinions, united under the banner of Philip II of Macedon s and Alexander the Great s pan-Hellenic ideals, though others might generally opt, rather, for an explanation of "Macedonia (ancient kingdom) conquest for the sake of conquest" or at least conquest for the sake of riches, glory and power and view the "ideal" as useful propaganda directed towards the city-states.lt;/ref> In any case, Alexanders toppling of the Achaemenid Empire after his victories at the battles of the Battle of the Granicus Battle of Issus and Battle of Gaugamela and advance as far as modern-day Pakistan and Tajikistan "Menander I became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole of Saraostus and the harbour Bharuch His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101 provided an important outlet for Greek culture, via the creation of colonies and trade routes along the way.lt;/ref> While the Alexandrian empire did not survive its creators death intact, the cultural implications of the spread of Hellenism across much of the Middle East and Asia were to prove long lived as Greek became the [[lingua franca]] a position it retained even in Roman era lt;/ref> Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria Antioch Seleucia and many other new Hellenistic Greece cities founded in Alexanders wake.lt;/ref> Two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan like the Kalash people who claim to be descended from Greek settlers.lt;/ref>

Hellenistic

The Hellenistic civilization was the next period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death.lt;/ref> This Hellenistic period so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures,http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6930285.stm Alexanders Gulf outpost uncovered]. BBC News. 7 August 2007. lasted until the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt by Rome in 30 BC. This age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Diadochi lt;/ref> Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with [[barbarian]](non-Greek) peoples which was deepened in the new cosmopolitan environment of the multi-ethnic Hellenistic kingdoms. This led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic [[paideia]]to the next generation.lt;/ref> Greek science, technology and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period. 538 pp. In the Indo-Greeks and Greco-Bactrian Kingdom kingdoms, Greco-Buddhism was spreading and Greek missionaries would play an important role in propagating it to China Richard Foltz Religions of the Silk Road Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010, p. 46 ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1 Further east, the Greeks of Alexandria Eschate became known to the Chinese people as the Dayuan lt;/ref>

Roman Empire

Following the time of the conquest of the last of the independent Greek city-states and Hellenistic (post-Alexandrine) kingdoms, almost all of the worlds Greek speakers lived as citizens or subjects of the Roman Empire. Despite their military superiority, the Romans admired and became Greco-Roman world by the achievements of Greek culture, hence Horace s famous statement: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit("Greece, although captured, took its wild conqueror captive").lt;/ref> In the religious sphere, this was a period of profound change. The spiritual revolution that took place saw a waning of the old Greek religion, whose decline beginning in the 3rd century BC continued with the introduction of new religious movements from the East. The cults of deities like Isis and Mithra were introduced into the Greek world.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Greek-speaking communities of the Hellenized East were instrumental in the spread of early Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries,lt;/ref> and Christianitys early leaders and writers (notably St Paul were generally Greek-speaking,lt;/ref> though none were from Greece. However, Greece itself had a tendency to cling on to paganism and was not one of the influential centers of early Christianity: in fact, some ancient Greek religious practices remained in vogue until the end of the 4th century,lt;/ref> with some areas such as the southeastern Peloponnese remaining pagan until well into the 10th century AD.lt;/ref>

Byzantine

Of the new eastern religions introduced into the Greek world the most successful was Christianity While ethnic distinctions still existed in the Roman Empire they became secondary to religious considerations and the renewed empire used Christianity as a tool to support its cohesion and promoted a robust Roman national identity.lt;/ref> Concurrently the secular, urban civilization of late antiquity survived in the Eastern Mediterranean along with Greco-Roman educational system, although it was from Christianity that the cultures essential values were drawn.lt;/ref> The Byzantine Empire – today conventionally named the Byzantine Empire a name not in use during its own timelt;/ref> – became increasingly influenced by Greek culture after the 7th century, when Emperor Heraclius (AD 575 - 641) decided to make Greek the empires official language.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Certainly from then on, but likely earlier, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused into a single Greco-Roman world Although the Latins West recognized the Eastern Empires claim to the Roman legacy for several centuries, after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne king of the Franks as the "Holy Roman Emperor on 25 December 800, an act which eventually led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire the Latin West started to favour the Franks and began to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire largely as the Empire of the Greeks(Imperium Graecorum.lt;/ref> Greek-speakers at the time, however, referred to themselves as Romaioi("Romans"). | class"toccolours" style"float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0; font-size:75%; background:#j7dbf9; color:black; width:20em; max-width:40%;" cellspacing"5" |- | style"text-align: left;" | "Much of what we know of antiquity – especially of Hellenic and Roman literature and of Roman law — would have been lost for ever but for the scholars and scribes and copyists of Constantinople." |- | style"text-align: left;" | J.J. Norwich |} These Byzantine Greeks were largely responsible for the preservation of the literature of the classical era.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Greek scholars in the Renaissance were those principally responsible for carrying, in person and in writing, ancient Greek grammatical and literary studies to the West during the 15th century, giving the Italian Renaissance a major boost.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> The Aristotle philosophical tradition was nearly unbroken in the Greek world for almost two thousand years, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.lt;/ref> To the Slavic people world, Roman era Greeks contributed by the dissemination of literacy and Christianity. The most notable example of the later was the work of the two Greek brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius from Thessaloniki who are credited today with formalizing the Glagolitic alphabet lt;/ref> A distinct Greek political identity re-emerged in the 11th century in educated circles and became more forceful after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, so that when the empire was revived in 1261, it became in many ways a Greek national state. That new notion of nationhood engendered a deep interest in the classical past culminating in the ideas of the Neoplatonism philosopher Gemistus Pletho who abandoned Christianity. However, it was the combination of Orthodox Christianity with a specifically Greek identity that shaped the Greeks notion of themselves in the empires twilight years.lt;/ref>

Ottoman

File Greek merchant 16th century (cropped).JPG (16th century).]] Following the Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, many Greeks sought better employment and education opportunities by leaving for the Western world particularly Italy Central Europe Germany and Russia For those that remained under the Ottoman Empire s Millet (Ottoman Empire) religion was the defining characteristic of national groups (milletler, so the exonym "Greeks" (Rumlarfrom the name Rhomaioi) was applied by the Ottomans to all members of the Eastern Orthodox Church regardless of their language or ethnic origin. The Greek language speakers were the only ethnic group to actually call themselves Romioilt;/ref> (as opposed to being so named by others) and, at least those educated, considered their ethnicity (genos to be Hellenic.lt;/ref> The roots of Greek success in the Ottoman Empire can be traced to the Greek tradition of education and commerce.lt;/ref> It was the wealth of the extensive merchant class that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was the prominent feature of Greek life in the half century and more leading to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Not coincidentally, on the eve of 1821, the three most important centres of Greek learning were situated in Chios Smyrna and Ayvalik all three major centres of Greek commerce.

Modern

File Hermes the scholar.jpg , a Greek literary publication of the late 18th and early 19th century.]] The relationship between ethnic Greek identity and Greek Orthodox Church religion continued after the creation of the Modern Greek state in 1830. According to the second article of the first Constitution of Greece of 1822, a Greek was defined as any Christian resident of the Kingdom of Greece a clause removed by 1840.lt;/ref> A century later, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, the two countries agreed to use religion as the determinant for ethnic identity for the purposes of population exchange, although most of the Greeks displaced (over a million of the total 1.5 million) had already been driven out by the time the agreement was signed.While Greek authorities signed the agreement legalizing the population exchange this was done on the insistence of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and after a million Greeks had already been expelled from Anatolia lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> The Greek genocide in particular the harsh removal of Pontian Greeks from the southern shore area of the Black Sea, contemporaneous with and following the failed Greek Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) was part of this process of Turkification of the Ottoman Empire and the placement of its economy and trade, then largely in Greek hands under ethnic Turkish control.lt;/ref> While most Greeks today are descended from Greek-speaking Names of the Greeks Romans (Ρωμαίοι) and Romioi (Ρωμιοί) there are sizeable groups of ethnic Greeks who trace their descent to Aromanian language Vlachs and Arvanitika Arvanites as well as Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia and Turkish language Karamanlides lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Today, Greeks are to be found all around the world.lt;/ref>

Identity

File Thebeskouros.jpg from the Archaic Greece Archaeological Museum of Thebes, Greece ]] File Hoplites fight Louvre E735.jpg ca. 560 BC–550 BC. Louvre Paris ]] The terms used to define Greekness have varied throughout history but were never limited or completely identified with membership to a Greek state.lt;/ref> By Western standards, the term Greekshas traditionally referred to any native speakers of the Greek language whether Mycenaean Greek language Medieval Greek or modern Greek lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Byzantine Greeks called themselves Romioiand considered themselves the political heirs of Roman Empire but at least by the 12th century a growing number of those educated, deemed themselves the heirs of ancient Greece as well, although for most of the Greek speakers, "Hellene" still meant pagan.lt;/ref> On the eve of the Fall of Constantinople the Constantine XI urged his soldiers to remember that they were the descendants of Greeks and Romans.lt;/ref> Before the establishment of the Modern Greek state, the link between ancient and modern Greeks was emphasized by the scholars of Greek Enlightenment especially by Rigas Feraios. In his "Political Constitution", he addresses to the nation as "the people descendant of the Greeks".Feraios, Rigas. "New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean, and the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia". The History of Modern Greece was created in 1832, when the Greeks liberated a part of their historic homelands, Peloponnese from the Ottoman Empire lt;/ref> The large Greek diaspora and merchant class were instrumental in transmitting the ideas of western romantic nationalism and philhellenism lt;/ref> which together with the conception of Hellenism, formulated during the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire formed the basis of the Diafotismos and the current conception of Hellenism.lt;/ref> The Greeks today are a nation in the meaning of an [[ethnic group|ethnos]] defined by possessing Culture of Greece and having a Greek First language not by citizenship, race, and religion or by being subjects of any particular state.Elizabeth Tonkin, Malcolm Kenneth Chapman, Maryon McDonald. History and Ethnicity Taylor & Francis, 1989, ISBN 0-415-00056-4. In ancient and medieval times and to a lesser extent today the Greek term was [[genos]] which also indicates a common ancestry.lt;/ref>lt;/ref>

Names

File Ancient Regions Mainland Greece.png Throughout the centuries, Greeks and Greek speakers have been known by a number of names, including: *Hellenes – Homer refers to the "Hellenes" as a relatively small tribe settled in Thessalic Phthia with its warriors under the command of Achilleus [[Iliad]]2.681–685 The Parian Chronicle says that Phthia was the homeland of the Hellenes and that this name was given to those previously called Greeks (.The Parian marble. Entry No 6: "From when Hellen ( son of] Deucalion] became king of Phthi]otis and those previously called Graekoi were named Hellenes";http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/faqs/q004/q004008.html The Parian Marble: Translation at the Ashmolean] In Greek mythology Hellen the patriarch of Hellenes, was son of Pyrrha and Deucalion who ruled around Phthia, the only survivors after the great deluge.[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]lt;/ref> It seems that the myth was invented when the Greek tribes started to separate from each other in certain areas of Greece and it indicates their common origin. Aristotle names ancient Hellas as an area in Epirus between Dodona and the Achelous river, the location of the great deluge of Deucalion a land occupied by the Selloi and the "Greeks" who later came to be known as "Hellenes"."The deluge in the time of Deucalion, for instance took place chiefly in the Greek world and in it especially about ancient Hellas, the country about Dodona and the Achelous"; Aristotle, MeteorologicaI 352,b (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/meteorology.1.i.html Book 1 Part 14]). Selloi were the priests of Dodonian ZeusHomer Iliad16.233–35: "King Zeus, lord of Dodona, ... you who hold wintry Dodona in your sway, where your prophets the Selloi dwell around you." and the word probably means "sacrificers" (compare Gothic saljan "present, sacrifice").Beekes entry 6701: Selloihttp://www.ieed.nl/cgi-bin/response.cgi?rootleiden&morpho0&basename\data\ie\greek+&first6701 Greek Etymological Dictionary] There is currently no satisfactory etymology of the name Hellenes Some scholars assert that the name Selloi changed to Sellanes and then to Hellanes-Hellenes.Compare PIE *s(e)wol Gk. helios Latin sol Sanskrit suryah English sun Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?searchsol&searchmodenone] However this etymology connects the name Helleneswith the Dorians who occupied Epirus and the relation with the name Greeksgiven by the Ancient Rome becomes uncertain. The name Hellenesseems to be older and it was probably used by the Greeks with the establishment of the Amphictyonic League This was an ancient association of Greek tribes with twelve founders which was organized to protect the great temples of Apollo in Delphi (Phocis and of Demeter near Thermopylae (Locris .Aeschines ii.On the embassy115. Pausanias (geographer) 8.2–5 According to the legend it was founded after the Trojan War by the eponymous Amphictyon brother of Hellen *Greeks ( – In the Hesiodic [[Catalogue of Women]] Graecus is presented as the son of Zeus and Pandora II sister of Hellen the patriarch of Hellenes.Hesiod, Catalogue of Womenfr. 5. Hellen was the son of Deucalion who ruled around Phthia in central Greece. The Parian Chronicle mentions that when Deucalion became king of Phthia, the previously called Graikoiwere named Hellenes. Aristotle notes that the Hellenes were related with Grai/Greeks (MeteorologicaI.xiv) a native name of a Dorians tribe in Epirus which was used by the Illyrians He also claims that the great deluge must have occurred in the region around Dodona where the Selloi dwelt. However according to the Greek tradition it is more possible that the homeland of the Greeks was originally in central Greece. A modern theory derives the name Greek (Lt. Graeci) from Graecos inhabitant of Graia -or Graea (Γραία), a town on the coast of Boeotia. Greek colonists from Graia helped to found Cumae (900 BC) in Italy, where they were called Graeces. When the Romans encountered them they used this name for the colonists and then for all Greeks.(Graeci Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?termgreek] In Greek, graia(γραία) means "old woman" and is derived from the PIE root *gere "to grow old"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?searchgere&searchmodenone Online Etymology Dictionary]Graeae (plural of Graea): "The old ones" or "The gray ones". in Proto-Greek guraj "old age" and later "gift of honour" (Mycenean:"kera, geras"), and grau-j "old lady".Beekes Greek etymological dictionaryentry 1531 The Germanic languages borrowed the word Greekswith an initial "k" sound which probably was their initial sound closest to the Latin "g" at the time (Goth. Kreks. The area out of ancient Attica including Boeotia was called Graïke and is connected with the older deluge of Ogyges lt;ref>Derived from OgenosOkeanos(Ocean ,the great river that was believed to encircle the earth. the mythological ruler of Boeotia. The region was originally occupied by the Minyans who were autochthon (person) us or Proto-Greek speaking people.Caskey,John.L (1960):The early Helladic period in Argolis. Hesperia 29 (3).285--303 In ancient Greek the name gygios came to mean "from earliest days".Henry George Lidell, Robert Scott. A Greek English Lexicon *Achaeans (Homer) (Αχαιοί) – Homer uses the terms chaeans and anaans as a generic term for Greeks in Iliad]],[[Homer]]. [[Iliad]] II 574,575 and they were probably a part of the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenean]] civilization. The names chaioi and anaoi seem to be pre-Dorian belonging to the people who were overthrown. They were forced to the region that later bore the name [[Achaea]] after the [[Dorians|Dorian]] invasion.[[Herodotus]] VII 94,VIII 73. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] VII,1. In the 5th century BC they were redefined as contemporary speakers of [[Aeolic]] Greek which was spoken mainly in [[Thessaly]], [[Boeotia]] and [[Lesbos]]. There are many controversial theories on the origin of the Achaeans. According to one view, the Achaeans were one of the fair-headed tribes of upper Europe, who pressed down over the Alps during the early [[Iron age]] (1300 BC) to southern Europe.W. Ridgeway, L. Myres.lassical review. vol xvi 1902, p.68,93,135 [http://www.1911.encyclopedia.org/Achaeans Classic-Encyclopedia] Another theory suggests that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans.K.J.Beloch.riechische Geschichte.1:I p, 92 p 88,n I These theories are rejected by other scholars who, based on linguistic criteria, suggest that the Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks.Eduard Meyer.eschichte des Altertums.112,I(1928) p 251 There is also the theory that there was an Achaean ethnos that migrated from [[Asia minor]] to lower Thessaly prior to 2000 BC.W.K.Prentice.he Achaeans. merican Journal of Archeology 33.2 April 1929 p. 206 Some [[Hittites|Hittite]] texts mention a nation lying to the west called hhiyava or hhiya.Jack Martin Balcer and John Matthew.xploring the European past. p 72-73 [http://custom.cengage.com/static_content/OLC/053427000X/etep_ch03.pdf Mycenean society and its collapse] Egyptian documents refer to [[Ekwesh]], one of the groups of [[sea peoples]] who attached Egypt during the reign of [[Merneptah]] (1213-1203 BCE), who may have been Achaeans.Robert Drews.he end of the bronze age.Princeton university Press.1993 p.49 *Achaeans (Homer) or anaoi (Δαναοί) and Argos (Αργείοι). In [[Homer]]s [[Iliad]], the names Danaans and rgives are used to designate the Greek forces opposed to the [[Troy|Trojans]]. The myth of [[Danaus]], whose origin is [[Egypt]], is a foundation legend of [[Argos]]. His daughters Daughters of Danaus|Danaides]], were forced in [[Tartarus]] to carry a jug to fill a bathtub without a bottom. This myth is connected with a task that can never be never be fulfilled ([[Sisyphos]]) and the name can be derived from the [[PIE]] root danu: "river".[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=danube Online Etymology Dictionary][[Julius Pokorny]].ndogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch. Entry 313 There is not any satisfactory theory on their origin. Some scholars connect Danaans with the [[Denyen]], one of the groups of the [[sea peoples]] who attacked Egypt during the reign of Ramesses III (1187-1156 BCE).[[Medinet Habu (temple)|]] inscription of Ramesses IIIs 8th year lines 16-17. transl. by John A. Wilson in Pritcard, J.B. (ed.) Ancient Near East texts relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition, Princeton 1969. p 262 "They made a conspiracy in their islands... [[Peleset]], [[Tjeker]], [[Shekelesh]], [[Denyen]] and [[Weshesh]]." The same inscription mentions the [[Weshesh]] who might have been the Achaeans. The Denyen seem to have been inhabitants of the city [[Adana]] in [[Cilicia]]. Pottery similar to that of Mycenae itself has been found in Tarsus of Cilicia and it seems that some refugees from the Aegean went there after the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. These Cilicians seem to have been called Dananiyim, the same word as Danaoi who attacked Egypt in 1191 BC along with the Quaouash (or Weshesh) who may be Achaeans.Jack Martin Balcer and John Matthew. Exploring the European past. p 72-74 [http://custom.cengage.com/static_content/OLC/053427000X/etep_ch03.pdf Mycenean society and its collapse.] They were also called anuna according to a [[Hittites|Hittite]] inscription and the same name is mentioned in the [[Amarna]] letters.[[Amarna letters-localities and their rulers]].EA 151[[Julius Pokorny]] reconstructs the name from the [[PIE]] root a:-: "flow, river", a:-nu: "any moving liquid, drops", a: navo "people living by the river, Skyth. nomadic people (in [[Rigveda]] water-demons, fem.Da:nu primordial goddess), in Greek anaoi, Egypt. anuna".[[Julius Pokorny]].ndogermanisches Etymologisces Woerterbuch. Entry 313 ISBN 0-8288-6602-3 It is also possible that the name anaans is pre-Greek. A country anaja with a city Mukana (propaply: [[Mycenea]]) is mentioned in inscriptions from Egypt from Amenophis III (1390-1352 BC), Thutmosis III (1437 BC).[[Beekes]].reek etymological dictionary entry 6541 * Names of the Greeks Romans (Ρωμαίοι) and Romioi (Ρωμιοί) , Rûm (traditionally for the [[Byzantine Greeks]] when the term reek came to mean [[pagan]]) * Yona or Yavana (transliterations of the Greek word for "[[Ionians]]") * Javan]] or avan (in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]) ===Modern and Ancient=== [[File:Funerary stele.jpg|thumb|Family group on a funerary [[stele]] from Athens, [[National Archaeological Museum of Athens|National Archaeological Museum]], [[Athens]].]] The most obvious link between modern and ancient Greeks is their language, which has a documented tradition from at least the 14th century BC to the present day, albeit with a break during the [[Greek Dark Ages]].{{cite book |title= A History of the Greek Language: From Its Origins to the Present |last= Adrados|first= Francisco Rodríguez |year=2005 |publisher= BRILL |isbn=90-04-12835-2 |pages=xii, 3–5}} Scholars compare its continuity of tradition to [[Chinese language|Chinese]] alone.{{cite book |title=Medieval and Modern Greek |last= Browning |first= Robert |year=1983 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-23488-3 |page= vii|quote=The Homeric poems were first written down in more or less their present form in the seventh century B.C. Since then Greek has enjoyed a continuous tradition down to the present day. Change there has certainly been. But there has been no break like that between Latin and Romance languages. Ancient Greek is not a foreign language to the Greek of today as Anglo-Saxon is to the modern Englishman. The only other language which enjoys comparable continuity of tradition is Chinese.}} Since its inception, Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture and the national continuity of the Greek world is a lot more certain than its demographic.{{cite book |author=Smith, Anthony Robert |title=National identity |publisher=University of Nevada Press |location=Reno |year=1991 |pages= 29–32|isbn=0-87417-204-7 |oclc= |doi=}} Yet, Hellenism also embodied an ancestral dimension through aspects of Athenian literature that developed and influenced ideas of descent based on autochthony.{{cite book |title=The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity|last= Benjamin |first= Isaac |year= 2004|publisher= Princeton University Press |isbn= 0-691-12598-8|page= 504|quote= Autochthony, being an Athenian idea and represented in many Athenian texts, is likely to have influenced a broad public of readers, wherever Greek literature was read.}} During the later years of the Eastern Roman Empire, areas such as [[Ionia]] and [[Constantinople]] experienced a Hellenic revival in language, philosophy, and literature and on classical models of thought and scholarship. This revival provided a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage. The cultural changes undergone by the Greeks are, despite a surviving common sense of ethnicity, undeniable. At the same time, the Greeks have retained their language and [[Greek alphabet|alphabet]], certain values, customs, a sense of religious and cultural difference and exclusion, (the word [[barbarian]] was used by 12th century historian Anna Komnene to describe non-Greek speakers),lt;/ref> a sense of Greek identity and common sense of ethnicity despite the global political and social changes of the past two millennia.

Demographics

Today, Greeks are the majority ethnic group in the Hellenic Republic lt;/ref> where they constitute 93% of the countrys population,lt;/ref> and the Republic of Cyprus where they make up 78% of the islands population (excluding Turkish settlers in the occupied part of the country).lt;/ref> Greek populations have not traditionally exhibited high rates of growth; nonetheless, the population of Greece has shown regular increase since the countrys first census in 1828.lt;/ref> A large percentage of the population growth since the states foundation has resulted from annexation of new territories and the influx of 1.5 million Greek refugees after the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey between Greece and Turkey. About 80% of the population of Greece is urban, with 28% concentrated in the city of Athenslt;/ref> Greeks from Cyprus have a similar history of emigration, usually to the English-speaking world because of the islands colonization by the British Empire Waves of emigration followed the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, while the population decreased between mid-1974 and 1977 as a result of emigration, war losses, and a temporary decline in fertility.lt;/ref> After the ethnic cleansing of a third of the Greek population of the island in 1974,lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> there was also an increase in the number of Greek Cypriots leaving, especially for the Middle East, which contributed to a decrease in population that tapered off in the 1990s. Today more than two-thirds of the Greek population in Cyprus is urban. There is a sizeable Greek minority of about 105,000 people, in Greek minority in Albania lt;/ref> The Greek minority of Greeks in Turkey which numbered upwards of 200,000 people after the 1923 exchange, has now dwindled to a few thousand, after the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom and other state sponsored violence and discrimination.lt;/ref> This effectively ended, though not entirely, the three thousand year old presence of Hellenism in Asia Minor.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> There are smaller Greek minorities in the rest of the Balkan countries, the Greeks in Lebanon and the Greeks in Georgia states, remnants of the Old Greek Diaspora (pre-19th century).lt;/ref>

Diaspora

The total number of Greeks living outside Greece and Cyprus today is a contentious issue. Where Census figures are available, they show around 3 million Greeks outside Greece and Cyprus Estimates provided by the SAE - World Council of Hellenes Abroad put the figure at around 7 million worldwide.lt;/ref> According to George Prevelakis of Sorbonne University the number is closer to just below 5 million.lt;/ref> Integration, intermarriage, and loss of the Greek language influence the self-identification of the Greek diaspora Important centres of the New Greek Diaspora today are British Greeks Greek Americans Greek Australians and Greek Canadians Recently, the Hellenic Parliament introduced a law that enables Diaspora Greeks in Greece to vote in the elections of the Greek state.lt;/ref>

Ancient

File Griechischen und phönizischen Kolonien.jpg In ancient times, the trading and colonizing activities of the Greek tribes and city states spread the Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, especially in Magna Graecia (also known as Magna Grecia , Spain, the Marseille History and the Pontian Greeks lt;/ref> Under Alexander the Greats empire and successor states, Greek and Hellenizing ruling classes were established in the Seleucid Kingdom Indo-Greek Kingdom and in Ptolemaic dynasty The Hellenistic period is characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization that established Greek cities and kingdoms in Dayuan and Cyrene, Libya lt;/ref> Under the Roman Empire, easier movement of people spread Greeks across the Empire and in the eastern territories, Greek became the lingua franca rather than Latin The modern-day Griko people of southern Italy, numbering about 60,000, may represent a living remnant of the ancient Greek populations of Italy.

Modern

File 50 largest Greek diaspora.png During and after the Greek War of Independence Greeks of the diaspora were important in establishing the fledgling state, raising funds and awareness abroad.lt;/ref> Greek merchant families already had contacts in other countries and during the disturbances many set up home around the Mediterranean (notably Marseilles in Greeks in France Livorno in Greeks in Italy Alexandria in Greeks in Egypt , Greeks in Russia (Odessa and Saint Petersburg , and British Greeks (London and Liverpool) from where they traded, typically in textiles and grain.lt;/ref> Businesses frequently comprised the extended family, and with them they brought schools teaching Greek and the Greek Orthodox Church As markets changed and they became more established, some families grew their operations to become Greek shipping financed through the local Greek community, notably with the aid of the Ralli Brothers or Panayis Athanase Vagliano lt;/ref> With economic success, the Diaspora expanded further across the Greeks in Syria North Africa, India and the USA.lt;/ref> In the 20th century, many Greeks left their traditional homelands for economic reasons resulting in large migrations from Greece and Cyprus to the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Greeks in Germany and Greeks in South Africa especially after the Second World War (1939–45), the Greek Civil War (1946–49), and the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974.lt;/ref> While official figures remain scarce, polls and anecdotal evidence point to renewed Greek emigration as a result of the Greek financial crisis lt;/ref> According to data published by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany in 2011, 23,800 Greeks emigrated to Germany, a significant increase over the previous year. By comparison, about 9,000 Greeks emigrated to Germany in 2009 and 12,000 in 2010.lt;/ref>lt;/ref>

Culture

File Family marriage.jpg ]] Culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, with its beginning in the Mycenaean civilization, continuing through the Classical period, the Roman and Eastern Roman periods and was profoundly affected by Christianity, which it in turn influenced and shaped.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Ottoman Greeks had to endure through several centuries of adversity that culminated in Greek genocide in the 20th century but nevertheless included cultural exchanges and enriched both cultures.http://genocidescholars.org/images/PRelease16Dec07IAGS_Officially_Recognizes_Assyrian_Greek_Genocides.pdf IAGS Official Website], International Genocide Scholars Association Officially Recognizes Assyrian, Greek Genocides Retrieved on 15 December 2007.lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> The Diafotismos is credited with revitalizing Greek culture and giving birth to the synthesis of ancient and medieval elements that characterize it today.

Language

File AGMA Ostrakon Cimon.jpg bearing the name of Cimon Stoa of Attalos Athens ]] Most Greeks speak the Greek language an Indo-European languages that forms a branch itself, with its closest relations being Armenian language (see Graeco-Armenian and the Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan . It has one of the longest documented histories of any language and Greek literature has a continuous history of over 2,500 years.lt;/ref> Several notable literary works, including the Homer Euclid's Elements and the New Testament were originally written in Greek. Greek demonstrates several linguistic features that are shared with other Languages of the Balkans such as Albanian language Bulgarian language and Eastern Romance languages (see Balkan sprachbund , and has absorbed many foreign words, primarily of Western European and Turkish language origin.lt;/ref> Because of the movements of Philhellenism and the Diafotismos in the 19th century, which emphasized the modern Greeks ancient heritage, these foreign influences were excluded from official use via the creation of Katharevousa a somewhat artificial form of Greek purged of all foreign influence and words, as the official language of the Greek state. In 1976, however, the Hellenic Parliament voted to make the spoken Dimotiki the official language, making Katharevousa obsolete.lt;/ref> Modern Greek has, in addition to Standard Modern Greek or Dimotiki, a wide Varieties of Modern Greek of varying levels of mutual intelligibility, including Cypriot Greek Pontic language Cappadocian Greek language Griko language and Tsakonian language (the only surviving representative of ancient Doric Greek .lt;/ref> Yevanic language is the language of the Romaniotes and survives in small communities in Greece, New York and Israel. In addition to Greek, many Greeks in Greece and the Diaspora are bilingual in other languages or dialects such as English, Arvanitika Aromanian language Slavic dialects of Greece Russian language and Turkish.lt;/ref>

Religion

File P46.jpg is one of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts in Greek language written on papyrus with its most probable date between 175-225.]] Most Greeks are Christian , belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church During the first centuries after Jesus the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek which remains the Sacred language of the Greek Orthodox Church, and most of the early Christians and Church Fathers were Greek-speaking. There are small groups of ethnic Greeks adhering to other Christianity denominations like Roman Catholicism in Greece Greek Evangelical Church Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost and groups adhering to other religions including Romaniotes and Sephardic Jews lt;!-- "Jews" is modified by both Romaniot and Sephardic, so should not be part of the "Sephardic Jews" wikilink--> and Greek Muslims About 2,000 Greeks are members of Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism congregations.lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Greek Muslims mainly remain outside of Greece itself in the contemporary era. There are Greek Muslim communities in Greeks in Lebanon Lebanon with a population of over 10,000, Greeks in Syria in Syria, while there is a large community of indeterminate size in the Greek Muslims Pontic Greek Muslims region, who were spared of the population exchange because of their faith,lt;/ref> other areas of Greek Muslims include North Africa namely Libya and Egypt along with a sizable recent convert population within Greece mainly in urban areas along with the larger diaspora in Australia, the UK and US notable Greek Muslims abroad include Sheikh Hamza Yusef, Hamza Tzortzis, Yusuf Islam, Jamilah Kolocotronis. The Greek Muslim population stands at an estimated 1.3 Million people.http://webs.uvigo.es/ssl/actas2002/05/08.%20Roula%20Tsokalidou.pdf

Art

File The Assumption of the Virgin 1577.jpg s Assumption of the Virgin(1577–1579).]] Greek art has a long and varied history. Greeks have contributed to the visual, literary and performing arts.lt;/ref> In the West, Art in ancient Greece was influential in shaping the Roman art and later the modern Western art history stic heritage. Following the Renaissance in Europe the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Well into the 19th century, the classical tradition derived from Greece played an important role in the art of the western world.lt;/ref> In the East, Alexander the Great s conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asia and Culture of India cultures, resulting in Greco-Buddhist art whose influence reached as far as Japan lt;/ref> Byzantine art which grew from Fayum portraits and adapted the pagan motifs in the service of Christianity, provided a stimulus to the art of many nations.lt;/ref> Its influences can be traced from Venice in the West to Kazakhstan in the East.lt;/ref> In turn, Greek art was influenced by eastern civilizations in classical antiquity and the new religion of Orthodox Christianity during Roman times, while modern Greek art is heavily influenced by western art lt;/ref> Notable modern Greek artists include Renaissance painter Dominikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco), Panagiotis Doxaras Nikolaos Gyzis Nikiphoros Lytras Yannis Tsarouchis Nikos Engonopoulos Constantine Andreou Jannis Kounellis sculptors such as Leonidas Drosis Georgios Bonanos Yannoulis Chalepas and Joannis Avramidis conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos soprano Maria Callas composers such as Mikis Theodorakis Nikos Skalkottas Iannis Xenakis Manos Hatzidakis Eleni Karaindrou Yanni and Vangelis one of the best-selling singers worldwide Nana Mouskouri and poets such as Kostis Palamas Dionysios Solomos Angelos Sikelianos and Yannis Ritsos Alexandria Constantine P. Cavafy and Nobel Prize in Literature Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis are among the most important poets of the 20th century. Novel is also represented by Alexandros Papadiamantis and Nikos Kazantzakis Notable Greek actors include Marika Kotopouli Melina Mercouri Ellie Lambeti Academy Award winner Katina Paxinou Dimitris Horn Manos Katrakis and Irene Papas Alekos Sakellarios Michael Cacoyannis and Theo Angelopoulos are among the most important directors.

Science

Image Aristarchus working.jpg was the first known individual to propose a heliocentrism in the 3rd century BC]] The Greeks of the Classical era made several notable contributions to science and helped lay the foundations of several western scientific traditions, like philosophy, historiography and mathematics. The scholarly tradition of the Greek academies was maintained during Roman times with several academic institutions in Constantinople Antioch Alexandria and other centres of Greek learning while Eastern Roman science was essentially a continuation of classical science.lt;/ref> Greeks have a long tradition of valuing and investing in paideia(education). Paideiawas one of the highest societal values in the Greek and Hellenistic world while the first European institution described as a university was founded in 5th century Constantinople and operated in various incarnations until the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.lt;/ref> The University of Constantinople was Christian Europes first secular institution of higher learning since no theological subjects were taught,lt;/ref> and considering the original meaning of the world university as a corporation of students, the world’s first university as well. As of 2007, Greece had the eighth highest percentage of tertiary enrollment in the world (with the percentages for female students being higher than for male) while Greeks of the Diaspora are equally active in the field of education. Hundreds of thousands of Greek students attend western universities every year while the faculty lists of leading Western universities contain a striking number of Greek names.lt;/ref> Notable modern Greek scientists of modern times include Dimitrios Galanos Georgios Papanikolaou (inventor of the Pap test , Nicholas Negroponte Constantin Carathéodory Manolis Andronikos Michael Dertouzos John Argyris Panagiotis Kondylis and Dimitri Nanopoulos

Symbols

File Flag of the Greek Orthodox Church.svg is based on the coat of arms of the Palaiologoi the last dynasty of the Byzantine Empire ]] File Flag of Greece (1828-1978).svg The most widely used symbol is the flag of Greece which features nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white representing the nine syllables of the Greek national motto [[Eleftheria i thanatos]](freedom or death), which was the motto of the Greek War of Independence lt;/ref> The blue square in the upper hoist-side corner bears a white cross, which represents Greek Orthodox Church The Greek flag is widely used by the Greek Cypriots although Cyprus has officially adopted a neutral flag to ease ethnic tensions with the Turkish Cypriots minority – see flag of Cyprus .lt;/ref> The pre-1978 (and first) flag of Greece, which features a Cross (crux immissa quadrata on a blue background, is widely used as an alternative to the official flag, and they are often flown together. The national emblem of Greece features a blue Escutcheon (heraldry) with a white cross surrounded by two laurel branches. A common design involves the current flag of Greece and the pre-1978 flag of Greece with crossed flagpoles and the national emblem placed in front.lt;/ref> Another highly recognizable and popular Greek symbol is the Flag of Greece Double-headed eagle the imperial emblem of the last dynasty of the Roman Empire and a common symbol in Asia Minor and, later, Eastern Europe lt;/ref> It is not part of the modern Greek flag or coat of arms, although it is officially the insignia of the Greek Army and the flag of the Church of Greece It had been incorporated in the Greek coat of arms between 1925 and 1926.lt;/ref>

Surnames

Greek surnames were widely in use by the 9th century supplanting the ancient tradition of using the father’s name, however Greek surnames are most commonly patronymics.lt;/ref> Commonly, Greek male surnames end in -s, which is the common ending for Greek masculine proper nouns in the nominative case Exceptionally, some end in -ou, indicating the genitive case of this proper noun for patronymic reasons.lt;/ref> Although surnames in mainland Greece are static today, dynamic and changing patronymic usage survives in middle names where the genitive of fathers first name is commonly the middle name (this usage having been passed on to the Russian names . In Cyprus, by contrast, surnames follow the ancient tradition of being given according to the father’s name.lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> Finally, in addition to Greek-derived surnames many have Latin, Turkish and Italian origin.lt;/ref> With respect to personal names, the two main influences are early Christianity and antiquity. The ancient names were never forgotten but have become more widely bestowed from the 18th century onwards.lt;/ref>

Sea

The traditional Greek homelands have been the Greek peninsula and the Aegean Sea, the Southern Italy (Magna Graecia , the Black Sea the Ionia of Asia Minor and the islands of Cyprus and Sicily In Platos [[Phaedo|Phaidon]] Socrates remarks, "we (Greeks) live around a sea like frogs around a pond" when describing to his friends the Greek cities of the Aegean.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> This image is attested by the map of the Old Greek Diaspora, which corresponded to the Greek world until the creation of the Greece in 1832. The sea and trade were natural outlets for Greeks since the Greek peninsula is rocky and does not offer good prospects for agriculture. Notable Greek seafarers include people such as Pytheas of Marseilles, Scylax of Caryanda who sailed to Iberia and beyond, Nearchus the 6th century merchant and later monk Cosmas Indicopleustes (Cosmas who sailed to India and the explorer of the Northwestern passage Juan de Fuca lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref>lt;/ref> In later times, the Romioi plied the sea-lanes of the Mediterranean and controlled trade until an embargo imposed by the Byzantine Emperor on trade with the Caliphate opened the door for the later Italian pre-eminence in trade.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> The Greek shipping tradition recovered during Ottoman rule when a substantial merchant middle class developed, which played an important part in the Greek War of Independence. Today, Greek shipping continues to prosper to the extent that Greece has the largest merchant fleet in the world, while many more ships under Greek ownership fly flags of convenience The most notable shipping magnate of the 20th century was Aristotle Onassis others being Yiannis Latsis George Livanos and Stavros Niarchos lt;/ref>lt;/ref>

Timeline

The history of the Greek people is closely associated with the history of Greece, Cyprus, Constantinople, Asia Minor and the Black Sea. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, a number of Greek enclaves around the Mediterranean were cut off from the core, notably in Southern Italy, the Caucasus, Syria and Egypt. By the early 20th century, over half of the overall Greek language speaking population was settled in Asia Minor (now Turkey), while later that century a huge wave of migration to the United States, Australia, Canada and elsewhere created the modern Greek diaspora. Some key historical events have also been included for context, but his timeline is not intended to cover history not related to migrations. There is more information on the historical context of these migrations in [[History of Greece]].
| class"wikitable" border"1" |- ! style"width:120px" |Time|| style"width:400px" |Events |- | 3rd millennium BC | Proto-Greek language tribes form around the Southern Balkans/Aegean. |- | 20th century BC | Greek settlements established on the Balkans Ionians and Aeolians spread over Greece. |- | 17th century BC || Decline of the Minoan civilization possibly because of the Minoan eruption Emergence of the Achaeans (tribe) and formation of the Mycenaean Greece |- | 13th century BC ||First Colonies in antiquity established in Asia Minor |- | 11th century BC ||Dorians move into peninsular Greece Achaeans flee to Aegean Islands Asia Minor and Cyprus |- | 9th century BC ||Major colonization of Asia Minor and Cyprus by the Greek tribes. |- | 8th century BC ||First major colonies established in Sicily and Southern Italy |- | 6th century BC ||Colonies established across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea |- | 5th century BC ||Defeat of the Persians and emergence of the Delian League in Ionia the Black Sea and Aegean perimeter culminates in Athenian Empire and the Classical Greece ends with Athens defeat by Sparta at the close of the Peloponesian War |- | 4th century BC | Rise of Thebes (Greece) power and defeat of the Spartans; Campaign of Alexander the Great Greek colonies established in newly founded cities of Ptolemaic Egypt and Asia. |- | 2nd century BC || Conquest of Greece by the Roman Empire Migrations of Greeks to Rome |- | 4th century AD || Eastern Roman Empire Migrations of Greeks throughout the Empire, mainly towards Constantinople |- | 7th century | Slavic peoples conquest of several parts of Greece Greek migrations to Southern Italy Roman Emperors capture main Slavic bodies and transfer them to Cappadocia Bosphorus re-populated by Macedonian and Cypriot Greeks. |- | 8th century || Roman dissolution of surviving Slavic settlements in Greece and full recovery of the Greek peninsula. |- | 9th century || Retro-migrations of Greeks from all parts of the Empire (mainly from Southern Italy and Sicily) into parts of Greece that were depopulated by the Slavs (mainly western Peloponnesus and Thessaly). |- | 13th century | Roman Empire dissolves, Constantinople taken by the Fourth Crusade becoming the capital of the Latin Empire Liberated after a long struggle by the Empire of Nicaea, but fragments remain separated. Migrations between Asia Minor, Constantinople and mainland Greece take place. |- | 15th century
{{spaces|5}}-
19th century || Conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire Greek diaspora into Europe begins. Ottoman settlements in Greece. Phanariot Greeks occupy high posts in Eastern European millets. |} | class"wikitable" border"1" |- ! style"width:120px" |Time|| style"width:400px" |Events |- | 1830s | Creation of the History of Modern Greece Immigration to the New World begins. Large-scale migrations from Constantinople and Asia Minor to Greece take place. |- | 1913 |European Ottoman lands partitioned; Unorganized migrations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks towards their respective states. |- | 1914–1923 || Greek genocide hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks are estimated to have died during this period.lt;/ref> |- | 1919 | Treaty of Neuilly Greece and Bulgaria exchange populations, with some exceptions. |- | 1922 | Great Fire of Smyrna (modern-day Izmir) more than 40 thousand Greeks killed, End of significant Greek presence in Asia Minor. |- | 1923 | Treaty of Lausanne; Greece and Turkey agree to exchange populations with limited exceptions of the Greeks in Constantinople Imbros Tenedos and the Muslim minority of Western Thrace 1.5 million of Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks settle in Greece, and some 450 thousands of Muslims settle in Turkey. |- | 1940s | Hundred of thousands Greeks died from starvation during the Axis Occupation of Greece |- | 1947 | Communist regime in Romania begins evictions of the Greek community, approx. 75,000 migrate. |- | 1948 | Greek Civil War Tens of thousands of Greek communist and their families flee into Eastern Bloc nations. Thousands settle in Tashkent |- | 1950s | Massive emigration of Greeks to West Germany, the United States, Australia, Canada, and other countries. |- | 1955 | Istanbul Pogrom against Greeks. Exodus of Greeks from the city accelerates; less than 2,000 remain today. |- | 1958 | Large Greek community in Alexandria flees Gamal Abdel Nasser regime in History of Modern Egypt Nasser and Arab socialism |- |1960s || Republic of Cyprus created as an independent state under Greek, Turkish and British protection. Economic emigration continues. |- | 1974 |Turkish invasion of Cyprus Almost all Greeks living in Northern Cyprus flee to the south and the United Kingdom. |- | 1980s |Many civil war refugees were allowed to re-emigrate to Greece. Retro-migration of Greeks from Germany begins. |- | 1990s |Collapse of Soviet Union Approx. 340,000 ethnic Greeks migrate from Georgia, Armenia, southern Russia, and Albania to Greece. |- | 2000s | Some statistics show the beginning of a trend of reverse migration of Greeks from the United States and Australia. |}

See also

*Antiochian Greeks *Arvanites *Cappadocian Greeks *Caucasus Greeks *Greek Cypriots *Greek Diaspora *Griko people *Macedonians (Greeks) *Maniots *Northern Epirotes *Pontic Greeks *Romaniotes *List of ancient Greeks *List of Greeks *List of Greek Americans

Notes

:a.Though there is a range of interpretations; Carl Blegen dates the arrival of the Greeks around 1900 BC, John Caskey believes that there were two waves of immigrants and Robert Drews places the event as late as 1600 BC.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> A variety of more theories has also been supported,lt;/ref> but there is a general consensus that the coming of the Greek tribes occurred around 2100 BC.

Citations

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Further reading

;Mycenaean Greeks * * * * * ;Classical Greeks * * * * * * * * * * ;Hellenistic Greeks * * * * ;Byzantine Greeks * * * * * * ;Ottoman Greeks * * * * ;Modern Greeks * * * * * * * *

External links

Omogenia *http://en.sae.gr/?id12377 World Council of Hellenes Abroad (SAE)], Umbrella Diaspora Organization Religious *http://www.ec-patr.org/ Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople] *http://www.greekorthodox-alexandria.org/ Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria] *http://www.ecclesia.gr/ Church of Greece] Academic *http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/ Transnational Communities Programme at the University of Oxford], includes papers on the Greek Diaspora *http://www.chs.harvard.edu/activities_events.sec/conferences.ssp/conf_greeks_on_greekness.pg Greeks on Greekness]: The Construction and Uses of the Greek Past among Greeks under the Roman Empire. *The Modern Greek Studies Association is a scholarly organization for modern Greek studies in North America which publishes the Journal of Modern Greek Studies *The http://gotgreek.hellenext.org Got Greek? Next Generation National Research Study] is an academic study of young diaspora Greeks sponsored by The Next Generation Initiative *http://wihs.uwaterloo.ca/ Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies] Trade organizations *http://www.hcbt.com Hellenic Canadian Board of Trade] *http://www.hcla.ca Hellenic Canadian Lawyers Association] *http://www.helleniccongressbc.ca/The_Hellenic_Canadian_Congress_of_BC/Index.html Hellenic Canadian Congress of British Columbia] *http://www.hellenicamerican.cc/ Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce] *http://www.camarahelenoargentina.org/ingles/instituciones-relacionadas.php Hellenic-Argentine Chamber of Industry and Commerce (C.I.C.H.A.)] ;Charitable organizations *http://ahepacanada.org AHEPA home page] - American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association *http://www.HHF.ca Hellenic Heritage Foundation] *http://www.hellenichome.org Hellenic Home for the Aged] *http://www.hellenichope.org/about-us Hellenic Hope Center - supports people with disabilities] *http://www.hellenicscholarships.org/en/index_en.html Hellenic Scholarships] Category Ancient peoples Category Ethnic groups in Europe Category Greek people

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