"O Solon, Solon, Hellenes aei paides este, geron de Hellen ouk estin."
The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, southern parts of Italy, parts of Egypt, and to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with many Greek communities established around the world.
"But for the most part these barbarians remained as barbarous as ever, till a civilised race from Asia Minor conquered the adjacent parts of Europe and founded a high order of new civilization: to us they are known as Yavanas, to the Europeans as Greeks."
Greeks"I thank Your Majesty for your friendly message which comes at a time when all free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation."
Greeks"So far has Athens left the rest of mankind behind in thought and expression that her pupils have become the teachers of the world, and she has made the name of Hellas distinctive no longer of race but of intellect, and the title of Hellene a badge of education rather than of common descent."
Greeks"The Frankish conquest and occupation which shook the Constantinopolitan empire to its roots were of major importance in redefining the Byzantine sense of identity away from the universalism of the ancient imperial Roman ideal, and towards a narrower Greek orthodox nationalism. Moreover, it might even be said that in this movement the Greeks rediscovered themselves, returning to and giving new value to the geographical heartland of ancient Hellas. In this context and argument, the apparent return by late Byzantine writers to the use of the ancient ‘Hellene’ as ethnic signifier in preference to ‘Roman’ – which had been the overwhelmingly dominant signifier in the eastern empire – is seen as being of crucial significance in confirming a basic continuity of self-identification as Hellenic on the part of the Greeks."
Greeks"Equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
Greeks"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built the town on Manhattan island, and their patroons estates in the Hudson valley; now they were building their own cabins in the Mohawk Indian country that is now New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and in the far west, beyond Philadelphia. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the Carolina mountains; Swedes were in Delaware, English and French and Dutch and Irish were settled in Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Grants, Connecticut, and Virginia. Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Africans from a dozen very different African peoples and cultures. Black, brown, yellow and white, all these peoples were some of them free and some of them slaves. Also they were intermarried with the American Indians."
Greeks