The Greeks () have been identified by many ethnonyms. The most common native ethnonym is Hellene (), pl. Hellenes (); the name Greeks () was used by the ancient Romans and gradually entered the European languages through its use in Latin. The mythological patriarch Hellen is the named progenitor of the Greek peoples; his descendants the Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans and Ionians correspond to the main Greek tribes and to the main dialects spoken in Greece and Asia Minor (Anatolia).
The first Greek-speaking people, called Myceneans or Mycenean-Achaeans by historians, entered present-day Greece sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age. Homer refers to "Achaeans" as the dominant tribe during the Trojan War period usually dated to the 12th–11th centuries BC,C. Mossé. (1984). La Grèce archaïque d'Homère à Eschyle. Editions du Seuil, Paris, p. 12.Those who believe that the stories of the Trojan War are derived from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th centuries BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194–1184 BC, which roughly corresponds with archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VIIa. using Hellenes to describe a relatively small tribe in Thessaly. The Dorians, an important Greek-speaking group, appeared roughly at that time. According to the Greek tradition, the Graeci (Latin; , Graikoi, "Greeks") were renamed Hellenes probably with the establishment of the Great Amphictyonic League after the Trojan War.
When the Romans first encountered Greek colonists in Southern Italy, they used the name Graeci for the colonists and then for all Greeks; this became the root of all relevant terms in European languages. The Persians used the name Yaunas (Yunans) after the Ionians, a Greek tribe who colonized part of the coasts of western Asia Minor.Johannes Engels (2010). "Macedonians and Greeks". In Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington's A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Oxford, Chichester & Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 81–98. The term was used later in Hebrew (Yevanim, ), Arabic, and also by the Turks. The word entered the languages of the Indian subcontinent as the Yona. A unique form is used in Georgian, where the Greeks are called Berdzeni (ბერძენი).
By Late Antiquity (c. 3rd–7th centuries), the Greeks referred to themselves as Graikoi (, "Greeks") and Rhomaioi/Romioi (//, "Romans") the latter of which was used since virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens after 212 AD. The term Hellene started to be applied to the followers of the polytheistic ("pagan") religion after the establishment of Christianity by Theodosius I.
General names of Greece
Most European languages, as well as other languages that have borrowed the name from one of them, use names for Greece that come from the Latin Graecia and Graecus, the name the Romans used for the Greeks, itself from the Greek :
(Hrecyja) (Gǎrcija); the alternative historical name Елада (Elada) for ancient Greece is also used sometimes.
(Gretsi) (Goihi)
(rare or obsolete use)
(Girisha) (Krech) (Geuriseu)
(Grcija)
(Grecija)
(Grisiya)
(Krīt) (Hrecija)
In languages of Middle East and South and Central Asia, the common root is "yun" or "ywn". It is borrowed from the Greek name Ionia, a once Greek region of Asia Minor, and the Ionians:
(Yūnān) or (Yawān, Yawon) (Hunastan) (Yunastan) (Yona) (Yona) (Yāwān) (Yavan)
(Yūnān)
(Yūnān) (Yauna)
(Yūnān) (Yūnān) (Yavana) (Yunon)
The third form is "Hellas", used by a few languages around the world, including Greek:
Greek: or Polytonic: or Monotonic: or
(rare usage) (used for Ancient Greece)
(Hanyu Pinyin: Xīlà; Jyutping: hei1 laap6) (rare usage)
Other forms: (Hrōmāyīg) Laz: Xorumona (ხორუმონა) (saberdzneti)
Brief history The first people speaking an ancient Proto-Greek language entered mainland Greece during the Neolithic period or the Bronze Age.A comprehensive overview in J. T. Hooker. Mycenean Greece (1976, 22014), especially Chapter 2, "Before the Mycenenan Age", pp. 11–33 and passim; for a different hypothesis excluding massive migrations and favoring an autochthonous scenario see, C. Renfrew. "Problems in the General Correlation of Archaeological and Linguistic Strata in Prehistoric Greece: The Authochous origin" in: R. A. Crossland & A. Birchall (eds.). Bronze age Migrations (1974), pp. 263–275, especially p. 267. From the Ancient Greek dialects as they presented themselves centuries later, it seems that at least two migrations of Greeks occurred overall, the first of the Ionians and the Aeolians probably in the 19th century BC and the second of the Dorians probably in the 13th century BC. The first migration resulted in Mycenean Greek, an archaic Greek language which appears in Linear B syllabic inscriptions and the second resulted in the Dorian dialect which displaced the Arcadocypriot dialect that seems to be closest to the Mycenean Greek.
The tribes later called Aeolians and Ionians established several feudal kingdoms around Greece, and the historians called them Myceneans after their most powerful kingdom Mycenea in Peloponnese, or Myceneans-Achaeans because in Homer the Achaeans were the dominating tribe in Greece and the name Achiyawa that appears in Hittite texts seems to correspond to a thalassocratic country which might be Mycenea.O. R. Gurney (1975). The Hittites. Oxford University Press, p. 15.
Although Homer referred to a union of the Greek kingdoms under the leadership of the king of Mycenae during the Trojan War, there is no evidence that these kingdoms were dominated by a central power. Most of the Mycenaean palaces were destroyed at the end of the 13th century BC. The Greek tradition relates this destruction to the Dorians, but it is suggested that the Dorian invasion was only one of the causes of the Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, as there is no evidence that the newcomers established a different civilization.C. Mossé. (1984). La Grèce archaïque d'Homère à Eschyle. Editions du Seuil, Paris, pp. 16, 18. The destruction was followed by the Greek Dark Ages with very poor archaeological findings, when most occupied areas were deserted, but some areas like Attica occupied by the Ionians remained untouched by the invaders. Several Greek tribes moved to regions of Greece where they acquired different names, and population groups moved through the islands to the western coasts of Asia Minor where they kept their native names Aeolians, Ionians and Dorians.
It seems that the myth of Hellen, the progenitor of the Hellenes, was invented when the Greek tribes started to separate from each other, and stressed their common origin. The name "Hellenes" was probably used by the Greeks with the establishment of the Great Amphictyonic League, an ancient association of Greek tribes. According to legend it was founded after the Trojan War, by the eponymous Amphictyon, brother of Hellen. It had twelve founders and was organized to protect the great temples of Apollo in Delphi (Phocis) and of Demeter near Thermopylae (Locris). The twelve founders enumerated by AeschinesAeschines, II (On the Embassy), 115; see also Strabo, IX.3.7, and Pausanias, X.8.2–5. were the Aenianes or Oetaeans (Αἰνιᾶνες, Οἰταῖοι), the Boeotians (Βοιωτοί) of Thebes, the Dolopes (Δόλοπες), the Dorians (Δωριείς) of Sparta, the Ionians (Ἴωνες) of Athens, the Phthian Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί), the Locrians (Λοκροί) (Opuntians, Ὀπούντιοι and Ozolians, Ὀζολαί), the Magnesians (Μάγνητες), the Malians (Μαλιεῖς), the Perrhaebians (Περραιβοί), the Phocians (Φωκεῖς), the Pythians (Πύθιοι) of Delphi, and the Thessalians (Θεσσαλοί). Among the descendants of Hellen are mentioned Aeolus, Ion, Achaeus, Dorus, Graecus and Makedon. It seems that the Macedonians were a Dorian tribe that stayed behind in Macedonia when the main Dorian tribes moved to the south.
Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί)
Late Bronze Age Hittite texts mention a nation called AhhiyaTranslation of the Sins of Madduwatta and subsequently AhhiyawaTranslation of the Tawagalawa Letter which have been identified in scholarship as part of the Mycenaean world. Egyptian records mention peoples known as Ekwesh, Denyen and Tanaju that have been also linked to the Mycenaean world.
In Homer's Iliad, the Greek allied forces are described under three different names; Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί, Akhaioí, used 598 times), Danaans (Δαναοί, Danaoí, used 138 times) and Argives (Ἀργεῖοι, Argeîoi, used 29 times).Paul Cartledge. Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 23: "The late Bronze Age in Greece is also called conventionally 'Mycenaean', as we saw in the last chapter. But it might in principle have been called 'Argive', 'Achaean', or 'Danaan', since the three names that Homer does in fact apply to Greeks collectively were 'Argives', 'Achaeans', and 'Danaans'." Counted, excluding his Catalogue of Ships.Homer. Iliad, 2.155–175, 4.8; Odyssey, 8.578, 4.6. All of the aforementioned terms were used synonymously to denote a common Greek identity.
A fourth term – "Panhellenes" – ( "All of the Greeks") and "Hellenes'" (; ) – both appear only once;See Iliad, II.2.530 for "Panhellenes" and Iliad II.2.684 for "Hellenes". implying it was not a central concept in Homer's work. In some English translations of the Iliad, the Achaeans are simply called "the Greeks" throughout.
Hellenes (Ἕλληνες)
There is currently no satisfactory etymology for the name Hellenes. Some scholars assert that the name of the priests of Zeus in Dodona, Selloi (Σελλοί; also Ἑλλοί Helloi), changed to Sellanes (by analogy with Akarnanes) and then to Hellanes and Hellenes.Robert S. P. Beekes (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Entry "Selloi". This theory is based on Aristotle's comments in Meteorologica where he places archaic Hellas in Epirus between Dodona and the Achelous river, where in his opinion the great deluge of Deucalion must have occurred. The land was inhabited by Selloi and Graeci, who later came to be known as Hellenes.Aristotle, Meteorologica, I, 352b. Homer mentions that the Selloi were the prophets of Zeus at Dodona, but he is referring to Zeus of Dodona as god of the Pelasgians who belonged to a Pre-Dorian population.Homer (Iliad, 16.233–235) writes of Achilles praying to the Dodonian Zeus: '"King Zeus", he cried, "lord of Dodona, god of the Pelasgi, who dwellest afar, you who hold wintry Dodona in your sway, where your prophets the Selloi dwell around you with their feet unwashed and their couches made upon the ground"'. It is possible that the extension of a particular cult of Zeus in Dodona (a tendency among the Greeks to form ever-larger cultic communities or amphictionies) caused the name to further extend to the rest of the peninsula.
This theory connects the name Hellenes with the Dorians (and the substrate of Pelasgians) who occupied Epirus in the extreme north of Greece, rendering uncertain the relation with the name Graeci used by the Romans. Some toponyms, especially an ancient city Hellas in southern Thessaly, and the Greek tradition seem to indicate that the name Hellenes was Pre-Dorian itself and that the homeland of the Graikoi, who were later called Hellenes, was in central Greece. A Greek myth mentions an earlier deluge of Ogyges in the region of Boeotia which was occupied by the Minyans a group of autochthonous or Proto-Greek speaking people. The region (situated next to Attica) was called Graïke in ancient times probably after the old city of Graea (Γραῖα Graîa, from Proto-Greek grau-j-, "old lady") on the coast. The name Ogyges (or Ogenos) is related with Okeanos (Ὠκεανός), the great river-ocean that Greeks believed to surround the Earth.Compare Fontenrose, p. 236. The adjective derived from the name, Ogygios (Ὠγύγιος "Ogygian") came to mean "primeval, primal," or "from earliest days" and also "gigantic".See Liddell & Scott, "Ὠγύγιος".