Talk:Hellenic Greece

Depopulation
The evidence for the depopulation of Greece during the Dark Age (ack! ack!) is very mixed. The 1980s archaeology (I haven't really kept up that well since then) was tending to think that it was an administrative breakdown with no necessary depopulation. --MichaelTinkler

Last I had heard, there was no evidence for an invasion associated with the downfall of the Mycenaeans (whereas earlier a Dorian invasion was canon), but the city centres like Athens and Mycenae still decreased considerably in size. I am not really sure, though.

It depended on which area of Greece. Certainly in Crete there was a decline in population after the Mycenaean period for that island, yet other areas of Greece remained relatively stable. When presenting a paper on this during a seminar, I came to the conclusion that drought, not necessarily widespread destruction normally attributed to a "Doric" invasion, was responsible for population declines. Iam 01:36, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

yep, cities decreased whatever the cause, but the area surveys are not revealing any reduction in farming sites, the bulk of the population anyway. It's tricky evidence to work with. Useful synthesis of a lot of this is The Other Greeks, Victor Davis Hanson, ISBN: 0520209354 --MichaelTinkler - I seem to remember a not-too-recent book review of someone claiming that literacy was perhaps NOT lost, but i didn't read the book so I don't know. I put 'illiteracy' into the 'dark age' sentence because it's certainly part of the standard narrative. --MichaelTinkler

Certainly the old Mycenaean scripts had been lost, hadn't they? The Greeks come out of the dark ages with a brand new Phoenician derived alphabet, and never look back.
 * Here it is - ain't Amazon wonderful? - Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer : A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek Literacy, Roger D. Woodard, Oxford Univ. Press.  Not that I read it, but I remembered the claim.  Hmmm.  No need to worry about it until someone inserts it. --MichaelTinkler

''However, Greek democracy would not be considered such by modern definitions. Under this system only the sons of citizens could vote, provided they were at least 18 years old and had been born in Athens.''

I took this out, because I don't think it's true that most people count democracy as involving universal suffrage. Slaves couldn't vote in early America either.

But most people don't consider early America to be democratic either... Lir 05:19 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

Most people do where I am, and some quick searching on the web reveals a great deal of references to Jefferson and such as having created the American democracy. So if "modern sense" means the sense people are using the word in today, Athens or at least the early US should qualify. --JG

I would say that given the strict definition of democracy, "rule by the mob", America is admirably overqualified as a democracy. user:sjc

Macedonia
If i may be allowed to do so i would like to point out the fact that Macedonia was from the dawn of history up until today the nothern region of Greece, inhabitet by people who concidered themselfes as Greek as the Athenians did if not more. There is various historical evidence not only supporting this view but making it an undeniable fact (eg Alexander the Great,historic facts about Thraceans etc). Later on and mainly during the 20th century Slavic populations and their goverments claimed the name (and territory) of Macedonia for themselfs using nothing more than circumstantial evidence only proving the expantion of Greek civilazation to the north! Unfortunately lack of immediate responce from the greek side has brought us to today where the former Jugoslavic territory of Skopje is named FYROM with the m shamefully standing for Macedonia.

Being so far amazed with the quality of information in your on line encyclopedia i and with me every person with respect to historic trouth would deeply appreciate any attempt of your side to reconsider or look deeper into the facts and restore any mistakes.

-one of your readers from Greece-

An explanation of what you're looking at would be helpful. This page only mentions Macedonia once, stating that it conquered Greece, which is mostly true and has no real implications as to whether it is part of Greece or not.

The statement sometimes made that the ancient Macedonians weren't Greeks is false, and if you can point to a place where wikipedia says this, I will gladly fix it. However, it isn't entirely correct to say that they were Greeks, either. People can't be divided cleanly into races, especially not when they have been mingling back and forth over thousands of years. Ancient Macedonia was probably populated by a mix of Greeks, Thracians, Illyrians, and others, predominantly speaking a dialect of Greek that was somewhat different from the ones to the south. They had a lot of Greek influences on their culture, but the southerners still regarded them as being somewhat less Greek, especially when it was politically convenient. The kings could point out Greek ancestors, but so could many rulers throughout the area, for instance in Lycia and even Persia. Even so, they were thought more Greek than the people they ruled over.

The slavic-speaking Macedonians are not the same as these ancient people. I don't think we can fairly say that they aren't Macedonians, however, which is an entirely political question that really has nothing to do with the ancient civilization. No people on earth is the same as it was 2000 years ago. Any propaganda spread about the ancient rights of either Greeks or Macedonians to the area, accordingly, does not belong in wikipedia, and should not impact treatment of the region's history.

Classical Greece?
A common term I've heard is "Classical Era". Does that refer to this era? I think it refers to the period of Athenian "high culture" (Parthenon, etc.), so think the answer is yes, but am not entirely sure. If so, should Classical Greece be redirected and something added here? --Delirium 11:34, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

The title of this article is absurd: "Hellenic Greece" is a tautology like "British Britain." If it is intended that this should be an article about Greece between the Mycenaean and Hellenistic periods, it should be called Ancient Greece or Classical Greece. The former is more common although the latter is more technically correct. Unless anyone violently objects I will move the article. Adam 01:30, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Having now read the other articles in the History of Greece series I now think this article is redundant and ought to be abolished. It contains very basic information all of which can be found in a better form elsewhere. Adam 02:15, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Hellenic era is the standard term for the period in Greek history between the Mycenaeans and Hellenistic successors, even if it doesn't make much sense in terms of etymology. I'll agree, though, that Hellenic Greece is a little odd.  It's not the equivalent of British Britain, but it may be the equivalent of Roman Rome.

As indicated, my doubts about the name are now secondary to my doubts about the content. The simplest way to resolve both is to scrap this article and redirect it to History of Greece so the reader can find what they are looking for. Adam 03:19, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Coming to this discussion late (as seems to be my habit), I believe we shouldn't toss out the idea of an article covering Ancient Greek History between the Mycenaean period & the period of Alexander the Great. I notice that there is an existing redirect called "Hellenic civilization", which could be a good title avoiding the issue of pleonasm (i.e., "British Britain"); the following period would then be called Hellenistic civilization -- which would be more accurate than "Hellenistic Greece" because it should cover Greece, the Hellenized Near East & the Successor kingdoms. But at the present time I understand there's not enough written to separate out the various subperiods of Ancient Greek History, so as long as that redirect exists, I'll be lnking to it with my edits. -- llywrch 18:26, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

redirect?
Shouldn't this page redirect to Hellenistic Greece? --Phil1988 (talk) 13:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

To dab or not to dab
If you see this as a concise broad concept article, that's fine with me. You should know, though, that popups tells editors that this is a disambiguation page complete with choices of links with which to replace this title. At present, all article and portal links to this page have been disambiguated, and the only links to this page are user and project pages. So if you take the time to link other articles to this page, there will probably be others who will use popups to disambiguate those links. Joys! –  Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 21:11, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello. I don't have strong opinions about this, but at present it's just not a dab. A dab page would say: Hellenic Greece is either a), b) or c). But the article reads: Hellenic Greece comprises both a) and b). So it's an explanation of the concept, almost dictionary-like, rather than a dab page. Hence why I removed the tag. --Midas02 (talk) 21:21, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Your argument is strong; however, if you're going to get this off the popups list as a dab page, then it may have to lose some of its "conciseness". In other words, a correctly formatted (this page is formatted like a dab page) broad concept article should be written that links to Archaic and Classical Greece as related terms.  As far as the popups problem goes, I'm not sure how to get a page off that list.  I recently came across a full-fledged article that was rather lengthy, and yet it still appeared on popups as a dab page.  It may have been a dab page at one time and apparently nobody took it off the popups list when its broad concept article was written.  In any case, happy editing! –   Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 22:14, 2 December 2014 (UTC)