The Greeks - A Global History

Distinguished historian and BSA Chairman Prof. Roderick Beaton (KCL) discusses his latest book with Prof. John Bennet (Director, BSA), Prof. Paul Cartledge (University of Cambridge), Bruce Clark (Author, Journalist and Lecturer), and Prof. Peter Frankopan (University of Oxford).
In the words of the publisher, “The Greeks: A Global History is the story of a culture that has contributed more than any other to the way we live now in the West. It is a story that travels the entire globe and four millennia, taking us from the archaeological treasures of the Bronze Age Aegean, myths of gods and heroes, to the politics of the European Union today. Here are the glories of the classical city-states of Athens and Sparta, the far-reaching conquests of Alexander the Great, the foundations of early Christianity, the thousand-year empire of the Byzantines, and the rediscoveries of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It is a history of inventions, such as the alphabet, philosophy, and science — but also of reinvention, as Greeks adapted to catastrophic change and found new ways to survive and make their mark on the world around them; not least today, across a diaspora spread over five continents.

“The product of a lifetime’s research by one of the subject’s most esteemed experts, this is the epic, revelatory story of the Greeks and their global impact, told as never before.”

[marco]

I am reading the book and developing a growing interest on Greek culture and Greek peoples.

[leonidaspapanikolaou]

Thank you. I will buy it tomorrow. Cheers from Colchester!

[mydogsbutler]

I'm a secular ethnic Greek that has roots from deep in the Peloponnese. I have no non-Greeks as far back as I can trace my family lines. I don't consider myself just a 'modern" Greek. I see myself related to ancient Hellenes. I also care culturally about ancient Hellenism. Aside from the Greek language and history, I define the cultural aspect of Hellenism through the Greek educational template of learning some philosophy, physics, mathematics, astronomy, and other subjects most non-Greeks would also identify with post-Rennaissance. In short, I'm as Greek a Greek as you will ever meet.

I am well aware we also called ourselves Romans as part of a multi-ethnic Roman state but seeing as my ancestors spoke Greek and had largely a Greek education I use nomenclature Greek Romans to describe them rather than the term "Byzantines" most commonly used today. Byzantines is a name they did not use. It was foisted on them in the modern era by the German speakers of the former Holy Roman Empire. For most of the middle ages, the Holy Roman Empire insisted they were the real Romans and we were merely Greek pretenders (referencing us as Imperiium Grecorium... empire of the Greeks).

I don't think the authors on this panel are consciously antihellenic. They've dedicated a considerable portion of their lives to matters Greek after all and this video asks legitimate questions. That said, It's patronizing when foreign nationalists in the humanities and foreign press, and even some Greeks, try to frame Greekness as just being a language, or just culture, or just citizenship, or just a religion, or just geography.... yet never a biological connection to ancient Greeks?. It defies basic reason that we would have various other attributes in common with ancient Greeks yet not have any biological link to ancient Greeks. There is no evidence millions of ancient Greeks evaporated. There is plenty of evidence they became assimilated into Greek-speaking Romans.

In the last decade or so this question of our biological relationship to ancient Greeks that has dogged Greeks since our liberation from the Ottoman is finally being answered through genetics rather than just polemics. There are now multiple studies, by teams of accredited population geneticists, from reputable universities, that have gone through the trouble of finding, extracting, sequencing actual ancient Greek DNA from different eras for comparative analysis. Surprise. Those that claim our biological link is a 'myth" seem to be ones peddling myths. At the moment the balance of evidence suggests not only are modern ethnic Greeks direct descendants of ancient Greeks but even Neolithic people that lived in Greece. To what degree there is genetic drift and regional differences due to back and forth assimilation over the last several thousand years is a question for population geneticists... not the speculation of those that have never spent even an hour investigating the genetic literature.

Anyone who truly understands Greekness knows not only have definitions evolved over time but there are also multiple contexts of Greek that co-exist in parallel. In essence, we are several different self-defined groups but all use the term "Greek" to describe themselves are using different criteria. Some Greeks define their identity through religion. Others purely citizenship. Or through Isocrates' definition of culture. Or language. Or through blood. And various mixes of each. Some see themselves as purely modern. Others "Byzantines". And others related to ancient Hellenes. This flexibility in the definition is precisely why conflict is so common among Greeks from antiquity, through the Latin Roman era, to Greeks in Roman era, to the present. The only time the various definition are (mostly) unified is when we are under mutual threat. The rest of the time we are usually fighting among each other.

Benedict Anderson described nations as "imagined communities". There is some truth to this but the danger of using the word "imagined" is it implies that connections are all fictional much like a religion. This is not the case. There are usually very real connections but the degree of connection fluctuates from person to person within a self-defined group due to assimilation, linguistic, cultural, and educational changes over time. Even their personal philosophical outlook has an effect on one's identity. Heraclitus is once said to have quipped we never step into the same river twice. He didn't mean by this there is no river.

And we are the river that is Greek, much like a German, Jew, Englishman, and others represent their own heritages. Fallmerayer who first popularized the notion we aren't related to ancient Greeks, had some sort of expectation, like many others, we must be linguistically, racially, culturally pure ancient Greek to be "real" Greeks. What Fallmerayer missed in his narrative, like many other foreigners do, by Fallymerayer's own standard applied consistently to himself, he would not qualify as "real" German. It's practically an international sport these days to deconstruct Greek connection to ancient Greeks as a "myth" by those that typically have substantially less in common with their claimed roots than we do. That lack of moral and intellectual consistency, whether conscious or not, frankly comes off as prejudice.

And there are real-world consequences beyond annoyance for Greeks like myself that still care about ancient Hellenism. The rationale we are not "real" Greeks was also used during the Greek civil war when neighboring Yugoslavians and Bulgarian communists (aided by antinationalist motived Greek leftist fifth columnists) tried to detach Macedonia from Greece. The idea we are not "real" Greeks was used prior to that by the Nazis They adored ancient Greeks, but claimed we are not "real' Greek to justify committing atrocities against contemporary Greeks.

And this too is what the "Macedonia" naming issue was really about. It's become very apparent by their evasions over the former Yugoslavians' behavior, many foreigners used them as a proxy to try to detach Greeks from ancient Greek history yet again. In other words, they used them to delete our very identity, aka a subtle form of ethnic cleansing. This backfired on their supporters when the former Yugoslavians start trying to narrate themselves into ancient Macedonians and promoted "United Macedonia". Suddenly it became "human rights" for Slavs to claim to be antihellenic founders of the Hellenistic period which is not only morally unprincipled but contradicts common sense. And nearly everyone that recognized them as "Macedonians" evades to this day. This would include mainstream press, foreign politicians, most academics, self-proclaimed human rights groups, and even leftist Greeks yet again who agreed to call them "Macedonians" (shades of Greek civil war). When large numbers of people effectively lie to you about present-day events., their alleged historical narratives and lectures on ethics become moot.

[christoupolitis]

Paul Cartledge quoted a passage from Herodotus concerning Greekness in the 5th century B.C. in his first question to Roderick Beaton. It is the famous answer the Athenians gave to the Spartans who were afraid that the Athenians would stand by the side of the Persians. P. Cartledge said that the 3 criteria of Greekness the Athenians mentioned - that is, the reasons they would never betray their common bounds with the rest of the Greeks -were the common Greek language, the Greek religion and the common Greek customs. In his answer, R. Beaton mentioned that it is very important that it is the Athenians (in Herodotus history) the ones who give this definition of common identity. Well, the problem is that P. Cartledge quoted the passage from Herodotus the wrong way. He neglected (lack of knowledge?) to mention the FIRST criterion in the response of the Athenians: that is blood, common origins. Let's see the original passage: "αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικόν, ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα, τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι" (Herodotus, 8.144.2). That is: "..and then Hellenism, a world with the same blood flowing in its veins and speaking the same language and having in common the worship centers of the gods and sacrifices and customs the same and unchanging — the betrayal of all these would be a disgrace to the Athenians". So, the first criterion is the ὅμαιμόν, the same blood, which was not mentioned by Cartledge, misrepresenting in this essence Herodotus. Moreover, this expression of the common Greek identity in the 5th century in Herodotus history does not come only by the Athenians - as R. Beaton probably would think, judging from his reaction - but also from the periphery of the Greek world, specifically from the kingdom of Macedonia. For it is the King of Macedonians, Alexander I, the one who, despite the fact he was forced to join the Persians in their campaign to the south - as other Greek people did, including the Ionians of the Minor Asia - just before the battle of Platea, according to Herodotus, he approached secretly the Greek camp, revealing crucial information about the Persian army to the Greeks. And he justified his risky choice, by saying: "«οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἔλεγον, εἰ μὴ μεγάλως ἐκηδόμην συναπάσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος. αὐτός τε γαρ Ἕλλην γένος εἲμι τωρχαῖον, και ἀντ’ ἐλευθέρης δεδουλωμένην ουκ ἄν ἐθέλοιμι ὁρᾶν τήν Ἑλλάδα" (Herodotus, 10.45, 1-2). That is: "Because I wouldn't speak, if I didn't have great concern for the whole of Greece. Because I am too Greek to my deepest roots (origins) and I would not like to see Greece enslaved instead of free". Herodotus of course is very clear when he writes about the Greek origins of the Macedonians also in other parts of his history. It is sad that the only comment R. Beaton makes in his book about the total Greek reaction for the name issue of the so called "North Macedonia" and the so called "Macedonians" - who will always remain for us pseudo-Macedonians, as Slavs of Bulgarian origin, be sure for that - as it was expressed in demonstrations, articles, books e.t.c. in Greece back in the 90's and again 3 years ago, is that "Demosthenes would have another opinion"! As a Greek and Macedonian who has studied history and archaeology in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki - in the heart of the one and only, original, historical Macedonia in Northern Greece - it is very easy for me to write dozens of arguments about this historical issue that in the West usually it is not treated with an honorable, scientifically correct way. Greek AND Macedonian...."Ἕλληνες γάρ καί Μακεδόνες οἱ αὐτοί", "The Greeks and the Macedonians are the same thing" writes the byzantine chronicler George Syncellus in his "Ekloge chronographias" at the early 9th century. So, whether modern Anglo-Saxon historians and scholars like it or not, first of all, the common Greek identity was also a matter of common blood, common origins back in the 5th century B.C. and it remained also this way in some extent in later ages. Secondly, yes, the periphery of the Greek world, Macedonians, Aetolians, Molossoi, Cypriots were as Greek as the beloved in the West Athenians and Spartans. In fact Herodotus writes that the Macedonians were close relatives to the Dorians...Last but not least, in later ages, in medieval Greek-orthodox Byzantine Empire, when the ruling group was Greek speaking people, who, apart from people of ancient Greek origins included also hellenised and of mixed origins people, a very significant criterion was also common memory with roots to the Greek past, and yes, the use of the term "Γραικός" and "Έλλην" beside the "Ρωμαίοι" especially from the 12th century and on. But for this, I would need a second comment.

[Reason-VS-madness]

One question . why when greeks sing it sounds eastern? micro tonality wes present in greek music from the classical era

[soik]

Interesting perspective. I will buy the book. Certainly seems an interesting read. As far as the language is concerned, it is clear that the language in the Eastern part of the Roman empire was Greek at some point, however at the end of the Ottoman empire the Greek language was spoken in an area which was almost identical to the area in which Greek was spoken just prior to the Hellenistic era. That is, around the Aegean, mainland Greece and Western Anatolia, Cyprus, and some pockets around the black Sea region. In other areas, the Greek language had largely been replaced by Latin, Turkish, Slavic, and Arab languages. Is this a paradoxical coincidence, or was there an underlying sense of identity which allowed the people around the Aegean to clinge on the Greek language a little bit more? Wasn't there some sort of revived form of Greek nationalism during the Paleologi dynasty, among others because the Byzantine Empire lost a lot of territory and the people remaining could perhaps claim a stronger link to the ancients? Or is this perspective totally off?

[nicka.papanikolaou]

Regarding the Macedonians, the Persians revealed their identity a fact that some historians tend to forget. I don' t know if this is for political or other reasons. The Persians called the Macedonians "Yauna Takabara", i.e. Greeks wearing a broad-brimmed hat (in ancient Farsi), which refers to the distincy Macedonian hat, the kafsia. Prof. Beaton in his new book states that the Greek nation is 200 years old. Perhaps he conflates nation with state? Go tell this to my uneducated grandftaher who could read Xenophon without any schooling or to my grandmother who baked pies in the ΠΥΡΟΣΤΙΑ (ΠΥΡΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΑ). Also, as far as I know, no linguist has ever looked modern Greek pronucication -and I do not mean the one spoken in Athens or in big cities, but in small villages. In my own village we still say ΟΥΚ! not ΟΧΙ. In fact we say ΟΥΚΟΥ=no Lastly, please abandon that trocious erasmina pronunciation. It's a good thing that we distinguish -but you are oblivious to- between ΠΑΙΔΑΚΙΑ and ΠΑΪΔΑΚΙΑ, if you catch my drift!...