Greece or Hellas?

Question

Why and how did the name change for foreign use?
Grecia-Greechenland-Grece etc

Tom T's answer is excellent. Thak you.
Is it true that there is still a village in Epirus called something like Greki?

Thanks I meant.

Answer 1

"The land and the people that we call Greece and Greeks are in their own language Hellas and Hellenes.

Greek is a form of the Latin Graecus, which in various modifications (grieche, grec, greco, etc.) is used in all Western languages. Graecus is Graikos, an older name for the people. Graikos was a mythical son of Thessalos. Or, since this should rather be understood as derived inversely (the person as an eponymous myth from the race), various other derivations have been proposed.

Graikos (a form Hraikos also exists) is said to have meant originally "shaggy-haired", or "freeman", or "dweller in a valley" (W. Pape, "Worterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen", 3rd ed., Brunswick, 1870, s.v. Graikoi). The first people so called were the people of Dodona in Epirus, then the Greeks in general. After the common use of the other name, Hellene, this one still survived. It occurs occasionally in classical writers; after Alexander it became common, especially among Greeks abroad (in Alexandria, etc.). From them it was adopted into Latin. But in Greek, too, it lasts through the Middle Ages as an alternative name for the Hellenes of classical times (Stephen of Byzantium, about A.D. 400: Graikos, ho Hellen quoted by Sophocles in "Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods", New York, 1893, s.v. Graikos). Latins and other foreigners, as well as Greeks writing to such people, use it not seldom for any Greek, as "Graecus" in Latin.

The other names: Hellas and Hellene are the classical ones. Hellas was a city of Phthiotis in Thessaly. From there the name Hellene spread throughout Thessaly. Herodotus distinguishes in Thessaly "two chief people: the older Pelasgic, the other the Hellenic race", and tells how the Hellenes invaded that land under Dorus, son of Hellen--another eponymous mythical hero (I, lvi, cf. lviii). The elder Pliny applies the name further: "From the neck of the Isthmus [going north] Hellas begins, which is called by our people Graecia" ("Ab Isthmi angustiis Hellas incipit, nostris Graecia appellata. In ea prima Attice, antiquitus Acte vocata"--Nat. Hist., IV, vii). Long before the New Testament the names were used by every one in our sense of Greece and Greek. So in I Mach., viii, 9 and 18. Hellas occurs once (Acts 20:2), Hellen many times (e.g., Romans 10:12), in the New Testament. In the partitions of the Roman Empire neither Graecia nor Hellas appears.

The Peloponnesus and the land up to Thessaly formed the Province of Achaia, then came Thessalia and Epirus, then Macedonia and Thracia. But popular use kept the older name (e.g., Pausanias, VII, xvi); a Greek still called himself Hellen. As Christianity spread Hellene began to suggest pagan--a worshipper of the Hellenic gods. Eventually this evil flavour absorbed the word altogether. In the Greek Fathers it always means simply "a heathen". St. Athanasius wrote a treatise against the heathen and called it: Logos kath Hellenon, so all the others. Julian, in his hopeless attempt to revive the old gods, always uses it in this sense and makes the most of its honourable sound. But Christianity was stronger than the memory of Hellas, so from this time the name falls into discredit till quite modern times.

All through the Middle Ages Greeks called themselves Hromaioi, meaning citizens of the Roman Empire brought by Constantine to his new capital. This strange adaptation of their conquerors' name lasted till the nineteenth century. Even now peasants call themselves Hromaioi, and (except in towns and among schoolmasters) the Greek for "Do you speak Greek?" is: Homilete Hromaika; It was during the great revival of political national feeling at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the classical name began to be used again, almost as a war-cry, by the people whose imagination was full of Pericles and Socrates.

When the Morea, the islands, and part of the mainland succeeded in throwing off the Turk, the first provisional independent government naturally called its territory neither after the Turkish vilayets nor Roman province, but went back to the glorious name Hellas. And when things were settled by the London Conference, in 1832, the new kingdom was the Basileia tes Hellados, and Otto of Bavaria became (title unknown to history) ho Basileus ton Hellenon "

Answer 2

Excellent responce by Tom T.
There is 2 villages with similar name as in your Additional details.
The one is called Grekiko it is located at Arta prefecture of Hpeiros and the other Gkrika At thesprotia prefecture.

Answer 3

well Hellas is the real name of our country

Hellas (Ελλάς) = Greece and Hellenic (Ελληνικός/Έλληνας) = Greek



this is how we call our country and everything relating with it

Greece is a name given from Latins and later from westerns to us

Greece - Greek comes from the name Greacus

(check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/graecus... for more info)

but we see it as a pejorative term

We truly prefer Hellas -

Regards



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/names_of_th...

Answer 4

Hellass

Answer 5

100 pts for tom t!

Answer 6

Tom T said everything!!!

Answer 7

Graikos and Hellen are both ancestors of the "Greeks" or "Hellenes", so it is the same. Greeks call themselves either Hellenes or Graikoi.

Answer 8

hello Emilio.Hellas in greek.

Answer 9

MY COUNDRY NAME IS HELLAS NO MORE