I love it that you ask such good questions that cause me to think. I am staying here with all of these doctoral students and professors who know so much about Greece, so I have people to ask who are experts. I learned about a historical novel that I am going to read to learn more about Alexander the Great!

What I am learning about Greek history is that we think of Greece as one country, but it really wasn’t that way most of the time. There were lots of small countries like Athens, Sparta and Macedonia that each had their own government and fought against each other for power. We call them City-States because they were really more the size of a city, but were governed like a state. The people did not think of themselves as one country like we do now of Greece. There were Athenians, Spartans, and Macedonians and they called outsiders barbarians.

So far I have not found out the origin of the word Greece. If you ask people today what they call themselves it is not Greeks, it is Eleni. The Greek word for the country is Elenica. This is a VERY old word used by Heroditus, one of the first historians, but I still have not found out what it means. So, there is more to learn. Seth, one of the doctoral students here did some research and told me that the word Greek actually does come from the Greek language, but he was unable to find out what it means. Both words Eleni and Greci were used as long ago as we can trace.

Alexander the Great, from what I am hearing so far REALLY was GREAT. He was actually from Macedonia (north of Athens and the Peloppenese. His father, Phillip (who was king of Macedonia) hired Aristotle (from Athens) to be his tutor and so he learned to appreciate Greek art and thinking. Alexander was very intelligent and learned quickly. He was also someone who people followed and so when he grew up he led armies to conquer the land all around Macedonia. He actually conquered all the way to India and down to Egypt. This is something that no one had done so far. He spread the influence of Greek thought all throughout the areas that he conquered. He died tragically at the young age of 33. People always wonder what he would have done if he had lived longer. What do you think? For the most part people here consider Alexander to have been their king and are proud of him. That is especially true of northern Greece where Macedonia is. I guess there are some southern Greeks who still think that Alexander was a barbarian attacking their land and taking over, but not too many. The great thing about a blog is that if I have got it wrong or if you have something to add you can comment. Please do!

Because of Alexander’s influence the Greek language became the language that people throughout the entire ancient world used. Even the Old Testament (or more correctly Hebrew Bible) was translated into Greek in the second century AD. Over the centuries until now Alexander the Great has become a legend and there are really fascinating stories told about him in many countries over hundreds of years. You might really enjoy reading some of the stories about him that are more like tall tales than real history.

The word for the day is skyphos. It means a shallow bowl. Here is a picture. The ancient people used them for drinking like we use cups.

Tomorrow look forward to some interesting stories about Nazis, the house we are staying in and Peeps! Oh yes, and a new archeological term.