• @[email protected]
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    fedilink
    61 year ago

    Another possibility people here aren’t mentioning: many countries are new.

    For example, Greece. There’s talk about “Ancient Greece”, “Hellenistic Greece”, “Classical Greece”, etc. But, in 227 BC Sparta invaded Achaea. In the 6th century BC, Ionia was “Greek” but is on what is now part of Turkey. In the 1200s there was the Principality of Achaea, the Dutchy of Athens, the Kingdom of Thessalonica (under Constantinople) and Negroponte, Rhodes, Crete, etc. which were under Venice.

    The idea that there are a group of people who consider themselves part of a whole that includes Athens, Rhodes and Kavala but not Constantinople or Izmit (Nicomedia) is pretty new. Since the name “Greece” is older than the modern idea of “Greece”, it’s no surprise that there’s a mismatch in the names.