Hellenism of Rome between Greek and Roman Culture

Modern Greeks like to emphasize their origin from the Greek classical period. A more realistic lines from the Greeks of the Hellenistic era, when the number of people identifying themselves as the Greeks were at their peak. Number remained high until the Arab conquest of the seventh century AD. This event began a series of sharp decline, in particular, those who follow the Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish conquest of conversion to Islam and adoption of other languages. In the west, the Greek population decline was from southern Italy and Sicily became part of the Italian kingdom of the Greeks and the adoption of western version of Christianity and the Italian language (although the Greek spoken in some villages up to 20 th century). Therefore, the descendants of the Greeks of the Hellenistic period can be found not only in Greece but also in Italy, Turkey, Syria, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Because of population movements inhabitants of modern Greece, not only to descend from the Greeks of the classical era, but the Greeks of the largest field of Hellenistic influence.

This seems to be confirmed by studies of genetic markers. Barbujani and Sokal “gathered genetic markers from over 3000 sites in Europe and built the surface of their distribution” (Robert, p45). Then they looked for places where it breaks. There is a border separating the north of Greece, the Greeks from Slavs. But there are no boundaries along the Ionian and Aegean seas (although there is a boundary between Sicily and Malta). In other words, there are no significant genetic differences between Greeks and Southern Italians or Greeks and Turks of Western.

This result is interesting in another way. During the German occupation of Greece during 1941-44, the Germans decided that the modern Greeks are not descendants of the ancient Greeks (the Germans allegedly admired), but also Slavs, and so they may be ill-treated, respectively. Of course Barbujani and Sokal research “ shows that any contribution to the modern Greeks do exist, they are not Slavic” (Aubrey, p22).

Although the Greek population remained high until the seventh century AD, the Jewish population began to decline from 4 th century AD, when Roman emperors began to favor Christianity. It is no coincidence that the largest Jewish population of the early Middle Ages existed in countries beyond the Roman Empire. Iran has never been part of the Empire, Iraq was disputed land between the Persians and the Romans, and Spain fell to the Vandals in the early fifth century AD. Thus, what parallels the Greeks, the modern Jews descend not only from the people of the Jewish kingdom, but also from a large Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic and early Roman times. In addition, given the large percentage of Jews that are now Greece and Turkey, some people in any of these countries should have Jewish ancestors.

There are many differences between the two cultures, in fact, so many that they can not all ...