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Japheth son of the Biblical Patriarch Noah

 

Also Diphath. Literal meanings are opened, enlarged, fair or light (father of the Caucasoid/Indo-Europoid, Indo-European, Indo-Germanic, or Indo-Aryan races - Japhethites). Japheth is the progenitor of seven sons:

 

Javan "miry" (sons were Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim) - also Jevanim, Iewanim, Iawan, Iawon, Iamanu, Iones, Ionians, Ellas, Ellines, El-li-ness, Hellas, Hellenes, Yavan, Yavanas, Yawan, Yuban, Yauna, Uinivu, Xuthus (Grecians, Greeks, Elysians, Spartans, Dorians, Britons, Aeolians, Achaeans, Myceneans, Macedonians, Carthaginians, Cyprians, Cretans, Basques, Latins, Venetians, Sicanians, Italics, Romans, Valentians, Sicilians, Italians, Spaniards, Portugese, other related groups); 

 

The Aryans first come into historical view about a thousand years before Christ, invading India and threatening Babylonia. Historians of old reference an Aryan chief called Cyaxeres, king of the Medes and Persians. The Medes and Persians seem to have been tribes of one nation, more or less united under the rule of Cyaxeres. Elam (son of Shem) is the ancient name for Persia. Elamites are synonymous with Persians. The Persians are thus descended from both Elam, the son of Shem, and from Madai, the son of Japheth. The Medes and Persians had settled in what is now modern Persia, the Medes in the north, the Persians in the south. The most notable Persians of today are the Iranians. Interestingly, the word Iran is a derivative of Aryan. The Medo-Persian people groups are divided into hundreds of clans, some sedentary and others nomadic. All speak Indo-European languages, and some groups have pronounced Mongoloid physical characteristics and cultural traits, derived from Mongolian invasions and subsequent cultural integration. An example today would be the Uzbeks of Uzbekistan, and remnant groups living in Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia.

 

About 600 BCE, the Greek cities of Ionia were the intellectual and cultural leaders of Greece and the number one sea-traders of the Mediterranean. Miletus, the southernmost Ionian city, was the wealthiest of Greek cities and the main focus of the “Ionian awakening”, a name for the initial phase of classical Greek civilization, coincidental with the birth of Greek philosophy.

 

The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Anatolia,Southern Italy, and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.  Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people have always been centered around the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, andConstantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople at various periods.

 

Most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor. Other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church.  

 

Aristotle notes that the Hellenes were related with Grai/Greeks (Meteorologica I.xiv) a native name of a Dorian tribe in Epirus which was used by the Illyrians. He also claims that the great deluge must have occurred in the region around Dodona, where the Selloi dwelt. However, according to the Greek tradition it is more possible that the homeland of the Greeks was originally in central Greece. A modern theory derives the name Greek (Latin Graeci) from Graikos, "inhabitant of Graia/Graea," a town on the coast of Boeotia. Greek colonists from Graia helped to foundCumae (900 BC) in Italy, where they were called Graeces. When the Romans encountered them they used this name for the colonists and then for all Greeks (Graeci.) The word γραῖα graia "old woman" comes from the PIE root *ǵerh2-/*ǵreh2-, "to grow old" via Proto-Greek *gera-/grau-iu; the same root later gave γέρας geras, "gift of honour" in Mycenean Greek. The Germanic languages borrowed the word Greeks with an initial "k" sound which probably was their initial sound closest to the Latin "g" at the time (Goth. Kreks). The area out of ancient Attica including Boeotia was called Graïke and is connected with the older deluge ofOgyges, the mythological ruler of Boeotia. The region was originally occupied by the Minyans who were autochthonous or Proto-Greekspeaking people. In ancient Greek the name Ogygios came to mean "from earliest days".

 

Greeks have greatly influenced and contributed to culture, arts, exploration, literature, philosophy, politics, architecture,music, mathematics, science and technology, business, cuisine, and sports, both historically and contemporarily.

 

In ancient times, the trading and colonizing activities of the Greek tribes and city states spread the Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, especially in Sicily and southern Italy (also known as Magna Grecia), Spain, the south of France and the Black sea coasts. Under Alexander the Great's empire and successor states, Greek and Hellenizing ruling classes were established in the Middle East,India and in Egypt. The Hellenistic period is characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization that established Greek cities and kingdoms inAsia and Africa. Under the Roman Empire, easier movement of people spread Greeks across the Empire and in the eastern territories, Greek became the lingua franca rather than Latin. The modern-day Griko community of southern Italy, numbering about 60,000, may represent a living remnant of the ancient Greek populations of Italy.

 

The traditional Greek homelands have been the Greek peninsula and the Aegean Sea, the Southern Italy (Magna Graecia), the Black Sea, the Ionian coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of Cyprus and Sicily. In Plato's Phaidon, Socrates remarks, "we (Greeks) live around a sea like frogs around a pond" when describing to his friends the Greek cities of the Aegean.

 

Who are we? How can we be happy? Does the universe have a purpose? Greek philosophers approached the big questions of life sometimes in a genuine scientific way, sometimes in mystic ways, but always in an imaginative fashion. Pythagorasconsidered a charlatan for claiming the doctrine of reincarnation, a half-naked Socrates haranguing people in the street with provocative and unanswerable questions, Aristotle tutoring great generals: these are examples of how Greek thinkers dared to question traditional conventions and to challenge the prejudices of their age, sometimes putting their own lives at stake. Greek Philosophy as an independent cultural genre began around 600 BCE, and its insights still persist to our times.

 

Pythagoras is considered one of the Ionian thinkers but outside the Milesian school: he was originally from Samos, an offshore Ionian settlement. His approach combines science with religious beliefs, something that would have caused horror among the Milesian school. His philosophy has a dose of mysticism, probably an influence of the Orphic tradition. Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive arguments, begins with Pythagoras: he is credited as the author of the first known mathematical formulation, the theorem which states that the square of the longest side of a right triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Deductive reasoning from general premises seems to have been a Pythagorean innovation.

 

About 500 BCE, the Greek city-states or poleis were still largely divided. They had a common language and culture, but they were very often rivals. Some years earlier, Athens implemented a socio-political innovation by which all free male citizens had equal rights regardless of their origin and fortune. They named it democracy. 

 

A polis (plural: poleis) was the typical structure of a community in the ancient Greek world. A polis consisted of an urban centre, often fortified and with a sacred centre built on a naturalacropolis or harbour, which controlled a surrounding territory (chora) of land. The term polis has, therefore, been translated as ‘city-state’ as there was typically only one city and because an individual polis was independent from other poleis in terms of political, judicial, legal, religious and social institutions and practices, each polis was in effect a state. Like a state, each polis was also involved in international affairs, both with other poleis and non-Greek states in the areas of trade, political alliances and wars. Other cultures had a similar social and political structure, notably, the Babylonians, Etruscans and Phoenicians, and the latter are believed to be the originators of the polis as a communal unit.   

 

This period, therefore, saw the beginning of the Sophist school.  The Sophists were intellectuals who taught courses in various topics, including rhetoric, a useful skill in Athens. Because they taught in return for a fee, the Sophists’ schools were only attended by those who could afford it, usually members of the aristocracy and wealthy families. This was a time of profound political and social change in Athens: democracy had replaced the old way of doing politics and many aristocrats whose interests were affected were trying to destroy the democracy; the rapid increase of wealth and culture, mainly due to foreign commerce, undermined traditional beliefs and morals. In a way, the Sophists represented the new political era in Athenian life, especially because they were linked with the new educational needs.

 

Plato and Aristotle are the two most important Greek philosophers. Their work has been the main focus of interest for students of philosophy and specialists. This is partly because, unlike most of their predecessors, what they wrote survived in an accessible form and partly because Christian thought, which was the dominant thought in the Western world during the Middle Ages and early modern age, contained a high dose of Platonic and Aristotelian influence. 

 

While Rome was expanding, Greece started to decline. The western Mediterranean was left untouched byAlexander the Great. After the first and second Punic Wars (264-241 and 218-201 BCE), Rome neutralizedCarthage and controlled Syracuse (the two leading city-states of the western Mediterranean), and continued its expansion by conquering the Macedonian monarchies during the second century BCE followed by Spain, France, and Britain. Paradoxically, despite its expansion and military superiority, Rome’s influence in the cultural life of Greece was not significant. On the contrary, the influence of Greece on Roman culture was deep and long-lasting. Roman gods were identified with the Olympian deities, Hellenic art, literature, architecture, philosophy and even the language captivated most educated Romans. Rome was superior to Greece in building roads, implementing social cohesion, creating effective systematic legal codes and military tactics. However, Roman science, art and philosophy were heavily influenced by the Greek tradition.

 

Given this Roman admiration of all things Greek it is, therefore, no wonder that one of the most important Roman philosophers, Plotinus (204-270 CE), is the founder of Neo-Platonism. Plotinus lived during a time of political disaster in Rome. Roman rulers were placed and removed at will by the army in return for favours. German tribes from the north and Persians from the east profited from this scenario: the Roman army was more concerned with domestic political struggle rather than defending the borders and their ineptitude in defence was complete. Pestilence reduced the population, unsuccessful military campaigns increased expenditure and taxes while resources diminished and the entire Roman fiscal system crashed. The world showed few signs of hope during the time of Plotinus, which could explain why the ideal and eternal world of Platonic ideas was an appealing refuge. This shift of attention from the Real World to the Other World was also adopted by pagans and Christians alike whose philosophies revolved around the idea of an eternal and heavenly afterlife. The resemblances between Platonic and Christian thought are so strong that Christian theologians used many ideas of Plotinus to build their philosophy.

 

Across the millennia, the voices of the Greek philosophers have been shaping our minds, our institutions, our leaders and our civilization as a whole. These Greek thinkers have unquestionably proved that the same problem can be approached in different ways, that common sense is not as common as we like to believe, that considering unfamiliar possibilities can enlarge our thought and that imagination and ideas can be immortal.

 

Modern Era

 

Most Greeks are Christians, belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church. During the first centuries after Jesus Christ, the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek, which remains the liturgical language of the Greek Orthodox Church, and most of the early Christians and Church Fathers were Greek-speaking. There are small groups of ethnic Greeks adhering to other Christian denominations like Greek Catholics, Greek Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and groups adhering to other religions including Romaniot and Sephardic Jews and Greek Muslims. 

 

 

Phoenicians

 

Phoenicia was an ancient Semiticthalassocratic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modernSyria and Lebanon. All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean, some colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 3200 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the murexsnail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for the spread of their alphabets, from which almost all modern phonetic alphabets are derived.

 

Although Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back Lebanon Cedars as early as the 3rd millennium BC, continuous contact only occurred in the Egyptian New Empire period. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletuswrites that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα (Latinized: khna), a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix".

 

Phoenicia is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to the region of the major Canaanite port towns, and does not correspond exactly to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by the Phoenicians themselves. The term in Greek means 'land of purple', a reference to the valuable murex-shell dye they exported. It is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity and nationality. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to ancient Greece.  However, in terms of archaeology, language, life style and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of Canaan. As Canaanites, they were unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements.

 

Each city-state was a politically independent unit. They could come into conflict and one city might be dominated by another city-state, although they would collaborate in leagues or alliances. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta (modern day Sarafand) between Sidon and Tyre is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland.

 

The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of alphabets. The Phoenician alphabet is generally held to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. They spoke Phoenician, a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup, closely related to Hebrew. However, due to the very slight differences in language, and the insufficient records of the time, whether Phoenician formed a separate and united dialect, or was merely a superficially defined part of a broader language continuum, is unclear. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks, who later transmitted it to the Romans. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians are believed to have left numerous other types of written sources, but most have not survived.

 

The Macedonians

 

The Macedonians, also known as Macedonian Slavs or Slavic Macedonians are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the region of Macedonia. They speak the Macedonian language, aSouth Slavic language. About two thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live in the Republic of Macedonia and there are also communities in a number of other countries.

 

The "origins" of Macedonians are varied and rich. In antiquity, much of central-northern Macedonia (the Vardar basin) was inhabited by Paionians who expanded from the lower Strymon basin. The Pelagonian plain was inhabited by the Pelagones, an Upper Macedonian peoples; whilst the western region (Ohrid-Prespa) was said to have been inhabited by Illyrian peoples.[During the late Classical Period, having already developed several sophisticated polis-type settlements and a thriving economy based on mining, Paeonia became a constituent province of the Argead - Macedonian kingdom.  Roman conquest brought with it a significant Romanization of the region. This Roman component would be ever-lasting.  During the Dominate period, 'barbarian' federates were at times settled on Macedonian soil; such as the Sarmatians settled by Constantine (330s AD) or the (10 year) settlement of Alaric's Goths. In contrast to 'frontier provinces', Macedonia (north and south) continued to be a flourishing Christian, Roman province in Late Antiquity and into the early Middle Ages.

 

Linguistically, the South Slavic languages from which Macedonian developed are thought to have expanded in the region during the post-Roman period, although the exact mechanisms of this linguistic expansion remains a matter of scholarly discussion. Traditional historiography has equated these changes with the commencement of raids and 'invasions' of Sclaveni and Antes from Wallachia and western Ukraine during the 6th and 7th centuries.  However, recent anthropological and archaeological perspectives have viewed the appearance of Slavs in Macedonia, and throughout the Balkans in general, as part of a broad and complex process of transformation of the cultural, political and ethno-linguistic Balkan landscape after the collapse of Roman authority. The exact details and chronology of population shifts remain to be determined. What is beyond dispute is that, in contrast to Bulgaria, northern Macedonia remained "Roman" in its cultural outlook into the 7th century, and beyond. Yet at the same time, sources attest numerous Slavic tribes in the environs of Thessaloniki and further afield, including the Berziti in Pelagonia. Apart from Slavs and late Byzantines, the settlement of Kuver's Pannonian "Bulgars"- a mix of Roman Christians, Bulgars and Avars- populated the Keramissian plain around Bitola in the late 7th century.  Later pockets of settlers included Magyars in the 9th century, Armenians in the 10th-12th centuries, Cumans in the 11th-13th centuries,[58] and Saxon miners in the 14th and 15th centuries.

 

 

Having previously been Byzantine clients, the Sklaviniae of Macedonia probably switched their allegiance to Bulgaria during the reign of Empress Irene, and was gradually incorporated into the Bulgarian Empire after the mid-9th century. Subsequently, the literary and ecclesiastical centres in Ohrid, not only became a second cultural capital of medieval Bulgaria, but soon eclipsed those in Preslav. [dubious – discuss] Many aspects which now define Macedonian culture are a culmination of the so-called "Byzantine commonwealth" which consisted of Medieval Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian Empires. Cultural, ecclesiastical and political developments of Slav Orthodox Culture occurred in Macedonia itself.

 

Anthropologically, Macedonians possess genetic lineages postulated to represent Balkan prehistoric and historic demographic processes.  Such lineages are also typically found in other South Slavs, especially Bulgarians, Serbs, Bosnians,Montenegrins, but also to the northern Greeks and Romanians.

 

In antiquity, Paeonia was the land and kingdom of the Paeonians. The exact original boundaries of Paeonia, like the early history of its inhabitants, are obscure, but it is believed that they lay in the region of Thrace. In the time of Classical Greece, Paeonia might have later included the whole Vardar (formerly Axios) river valley and the surrounding areas. It was located immediately north of ancient Macedonia (which roughly corresponds to the modern Greek region of Macedonia) and to the south-east of Dardania (roughly corresponding to modern-day Kosovo); in the east were the Thracian mountains, and in the west, theIllyrians. It was separated from Dardania by the mountains through which the Vardar river passes from the field of Scupi (modernSkopje) to the valley of Bylazora (modern Veles).

 

Paeonia roughly corresponds to the present-day Macedonia, a narrow strip along the north part of the Greek region of Macedonia, and a small part of south-western Bulgaria.