Sparta and the Spartans - The History

[Soldier of Macedon]

Cool, I thought maybe you had some Russian or Ukrainian because of the username ending in 'vsk'.

[osiris]

tomovsk after delving a little deeper i am starting to think we actually dont know much about the past and what we do know is politically inspired and influenced

[tomovsk]

i drop the " i " because some video games back in the day wouldn't allow the full name and i've used it ever since lol.

i found a quote from thucydides concerning the population of greece prior to the hellenes :

" there is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. before the trojan war there is no indication of any common action in hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name ( hellas / hellenes ); on the contrary, before the time of hellen son of deucalion, no such name existed, but the country went by the names of different tribes, in particular of the pelasgian. it was not till hellen and his sons grew strong in phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. "

[ the landmark thucydides, page 4 , 1.3.1 - 1.3.3 ]

[tomovsk]

tomovsk after delving a little deeper i am starting to think we actually dont know much about the past and what we do know is politically inspired and influenced

i agree, what information we have of the past could have been changed for those or any other reason. it's the question that confronts the student of history at every step

[osiris]

tomovsk your quote proves my point exactly

you are quoting thucydites i wonder what the pre hellenic balkan populations perspective would have been.

tell me why do we call the ancient cannanites who inhabited what is now lebanon phoenicians a name they themselves never used

ps a belated welcome to mto

[tomovsk]

thank you osiris. from what i gather, phoenician is the name the greeks referred to them by through their supposed descent from phoenix son of agenor, who was king of sidon, and brother of europa and cadmus. this also ties into the non-hellenic origin of thebes.

there is also another quote from thucydides mentioning the exhumation and reinternment of carian graves in several areas of greece that i'll get around to posting

[Pelister]

i drop the " i " because some video games back in the day wouldn't allow the full name and i've used it ever since lol.

i found a quote from thucydides concerning the population of greece prior to the hellenes :

" there is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. before the trojan war there is no indication of any common action in hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name ( hellas / hellenes ); on the contrary, before the time of hellen son of deucalion, no such name existed, but the country went by the names of different tribes, in particular of the pelasgian. it was not till hellen and his sons grew strong in phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. "

[ the landmark thucydides, page 4 , 1.3.1 - 1.3.3 ]

Interesting read.

[osiris]

hey som remember our discussion about the meaning of the word phoenicin here is the theory i had heard of.

One interpretation of the origins of the word Phoenician is that it derives from the Greek p(h)oinix (singular) or poiniki (plural) used to describe people who lived in Canaan. Another is that it originates from a word for the colour purple or purple-red (Greek, phoinos) and consensus is that it was applied to a people who traditionally dyed their textiles in that colour [6]. The land in which they lived was Canaan, although this name really describes the whole of the Syro-Palestinian area - a larger area than the Phoenicians occupied. Nevertheless, the term Canaanites is generally applied to them, but could include non-Phoenicians. On the other hand, the second common description of them as Sidonians is too narrow for they inhabited a region larger than the city of Sidon in present-day Lebanon.

[Risto the Great]

yes, my family is macedonian on my mother's side.

Sorry tomovsk, you look too dark to be Macedonian. A little evil too.

Welcome.

[Soldier of Macedon]

i drop the " i " because some video games back in the day wouldn't allow the full name and i've used it ever since lol.

i found a quote from thucydides concerning the population of greece prior to the hellenes :

" there is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. before the trojan war there is no indication of any common action in hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name ( hellas / hellenes ); on the contrary, before the time of hellen son of deucalion, no such name existed, but the country went by the names of different tribes, in particular of the pelasgian. it was not till hellen and his sons grew strong in phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. "

[ the landmark thucydides, page 4 , 1.3.1 - 1.3.3 ]

Which means that there were no 'Hellenes' during the Trojan War, other than that small group cited by Homer, who uses 7th century BC terminology to refer to inhabitants that were alive about 5-700 years earlier. Interesting.

What is the date or year given for the birth of Hellen, son of Deucalion?

[osiris]

and there are still no hellenes in hellas to this day lol.

[Soldier of Macedon]

What are you talking about re malaka, everyone in Hellas is a Hellene, especially those that came from Turkey about 80 years ago, lol.

[thessalo-niki]

Which means that there were no 'Hellenes' during the Trojan War, other than that small group cited by Homer, who uses 7th century BC terminology to refer to inhabitants that were alive about 5-700 years earlier. Interesting.

What is the date or year given for the birth of Hellen, son of Deucalion?

For the days of classical Greece, Homeric Poems was the oldest survived literature with some reference to Hellenic unity & entity. That's what Thukididis meant.
Deukalion is the Greek "Noah" mythological figure. The cataclysm is approximately put at around 1500 BC.
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Odysseas Elytis - Our name is our soul

[Soldier of Macedon]

For the days of classical Greece, Homeric Poems was the oldest survived literature with some reference to Hellenic unity & entity. That's what Thukididis meant.

Is that what Thucydides meant? Here is what he actually says:

....before the trojan war there is no indication of any common action in hellas.......before the time of hellen son of deucalion, no such name existed.....

So it is not in reference to "Hellenic unity", it is in reference to a common action in a particular region - a region that later came to be known as 'Hellas'. That is what he meant. Homer's inaccuracy and post-fact terminology aside, to those warriors from Mycenae that fought the Trojans, the term 'Hellene' was unknown and unheard of.

Similar is the case with the Paeonian-Thracian population and their common action in a particular region - a region that later came to be known as 'Macedonia'. Everybody that took part in the battle from that region, fought on the Trojan side.

According to the ancient mythologies, what century exactly was Deucalion alive?

[Spartan]

As for the etymology of the word Sparta, I came across a theory that is not far off of what Tomvsk stated earlier in the thread -

http://books.google.ca/books?id=uK8szXLlvjoC&pg=PA86&dq=Mycenaean+Lakonia&hl=en&ei=lF82TOSkHYH98AbN16ioAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Mycenaean%20Lakonia&f=false

Ill see what else I can come up with.