Hellenization

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Hellenization

Hellenization (or Hellenisation) is a term used to describe the spread of Greek culture. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization

Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
during the Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia....
following the campaigns of Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
of Macedon

Macedon

Macedon or Macedonia was the name of a monarchy centred in the northernmost part of ancient Greece. The homeland of the ancient Macedonians, it was bordered by the kingdom of Epirus to the west and the region of Thrace to the east....
. The result of Hellenization, elements of Greek origin combined in various forms and degrees with local elements, is known as Hellenism

Hellenism

Hellenism may refer to:*Hellenism , an esthetic movement in 18th and 19th century England and Germany*Hellenism , the academic study of ancient Greece ...
.

term is used in a number of other ancient historical contexts, starting with the Hellenization of the earliest inhabitants of Greece such as the Pelasgians

Pelasgians

The name Pelasgians was used by some Ancient Greece writers to refer to populations that preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably autochthonous people in the Greek world." During the Classical Greece enclaves under that name resided in several locations of mainland Greece, Crete and other regi...
, the Leleges

Leleges

The Leleges were one of the aboriginal peoples of southwest Anatolia , who were already there when the Indo-European Greeks emerged. The Leleges were overcome by the Carians, according to the earliest Greek historians, who suggested connections of the Leleges in mainland Greece as well....
, the Lemnians

Lemnian language

The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia....
, the Eteocypriot

Eteocypriot

Eteocypriot was a pre-Indo-European language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. The name means "true" or "original Cyprian" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholarship to mean the pre-Indo-European languages of those places....
s in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
, Eteocretans and Minoans in Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
(prior to Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
), as well as the Sicels

Sicels

The Sicels were one of the three main tribes who, before the arrival of Colonies in antiquity, inhabited Sicily, according to the traditional ethnic division of Thucydides ....
, Elymians

Elymians

The Elymians were an ancient people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity....
, Sicani

Sicani

The Sicani or Sicanians were one of three Ancient Italic people of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization....
in Sicily and the Oenotrians

Oenotrians

The Oenotrians, were an Ancient Italic peoples who settled a territory of remarkably large dimensions, including the region of Apulia, Basilicata and the northern part of the region of Calabria in southern Italy....
, Brutii, Lucani

Lucani (ancient people)

The Lucani were an ancient people of Italy who spoke an Oscan language, a member of the Italic languages....
, Messapii

Messapii

The Messapii were an ancient tribe that inhabited, in historical times, the south-eastern peninsula or "heel" of Italy , known variously in ancient times as Calabria, Messapia and Iapygia....
and many others in territories constituting Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia is the name of the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies by Greek settlers in the eighth century BC, who brought with them the lasting imprint of their Hellenic civilization....
.

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Encyclopedia

Hellenization (or Hellenisation) is a term used to describe the spread of Greek culture. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization

Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
during the Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

Alexander the Great

Macedon

Hellenism

Hellenism may refer to:*Hellenism , an esthetic movement in 18th and 19th century England and Germany*Hellenism , the academic study of ancient Greece ...
.

Historic usage

Classical period

The term is used in a number of other ancient historical contexts, starting with the Hellenization of the earliest inhabitants of Greece such as the Pelasgians

Pelasgians

Leleges

Lemnian language

Eteocypriot

Cyprus

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
(prior to Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Sicels

The Sicels were one of the three main tribes who, before the arrival of Colonies in antiquity, inhabited Sicily, according to the traditional ethnic division of Thucydides ....
, Elymians

Elymians

The Elymians were an ancient people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity....
, Sicani

Sicani

The Sicani or Sicanians were one of three Ancient Italic people of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization....
in Sicily and the Oenotrians

Oenotrians

Lucani (ancient people)

The Lucani were an ancient people of Italy who spoke an Oscan language, a member of the Italic languages....
, Messapii

Messapii

Magna Graecia

Hellenistic period

During the Hellenistic period, following the death of Alexander the Great, considerable numbers of Assyrians

Assyrians

Assyrians or Assyrian people may refer to :*the Ancient Assyrians*the modern Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peopleSee also*Assyrian ...
, Jews, Egyptians

Egyptians

Egyptians is the name of the nationality and Mediterranean North African ethnic group native to Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to the Geography of Egypt, dominated by the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the Cataracts of the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea and enclosed by desert both to the Easte...
, Persians, Parthia

Parthia

Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the 'Parthian Empire'....
ns, Armenians

Armenians

The Armenians are a nation and ethnic group originating in the Caucasus and in the Armenian Highlands. A large concentration of them has remained there, especially in Armenia, but many of them are also scattered elsewhere throughout the world ....
and a number of other ethnic groups along the Middle East

Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
and Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
were Hellenized. The Bactrians

Bactrians

The Bactrians were an Indo-European people originally of Bactria, situated in what is now Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.Several important trade routes from India and China passed through Bactria and, as early as the Bronze Age, this had allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth by the mostly nomadic population....
, an Iranian ethnic group who lived in Bactria

Bactria

Bactria is a historical region of Greater Iran. Known by the ancient Greeks as "Bactriana" the region is located between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya ; in later times, the region became known as Tokharistan. The name of the region has survived to present time in the name of Afghan province "Balkh"....
(northern Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
), were hellenized during the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BCE....
, and soon after various tribes in northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent is a large section of the Asian continent consisting of the land lying substantially on the Indian Plate. The subcontinent includes parts of various countries in South Asia, including those on the continental crust , an Island#Continental islands country on the continental shelf , and an Island#Oceanic islands countr...
(modern Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
) during the Indo-Greek Kingdom

Indo-Greek Kingdom

The Indo-Greek Kingdom covered various parts of the northwest and northern Indian subcontinent during the last two centuries BC, and was ruled by more than 30 Hellenistic civilization kings, often in conflict with each other....
. There also was hellenization of Thracians

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European peoples who spoke the Thracian language - a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family....
, Dardanians, Paionians and Illyrians

Illyrians

Illyrians has come to refer to a broad, ill-defined "Indo-European languages" group of peoples who inhabited the western Balkans and even possibly Messapia in Southern Italy ....
. south of the Jirecek Line

Jirecek Line

The Jirecek Line is an imaginary line through the ancient Balkans that divided the influences of the Latin and Greek language languages until the 4th century....
.

Of course, Hellenization during the Hellenistic period had its limitations. Case in point, areas of southern Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
that were affected by Greek culture mostly entailed Seleucid urban centers where Greek was commonly spoken. The countryside, on the other hand, was largely unaffected since most of its inhabitants spoke Syriac and continued to maintain their native traditions. Moreover, Hellenization did not necessarily involve assimilation of non-Greek ethnic groups since Hellenistic Greeks in regions such as Asia Minor were conscious of their ancestral lineages.

Middle Ages

Hellenization can also refer to the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
and Constantine's

Constantine I

Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus , commonly known in English_language as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or Saint Constantine , was Roman Emperor from 306, and the undisputed holder of that office from 324 until his death in 337....
founding of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
. Moreover, it can refer to the primacy of Greek culture and the Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
after the reign of Emperor Heraclius

Heraclius

Flavius Heraclius was a Byzantine Emperor, who ruled the Byzantine Empire for over thirty years, from October 5, 610 to February 11, 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his Heraclius the Elder, the viceregal Exarchate of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas....
in the 7th century.

Ottoman rule

Hellenization is also the result of the higher status which the Greek culture and the Greek Orthodox Church has enjoyed among the Christian Orthodox population of the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is the historical name of a geographic subregion of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia....
during the Ottoman

Ottoman

A term used to refer to the citizens of the Ottoman Empire after 1839, when the Tanzimat edict starting a period of reforms was declared . The term was started to be used more commonly especially after the empire officially became a constitutional monarchy in 1876....
rule.

Modern usage

A disputed modern use is in connection with policies pursuing 'cultural harmonization and education of the linguistic minorities resident within the modern Greek state' (the Hellenic Republic), i.e. the Hellenization of minority groups in modern Greece.