> Macedonia
The name of the ancient Macedonians is derived from Macedon, who was the grandchild of Deukalion, the father of all Greeks. This we mayinfer from Hesiod's genealogy. It may be proven that Macedonians spoke Greek since Macedon, the ancestor of Macedonians, was a brother of Magnes, the ancestor of Thessalians, who spoke Greek.
All ancient historians wrote that Macedonians were part of the Greek nation, as also were Spartans, Athenians, Cretans, Corinthians, Arcadians and tens of other tribes, members of the Greek Nation. The name Macedonians come from the Greek word Makednos which means tall man.
2343 years ago Great King PHILIP THE SECOND(359-336 b.c) King of Macedonia and General Emperor of all Greece began preparations to avenge Persian invasion by setting free at first all Greek cities of Asia minor from Persian occupation, and then by attacking them in their own country. A paied by Persian money assasin killed him before making his dream come true,and his son Alexander the Great made this dream come true. By the Aegean sea in 334 B.C he utterly beat the Persian armies in the battle of Granikos and he set free all of Asia minor.
Then like a storm took Syria, Egypt, Libya, Palestine, and then Persia and all Asia until the border of India and China. After his Death, the Hellenistic Monarchies were created.
> Hellenistic Age
Hellenistic Age (4th-1st century B.C.), period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of Roman supremacy, in which Greek culture and learning were preeminent in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It is called Hellenistic (Greek Hellas that means "Greece") to distinguish it from the Hellenic culture of classical Greece.
The Hellenistic world was dominated by three great monarchies founded by the successors of Alexander: Egypt under the Ptolemies; Syria, ruled by the Seleucids; and Macedonia under the Antigonid dynasty. The urban elite in these kingdoms spoke koine (common) Greek, which became the new international language, and their religion, art, and literature were a cosmopolitan blend of Greek and native elements. Many new cities were founded, most important of which was Alexandria in Egypt.
Tremendous achievements during this period were also made in the areas of science and art: Aristarchus of Samos put forth the theory that they earth revolves around the sun and rotates daily on its own axis; in Alexandria, Euclid summed up all the geometric knowledge of his age in the form of a textbook (a work that is still referred to to this day); Archimides of Syracuse worked out many important theories in mathematics. Many advances were made in such sciences as empirical medicine, astronomy, and mathematics; it was the time of Efclides, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus of Samos and Hipparchus, Hero of Alexandria.
In the arts, sculpture became more realistic. Whereas sculptors during the classical period aimed at portraying an idealized version of human beings - typically with features portraying little emotion - Hellenistic sculptors aimed at more naturalistic depictions. Female nudes and busts of ordinary, less than perfect, people also become quite common during this period.
During this period, philosophy became accessible to a much wider audience than it had previously been. Many affluent members of the population, including women, began to study philosophy and to attend lectures of popular philosophers.
> Byzantine period
In 330 A.D, the first Christian ruler of the Roman empire, Constantine the Great, transferred the imperial capital from Rome to the ancient city of Byzantion, renaming it Constantinople. The state ruled from that city would come to be called Byzantium, although the citizens described themselves as Rhomaioi rather than Byzantines, as they considered themselves the inheritors of the ancient Roman empire.
After the collapse of the western part of the Roman Empire around 400 A.D, Greece continued to be ruled by Romans, but now from their new capital at Constantinople. The Romans weren't as strong as they had been before, so there were a lot of invasions, especially by the Slavs from the Balkans in the north, and also by pirates from the sea in the south. Greece was much poorer during this time. Also, as people became Christians, the old schools in Athens were closed, because they taught old ideas that were not Christian.
Greece continued to be ruled by Constantinopol until 1453 A.D. But during the 1100's and 1200's many Norman Crusaders took over parts of Greece and built castles there.
Then in 1453 Greece was taken over by the Turks and became part of the Ottoman Empire.
> The Ottoman Era
When Constantinople fell in 1453, the Ottoman conquest of the Orthodox Balkans was assured. By that time, most of peninsular Greece was already in Ottoman hands. The other remaining bastions of Hellenism held out for a short time longer. The kingdom of Trabzon (Trebizond), at the southeast corner of the Black Sea, fell in 1461. During the sixteenth century, the Ottomans took Rhodes and Chios (Khios) in the Dodecanese Islands, Naxos in the Cyclades, and Cyprus. In 1669 the island of Crete capitulated after a lengthy siege. Only the Ionian Islands west of the Greek Peninsula remained outside the Ottoman sultan's grip; instead, they were part of Venice's expanding empire. The Greek world would remain an integral part of the Ottoman Empire until 1821, when one small portion broke away and formed an independent state. But a significant part of the Greek population would remain Ottoman until 1922.
During the years of Ottoman domination, Greek speakers resettled over a wide area inside and outside the empire. Greeks moved in large numbers to Romania, along the coast of the Black Sea, and into all the major cities of the empire and became merchants and artisans. Over 80,000 Greek families, for example, moved into the territories of the Habsburg Empire. Thousands more settled in the cities of the Russian Empire. Commercial dealings between the Ottoman Empire and the outside world were increasingly monopolized by Greeks. Important merchant colonies were founded in Trieste, Venice, Livorno, Naples, and Marseilles. Amsterdam, Antwerp, London, Liverpool, and Paris also received sizeable Greek populations.
The diaspora communities played a vital role in the development of Greek culture during the Ottoman occupation. Greek enclaves in foreign cultures reinforced national identity while exposing their inhabitants to new intellectual currents, including the ideology of revolution. Many diaspora Greeks became wealthy then helped to support communities in Greece by founding schools and other public institutions.
> Greek Independence
In 1821, the Greeks, after nearly 400 years of slavery under the Ottomans decided to take up the arms and fight for their freedom. The 25th March 1821 marks the beginning of the Greek revolution and the 22 March 1829 the day of the creation of the modern Greek state.
Inspired by the French revolution and the heroic poems (thourios) of Rigas Feraios, the Greeks did not give up, and the secret society Philiki Eteria ("Friendly Union") was founded in 1814 in Odessa of Russia by Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanuel Xanthos and Antonios Tsakalof. Weapons and funds were collected, and help was sent from Greeks in exile as well as other countries on the Balkan and the Mediterranean sea.
The revolution started when Alexander Ypsilantis invaded Jassy and declared Greece a free country. In the Peloponnese the Archbishop of Patras Paleon Patron Germanos lead the uprising in 23 of March 1821 when he raised the Greek flag at the monastery of Aghia Lavra in Peloponese, an act that marked the beginning of the war of Independence. Fighting broke out throughout the Peloponese at first and then in the mainland and many islands as well.
The Greek army of the Peloponesse was lead by Theodoros Kolokotronis. Other famous Greek leaders of the revoloution where Georgios Karaiskakis, Athanassios Diakos, Odysseas Androutsos, Grigorios Dikaios or Papaflessas, while in the seas, Konstantinos Kanaris, Laskarina bouboulina and Andreas Miaoulis fight the Turkish fleat with their ships.
Big support came also from the Philhellenes. They were young men of classical education who saw themselves as the inheritors of a glorious civilization and were willing to fight to liberate the oppressed descendants of the ancient Greeks. Among them were Shelley, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Schiller and Lord Byron.
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