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Do Greeks called themselves aryan?

Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Ancient Mediterranean and Europe
Forum Discription: Greece, Macedon, Rome and other cultures such as Celtic and Germanic tribes
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3261
Printed Date: 24-Apr-2024 at 10:42
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Topic: Do Greeks called themselves aryan?
Posted By: magavan
Subject: Do Greeks called themselves aryan?
Date Posted: 05-May-2005 at 22:44
I just would like to know If Greeks called themselves aryans before alexander? thanks indeed



Replies:
Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 05-May-2005 at 23:02
I don't know of any incident we defined ourselves as Aryan, coments of some kind of superiority did exist but Aryan as in Hitler's view (if that is what you mean). No

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To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.


Posted By: Yiannis
Date Posted: 06-May-2005 at 03:28

If you want to know if they had (in general) notions of racial superiority then yes (Greeks vs barbarians). But they never used the term Aryan...

 



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The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics

Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin


Posted By: iskenderani
Date Posted: 06-May-2005 at 05:29
Originally posted by Yiannis

If you want to know if they had (in general) notions of racial superiority then yes (Greeks vs barbarians). But they never used the term Aryan...

 

I really dont think so Yannis .... The term barbarians was used for people that had nothing to do with the Greek civilisation . For example , the Persians were considered as barbarians , although they had a very advanced civilisation and culture.

Isk.



Posted By: Perseas
Date Posted: 06-May-2005 at 07:34
Originally posted by iskenderani

[

I really dont think so Yannis .... The term barbarians was used for people that had nothing to do with the Greek civilisation . For example , the Persians were considered as barbarians , although they had a very advanced civilisation and culture.

Isk.

Not so. There is nowadays a huge amount misinterpretation of the term "barbarian" and its meaning in ancient times in Greece.

The term refers to:
1. Non-Greeks (Ethnological meaning)
2. Uncivilized Greek tribes (Cultural meaning)

It's easy to understand who falls into the first category. Second category comprises of greek tribes like Macedonians, Boeotians etc. In this category the term barbarian is used in a disparaging cultural meaning who indicates these tribes were believed to have an inferior culture compared with the general national hellenic civilization and a little better culture compared with Non-Greeks.



Posted By: magavan
Date Posted: 06-May-2005 at 11:32
This is interesting, that's why we have to differenciate aryan from indoeuropean speakers. Aryan is religion a related to vedas and avestan and not the others indo-european civilization.


Posted By: Sharrukin
Date Posted: 09-May-2005 at 03:00
The ancient Iranian literature clearly uses the term for peoples, and even a specific region.  The Greeks never referred to themselves as Aryans, but Herodotus, interestingly enough, mentions that the ancient name of the Medes, was the Arioi, "Arians" (Book 7.62.1), and the later geographies referred to Iran as Ariana.  Thus the term was known to the Greeks but they only used it for Iranians and Iran. 


Posted By: ramin
Date Posted: 13-May-2005 at 11:31
Magavan, it's good to read smth new once in a while! read something else than you read now... to have a clear point of view toward STUFF. "Aryan" in Iran & Persian has never ever been used as a religious term. It's racial and ethnological in literature Persian.

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"I won't laugh if a philosophy halves the moon"


Posted By: Noir
Date Posted: 15-May-2005 at 11:07

On the matter of "Aryan" cultures... It is universally accepted to the linguistic/historian community (I mean the academic one, of course) that the term Aryan or Indo-aryan is linked with a certain linguistic group that refers to the Sanscrit, the Avest and the (oddly minor asian originated) Mittani language families.

I quote a formidable article from wikipedia : 

" Aryan is an English word derived from the Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan term arya, meaning "noble" or "lord". In the 19th century, the term was often used to refer to what we now call the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Aryan currently refers to the Indo-Iranian language sub-family, or to its Indian sub-branch known as Indo-Aryan.

The Aryan (Indo-Iranian) proto-language evolved into the family of Indo-Iranian languages, of which the oldest known members are Sanskrit and Avestan (and the fragmentary Mitanni language).

The term has also been used to refer to a "race", originally in the sense of a distinct population. Ancient writers such as Herodotus used it for the Iranian people. Herodotus wrote: "In ancient times, the Greeks called Iranians "Kaffe", but they were renowned as Aryans among themselves and their neighbors". In another part of his book, Herodotus writes that the Medians were known as Aryans during a certain period. So in two of the oldest surviving written documents, the race of the Iranians have been mentioned as Aryan.

19th century writers used it as name for Indo-Europeans peoples as a whole. It can also be used as an indication for the religious origin of the Hindus. To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the term is often often avoided today, and replaced by the well-defined Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian, Iranian or Indo-Aryan. "

About the barbarians, interesting is the following quote from the classic, superb and especially recommended "In Search of the Indo-Europeans"; Language, Archaeology and Myth by J.P. Mallory (1989, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London). (greek :Εκδόσεις Στάχυ,1989) :

".... The common linguistic heritage of the Indo-Europeans was only discovered in the eighteenth century and it has seldom, if ever, impinged on the behavior of the different Indo-Europeans. History provides little evidence that different Indo-European groups ever recognized their mutual kinship. If the ancient Greeks disparaged an Indian as barbaros, the Indian dug into the same linguistic legacy to dismiss his non-Aryan neighbors with precisely the same word, barbaras. ...."




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