GREECE, is an ancient geographical area, and a modern kingdom more or
less corresponding thereto, situated at the south-eastern extremity
of Europe and forming the most southerly portion of the Balkan Peninsula.
The modern kingdom is bounded on the N. by European Turkey and on the
E., S. and W. by the Aegean, Mediterranean and lonian seas. The name
Graecia, which was more or less vaguely given to the ancient country
by the Romans, seems not to have been employed by any native writer
before Aristotle; it was apparently derived by the Romans from the Illyrians,
who applied the name of an Epirote tribe (IpaiKo(, Graeci) to all their
southern neighbors. The names Hellas, Hellenes (EXXas, EX)u~ees), by
which the ancient Greeks called their country and their race, and which
are still employed by the modern Greeks, originally designated a small
district in Phthiotis in Thessaly and its inhabitants, who gradually
spread over the lands south of the Cambunian mountains. The name Hellenes
was not universally applied to the Greek race until the post-Homeric
epoch
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