GREECE is the fringed and island-studded southern end of the Balkan peninsula, together with the great archipelago of the Peloponnesus with which it is joined by the Isthmus of Corinth. Although much of the land is mountainous, the soil is especially good for vines and olives, but not for cereal crops. Its central mountain ranges, though not high, divide the country into many small territories or cantons, populated in ancient times by a variety of clans descended from the three invading stocks of Aeolians, lonians, and Dorians. These invasions began c 1900 BC and were completed by c 1000 BC. The 8th cent. saw the rise of city states and the founding of overseas colonies, the result of overpopulation at home. By c 500 BC the old monarchical rule of the cities had given way to aristocratic local governments, and these in turn to 'tyrannies,' which were followed by oligarchies or - as at Athens - by a democracy. The great crisis of the early 5th cent., the Persian invasions of 490 and 480 BC which were repelled by the combined forces of most of the Greek states, was followed by the rise of the Athenian sea-empire, and this by the revolt of the subjects and allies and the prolonged Peloponnesian War which ended in 404 BC. From the lasting effects of this catastrophic struggle, an ancient 'thirty years war,' Greece never recovered. Its era of greatest brilliance, the 5th cent., was over, and its chief contributions to literature and art - but not philosophy - had now been made. For the next thirty years Sparta ruled Greece with an iron hand, but the subject states again rebelled; Thebes was in the ascendant from 371 to 362 BC; but the disunity and rivalries of the Greeks only prepared for the Macedonian conquest under Philip II. in 338 BC. His son Alexander (known as the Great) succeeded him in 336 BC, and under the pretext of freeing the Ionian cities of western Asia Minor and also in order to avenge his father's assassination, he began the conquest of the Persian Empire, which ended with the invasion of Hither India in 327-325 BC. Alexander died in 323 BC, at the age of thirty-three, but his work was done. The Greek language had been carried to the borders of India, and with it Greek ideas, forms of Greek art and literature, and even certain Greek religious ideas.
The age that followed is known as the Alexandrine age, or the age of Hellenism, when Hellenistic culture spread over the whole known world, from the Rhone to the Indus. The dynasties founded by Alexander's generals, especially the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemies in Egypt, continued the work of cultural unification and penetration, so that when Rome began to interfere in the affairs of the East, about the beginning of the 2nd cent. BC, Greek was already the common language of that part of the world. When, about three centuries after Alexander, practically all his former dominions had become Roman provinces, Greek was the one language which could be used throughout the Mediterranean world and the Near East. The Roman Empire had two official languages, Latin for Italy and the provinces north, west, and south-west of it; Greek for every region east and south-east of Italy. The Romans wisely made no effort to force Latin upon the eastern peoples and were content to permit Greek to remain in undisputed sway. All Roman officials understood, spoke, and wrote it. Inscriptions, like the great Monumentum Ancyranum at Ankara, which recounted the achievements of the Emperor Augustus, were in Greek, and so were the legislative and administrative enactments affecting the eastern provinces. Thus it came about that the Christian message was proclaimed in Greek, that the NT books were all written in Greek, and that the language of the church, according to all the available evidence, remained Greek until at least the middle of the 2nd cent. AD. Even later, in Gaul (see Irenaeus's Against Heresies, c AD 185, and the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, regarding the persecution there in AD 177) Greek was still in use; while in Rome itself such a work as Hippolytus's Apostolic Tradition, AD 217, and parts of the Roman liturgy to this day, are evidence of its continued use.
After 200 BC, the history of Greece becomes more and more closely allied to that of Rome until, with the annexation of Macedonia in 148 BC and the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC, Greece itself became a Roman province (Achaia, as in Ac.18.12). Although the Greeks still continued to enjoy a measure of local autonomy, they were in reality a subject people, and found their freedom only in literature, art, and philosophy, not in political activity. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - A.So. - F.C.G.]
GREEKS, GRECIANS - Both these terms are used indifferently in AV of OT Apocrypha to designate persons of Greek extraction (1 Mac.1.10, 6.2, 8.9, 2 Mac.4.36 etc.); RSV uses 'Greeks.' In NT the linguistic usage of AV and RV make a distinction between the terms 'Greeks' and 'Grecians' (RSV does not use 'Grecians'). 'Greeks' uniformly represents the word Hellenes, which may denote persons of Greek descent in the narrowest sense (Ac.16.1, 18.4, Ro.1.14), or may be a general designation for all who are not of Jewish extraction (Jn.12.20, Ro.1.16, 10.12, Gal.3.28). 'Grecians,' on the other hand (Ac.6.1, 9.29), is AV translation of Hellenistai, which means Greek-speaking Jews (RV 'Grecian Jews'; RSV correctly 'Hellenists,' q.v.). See preceding article and DISPERSION. An interesting question is that of the correct reading of Ac.11.20. Were those to whom the men of Cyprus and Cyrene preached Hellenists, i.e. Greek-speaking Jews, or Greeks? There is strong MS evidence for 'Hellenists,' but the context, and all that has gone before in Acts, from ch. 2 onwards, favours 'Greeks.' [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963. - F.C.G.]
GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OT - See Swete's INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT IN GREEK and the parallel Greek||English text - both available on this website.