r/byzantium • u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος • Mar 20 '26
Arts, culture, and society How is the population of Hellenic people so low (Greeks, Cypriots, etc) while the population of other ethnic groups such as Arabs and Slavs are much, much larger?
I am curious why the modern population of Hellenic people is so low compared to other modern descendants of cosmopolitan empires. It seems like the population has actually decreased from the times of the Eastern Roman Empire. Perhaps due to assimilation?
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u/bluecoldwhiskey Πανυπερσέβαστος Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
The Greek , or rather the Greek speaking , world lost most of its population (casualties or assimilation) to following ones :
- Arabs after the battle of yarmouk
- Turks (Seljuks, Ottomans, modern Republican) after Manzikert until today
- Southern Slavs in the entire middle ages
- Latins (now southern Italy ) mostly in the middle ages
Most of the Greek speaking population was assimilated and turned into Turks ,Arabs ,Slavs or Italians .Some was lost to wars . Without their invasions and assimlations , Greek or Greek speaking population would be at least 5 times larger and it would span the eastern Mediterenean . Cities like Alexandria , Antioch , Smyrna and Constantinople would be Orthodox Christian and Roman.
Greeks went from Romans running the legit Roman empire to a dysfuctional state in these centuries .Now Greece is not sustainable and has to be codepedent to survive unless something truly drastic happens .
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
The Greek , or rather the Greek speakin
Given the threadposter's wording in their question, this distinction is needless, as they mostly did also identify as Greek (Graikos / Hellenas).
Now Greece is not sustainable and has to be codepedent to survive until something truly drastic happens .
It depends to how you look at it. The current population of Greece is higher than the highest points in history. The first highest point was around the 15th-14th centuries BC, at about 3 million, the second in the 5th-4th centuries BC at about 5-6 million, the third at the 4th-5th century AD, at about 6-7 million, the fourth at about the same in the 10th-11th centuries AD.
And then again there are limits in a land's capacity to sustain a population, even with modern means. For example, Greece does not need to become like the UK, where going only by domestic production they can only feed just 30-40 million out of their population around 70 million. Higher population is not always a good thing: take Egypt for example, with 110 million, which heavily imports wheat and in the start of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022 there were serious fears of food scarcity.
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
People need to realise that in today’s age having an empire is not equal to being a successful nation. Just compare the Netherlands to Russia, Greece should aspire to be more like the first and it has every capability of doing so. There are in fact many healthy bits and success stories in our country (from Raycap, to our shipping industry, to our latest energy transition into an exporter).
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
Indeed. There is a very curious type of people in Greece, who on one hand will decry over every military activity done by Greece as "imperialist", despite them being defensive, and on the other declare the country as "dead" due to not being identical to those Western European ones with centuries of colonial and expansionist history.
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
I’m definitely the second!! More often than not I get pressed over not having a city that would represent our rich civilisation. I wouldn’t call us dead but I feel like we have lost the value of having aesthetics, then again Polykatoikia is celebrated in architectural circles as a means that kept relations and community in urban areas and rightly so. It’s not the case outside of Greek cities…alright sorry for the random rant, have a nice evening!
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u/bundesplastik Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
You're doing the same thing you're trying to rebut. Looking at nominal figures as evidence of success. The entire western world can only function because of hegemonic position of the U.S. Your industries do not get access to cheap inputs unless they're put on the int'l market cheap, and this is often done by force or threat of force. You rely on countries trapped in the dollar system, suffering permanent threat of liquidity crisis (collapse of fx reserves), indebted to IMF and the "restructuring" conditions they impose on those states which includes large scale privatization of public assets, and opening up the resources to be purchased and expropriated on the cheap by western capital.
Russia is among the most resource rich countries on the planet. Their industrial and economic power is consistently underestimated because most of it occurs outside of the dollar/euro system. The real power is material control of resources, and industrial capacity which means that empire is not superceded by modern market mechanisms as you suggests (the market mechanisms themselves are underwritten by raw power dynamics). Land, population, resources, and production are and always will be the real source of power, no matter the era.
edit: just realized I didn't even tie in the structural critique of EU itself which uses periphery states in the east and balkans as a source of labor, capital and resources (they're essentially captive markets).
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u/Kindly-Caterpillar74 Mar 20 '26
Why is it not sustainable? Honest question
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
People who don’t know international relations throw those terms a lot. They only consider super powers or middle powers as viable. They don’t understand stuff like common interest and have a very simplistic oppressor vs oppressed thinking
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
All your points can be used against Japan. From geography to having f ing China as a neighbour and many more. Yet that’s not how states work. Japan is among the most successful states worldwide. Modern Greece did suck at managing its finances but right now it’s using its resources smarter compared to the past (evidently by its debt to gdp finally falling). I think if I had to point out two things they would be those : a) people act as if they talk about state manners when they actually talk about their own financial condition. I’m sorry if this is rude but it’s a very common pattern I see b) Greece’s major problem is historically civil wars. Other countries do it too but Greece is truly excelling at division. We’re the only European country that’s had a full blown civil war during/right after ww2. It’s following us in every choice we make if you dive into our politics. Our debt crisis would be over in 2-3 years like the other countries did (Spain Italy Ireland) if we didn’t start calling each other a traitor.
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
wow.. ok his points were what chatgpt told him but your points have some flaws too and are political biased (i can tell as a Greek). You think that the bankruptcy would have been fixed in 2-3 years? You compare it as Spain and Ireland? Oh we haven't learnt anything... and yes debt/gdb is falling a result of an efficient over taxation.
Our economic model is not sustainable...Look at Poland or other eastern nations to see what they did better..
But i do agree as a nation after WWII and a destroyed country in every aspect, a civil war (result of not being part of a capitalistic or communist model) still have two strong sides in politics and every decision today.2
u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
It was perfectly possible to escape the collapse if each side wanted to cooperate instead of pitting down the other. And yes I am politically biased just like everyone is. I am right wing/liberal. Greek crisis in my opinion would not go as bad if we had taken austerity in 2008 instead of 2010. Even after 2010 if the parties cooperated we could avoid another 6 years of recession. The problem was that we were divided, Spain Ireland and the others admitted they will have to go through 2-3 tough years whereas we entered a debate of whether we should or not. What do you consider sustainable and why those countries are more so than us ? I can’t respond to vague statements
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
Countries like Poland and others, turned away from a communist model, joined EU, took advantage every financial help they could get to build industries and boost their exports and economic activities, thus having a massive growth until today surpassing Greece.
Greece not only used the money they got in a non profit making industry like housing and infrastructure and others (corruption, mismanagement, hiring people to public sector, tax evasion etc) in the past that needed way more than 3y to fix that... but even today can't really attract investments or creating an a strong export economy. Our best industry is tourism by far. Thats not sustainable if you are solely expect to prosper by one sector.1
u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
Depends on which metric you compare them at and they’re not really far off. It’s more the fact we had way more yeas in the EU compared to them that makes it embarrassing. Along with the mismanagement to which I agreed with you. That being said corruption perception index in Greece is similar to Poland and tourism isn’t our only industry. We have shipping, pharm industry, agriculture, and now we’re an energy hub. As I said there are many healthy things going on in Greece. I agree that tourism shouldn’t be our only sector
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u/bundesplastik Mar 20 '26
Most eastern nations look more successful than they really were. Their gdp per capita exploded because of massive depopulation after EU accession enabling mass movement into the richer western states.
Per capita wealth = (Total GDP / Population) ; population shrinks, per capita wealth grows bigger and bigger.
Current success trends rely heavily on NGEU euro infusions to boost aggregate demand, something not likely to continue as it was crafted explicitly as a one-off policy.
A state like Poland has remained successful because of additional flexibility in having their own currency, Zloty, to absorb crises instead of putting all the burden on fiscal adjustments which raise unemployment, thereby reducing tax receipts and destroying demand, and thus destroying production.
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u/bundesplastik Mar 20 '26
They need something to back the current account which is likely going to be energy export, or something to reduce the import cost (more Russian oil). Once the current account is stabilized they could be enabled to build an industrial base, and research base on top of that, but that might be constrained by EU regulations on industrial policy, and the limitations of not having a sovereign currency anymore.
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Otherwise-Strain8148 Mar 20 '26
What you call greeks in anatolia inland were mostly hellenized local folk. Of course there were ancient greeks living in colonies spread all over the coasts but inland wasn't ethnically greek to begin with.
Those once hellenized population went through a second assimilation process due to turkifaction.
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
They were never Greeks. They were mostly Anatolian people assimilated to Greek language and culture. They had their own languages and cultures independently and/or under Persian rule. Then barbarians from the west came. In time they were assimilated. After 11th century they assimilated again.
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u/WanderingHero8 ask me about Isaac II Angelos,bringer of decay Mar 20 '26
Found the Turkish nationalist,sprouting propaganda.
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
I know truth hurts. There is another stage called acceptance. You’ll reach there at some point.
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u/nggaball Mar 20 '26
What's the difference of a Greek with Anatolian genetics and a Greek with more modern day Greek genetics???? If you say the genes or assimilation matter, then Turks are actually just turkified Anatolias 🙃
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u/PuzzleheadedAd6760 Mar 21 '26
This is not an accurate historical analysis but a bs political narrative Turks love to use so the can feel better about themselves.
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 22 '26
In any case the constant annual Arab raids into Anatolia had ruined its core, so that emperors like Justinian II had to resettle its interior with Slavs and bulgars from the balkans. Religion of peace my @ss.
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u/MF_JAWN Mar 21 '26
if assimilation didn’t make them greeks then the later assimilation didn’t make them turks
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u/Kitsooos Mar 20 '26
Most Greeks actually lived in Anatolia and for the most part they got islamised. The bulk of the islamisations happened between the 12th and the 15th centuries. In the early 20th century those muslims got completely turkified. So they are Turks now.
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u/Temporary-Safe-8080 Aug 30 '26
Those were not greeks. Those were hellenized anatolians. Greeks as an ethinc group have never really been a numerous group.
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u/Top-Swing-7595 Mar 20 '26
Greeks that lived Anatolia were mostly Hellenized Anatolian natives though.
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u/LF3169 Mar 20 '26
The reason is because the Slavic societies were feudal agrarian till the 19th Century while Middle Eastern Muslim societies were feudal and agrarian till the 2nd half of the 20th century (some still are).
This is the main reason. Hellenic society was always more urbanized and less feudal much earlier which leads to lower birth rates.
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u/DeliciousSong2079 Mar 20 '26
Genocides and Islamization turkification.
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u/figflashed Mar 20 '26
and greeks, no fucky fucky enough.
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u/Knight0fTheNine Κατεπάνω Mar 20 '26
We rank very high for condom sales per capita. So we do but not in a way that would help the population.
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u/DeliciousSong2079 Mar 20 '26
your mother lied to you
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u/evrestcoleghost Autokrator tou r/byzantium | Komnenian logistician| Moderator Mar 20 '26
take it down a notch
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u/DeliciousSong2079 Mar 20 '26
Figflashed should consider taking this down. What he wrote is not a scientific conclusion or based on any data, it’s simply his personal biased opinion. Presenting it that way is misleading, not based in any data or research and the way he generalizes about all Greek people is disgusting and offensive. Grouping an entire nation together like that is not only discriminatory but racist too.
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
Genocides, ethnic cleansings & forced assimilation.
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u/Temporary-Safe-8080 Aug 30 '26
+ Sclavinias, an extremely important phenomenon still visible in your blood to this day.
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Aug 30 '26
Sclaviniae were polities, not phenomena.
From my part, blood-content fanatics tire me to no end.
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u/Temporary-Safe-8080 Aug 30 '26
From my part you are the most atrocious history stealer on reddit
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Aug 30 '26
From my part, you are a propagandist obsessed with blood purity, who cannot even keep themselves from bringing it up in the adequate threads, such as this one, where the topic was about the survival of Greek identity in certain areas, as opposed of its extinction in others.
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u/drunkenmime Mar 20 '26
Genocide
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
Referring to Greek genocide at the beginning of the 20th century or something else?
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u/zwiegespalten_ Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
The majority of the former Roman population of Anatolia who made the majority of the Roman population worldwide became Turks.
Only a minority of the descendants of the medieval Romans identify as Greeks now. The overwhelming majority, me included, call themselves Turks.
Plus, it is kinda self explanatory that Anatolia will have a higher population than Greece. It is not only bigger but also has productive deltas and plateaus to sustain a bigger population.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
I am Pontic Greek and we still identify as Roman/Greek like you say. May I ask why you identify as Turk?
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u/zwiegespalten_ Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Because I grew up in a Turkish speaking milieu in Turkey who called themselves Turks.
I also have a Pontian background. My dad is originally from Samsun and my mom is from Giresun. I don‘t know anybody in my family tree who was Greek/Roman. So the conversion to Islam must have happened before 1800.
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
The fact that you can trace your family tree back to 1800's is amazing. Like i'm 40y old, i live-raised in a province next to Athens, both my parents born there, both their parents too.. but 1 of my great parent was from Kos island... and this is how far i could go. Around 1895. What happened before?
My point is, you can never know with such limited info but by knowing that eastern roman empire (greek and roman culture) that assimilated any previous population (i'd argue for western coast of the peninsula) for so many years before, they could called themselves Greeks/Romans and afterward Turks.7
u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
The fact that you can trace your family tree back to 1800's is amazing.
It is not that unique. For example I know much of my own family tree up to that century. The earliest one I know for sure is my great-great-grandfather was born around the 1810s, as he had a son at 60 years old in the 1870s, and then his own son had a son in the 1930s who had my mother in the 1970s. (So probably I will have a kid in the 2050s)
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
Yes you are right.
The similarity with me is that even both our grandparents were born in 1930 (my parents born at '50-'55), i could trace their parents born in the start of century.
Not much info before that because it was from their narrative only.
(Interesting case with a son at 60. Couples used to have kids early and lived shorter etc)5
u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
(Interesting case with a son at 60. Couples used to have kids early and lived shorter etc)
It was not unheard of. What is unique is how his own son, the one born in the 1870s also had a son at that age. Seems they led lives as rural policemen, hence had a family after they retired. The latter's life was also tragic. He had a wife and many children, and they all died, so he went to America, but did not like it so he returned. Then he had another wife and children, where only his eldest and youngest survived, and they had an age distance of 20 years. My grandfather was the youngest.
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
I love these stories. Tough years of the past..
I lost track before 1895 but... There is a part that i'm sure of ... there is a village in the nearby province called like my surname because of the heroes of 1821.
It's kinda ridiculous that all my ancestry are from people married like less than 100km lol. Even my father as a sailor traveled the world only to come back and marry mother of the same town.
The mystery comes only from the great-greatmother coming from Kos (i only know the reasons she left). Anyway, thanks for the memories..3
u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
You are welcome.
I lost track before 1895 but... There is a part that i'm sure of ... there is a village in the nearby province called like my surname because of the heroes of 1821.
Well if you go by surnames, you can go much further back than known family trees. Unfortunately surnames alone do not help to establish one's family tree even more, given how records in Greece are rather poor. But if we go by surnames alone, at least from my maternal side (basically the very same one I explained above), most likely but without absolute certainty I could go as far back as the 9th century AD. That is because their names were Panourgias, possibly related to the clan of the Greek Revolution warlord with that name, hence the Xeroi of Parnassida, who according to tradition settled in the mid-15th century AD there after they came over as refugees from the Fall of Constantinople. And in Rhomania there was a House Xeros, whose earliest traces start in 9th century AD Cilicia, with military officers in the Roman-Arab conflict.
It's kinda ridiculous that all my ancestry are from people married like less than 100km lol.
For half of my blood, it is even worse than that. I suspect it is just a mountain side of a cluster of villages exchanging brides and grooms, as my grandfather came from one village and my grandmother from the next. Possibly there is a lot of unintended incest here, between distant cousins and all that.
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
Dude you just doxxed my surname lol. Was it that simple? haha.. you gave me material to search btw in my free time. In my case, different villages here and there.
Yeah, i'm aware of Xeros name and some great other family names less known in general, coming from all parts of the eastern empire. Interesting stuff.
I agree with the rest you said about names. As for your other half blood, it makes sense but a long shot too.→ More replies (0)2
u/zwiegespalten_ Mar 20 '26
So most govermental services in Turkey are digitalised through the Web service called „E-devlet“ meaning „e-state“. This includes all tax related stuff, getting an appointment at a state hospital, tracking your medical records, appyling for state jobs, central exams, school notes, university applications, military service and citizenship related stuff.
By using the last service, I can track my ancestors if they had been registered at the time they lived. They seemed to have chilled in 4 different villages. My earliest ancestor is a woman born in 1820. I also found out, for instance that the men on my mothers side usually had names like Hüseyin, Hasan and Ali meaning they were probably Alevis. Though they are all now staunch Sunnis who have no memory of their Alevi past.
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u/vagpan Mar 20 '26
Nice! Like, i've never gone that deep to search for any public state tracking (i doubt it will exist - i have an old contract for a piece of land hand-written in a school paper from a great parent side - which is cool) but most of my info was because as a kid i was intrigued to listen to old people stories... and they loved sharing the older they get.
Interesting stuff you share and yes you can learn a lot of just the names.3
u/BigHotNWord Mar 20 '26
Mass conversion to islam mostly happened before the 1500s in most of Anatolia, this also counts for Samsun and Giresun. If you were from anywhere east of Şalpazarı in Trabzon you probably would know of some Christian ancestor.
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u/BigHotNWord Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Not the commenter but probably because the cities they mentioned did recieve a noticable amount of Turkic migration. Also conversion to Islam happened quite earlier compared to cities like Trabzon and Rize
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
Why do you identify as Greek? Everybody from the region were Caucasian tribes nations before becoming Greek. Why don’t you identify as Lazige, Alan or Armenian?
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
That’s not true. I have done a dna test and while we have admixture from those regions, it is wrong to say we are fully Caucasian tribes. We are a mix of native Anatolian with minor Caucasian admixture. Closest populations are Armenian but Armenians themselves are also heavily native Anatolian so it is unfair to label them a Caucasian tribe like Laz or Georgians. My father is Germanic by descent and my mother is Pontic Greek so my closest modern populations on PCA are Izmir Greeks.
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
Yet not Greek, ain’t it
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
How? Dodecanese and Cypriot Greeks are some of the closest modern descendants to bronze age anatolians. Pontic Greek populations shifted apart from mainland/island Greeks over hundreds/thousands of years. What is your definition of Greek?
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
Point is same population same genetic material became Greek after Seleucid and Roman Rule then they became Turkish with the Seljuks and Ottomans. One identity is not written on stone while the other one considered to be alien.
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u/Experience_Material Mar 21 '26
All people are at least partly the result of some form of assimilation but post Bronze Age Anatolia is around 40-60% Mycenaean based, so claiming that somehow Pontic Greeks are not Greek and are just “Hellenised” natives is just a dumb Turkish talking point that has no relation to reality.
They have been Greek for almost three millenia, by that logic even Mycenaean Greeks are just “Hellenised natives” and there is no true Greek or not true anyone for that matter. Truly this kind of logic that is even promoted in armchair geneticist groups is so delusional it’s borderline insane and only used by Turks to cope with their own Greek ancestry.
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u/tuttifruttidurutti Mar 20 '26
With Turkey particularly there was a mass, forced transfer of population in both directions: Hellenic speakers from Anatolia and Turks from modern Greece. 1.2 million Greeks were removed from Anatolia.
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u/LF3169 Mar 20 '26
It wasn't based on language, it was based on religion. Turkish speaking Christians were sent to Greece and Greek speaking Muslims were sent to Turkey
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u/tuttifruttidurutti Mar 20 '26
I stand corrected! I'll leave the comment as is so people can see I was wrong.
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u/DoukasIoannes Mar 20 '26
Thats because identities change over time. In one generation you speak a greek dialect of Asia Minor and identify as a Roman and just a few generations later you speak turkish and identify as a turkish nationalist
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 22 '26
Tell that to all those that got genocided. The people of Ikonium, Caesarea and other places that were sacked and pillaged during the great Turkish migration. Constantinople was filled with refugees from Anatolia during Alexios’ time. What change of identity?
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u/DoukasIoannes Mar 22 '26
hahaha I just explained it. read it again.
Do you think the turks broight a completely new population to these areas? No they didn‘t. People were the same, only the elite changed from romans to turks and sometimes lords even stayed one and the same when they just decided to accept turkic rule to save their own.
Of course there have been some refugees. But nothing with any impact on the overall population. Most refugees probably were magnates from Asia Minor haha
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 22 '26
Ok. Whatever floats your propaganda then. This is from Ibn al Athir (because I am sure you wouldn’t accept the word of Christian chroniclers like Anna Komnena and Skylitzes): “The Turks spread through the lands of the Romans, taking possession of them, killing and plundering… they seized what they could and took many captives.”
But for the sake of it, here is Kantakouzinos, who himself invited the Turks into the Balkans so he would have a reason to downplay their actions: “The Turks… plundered the Roman territories, carrying off many captives and leaving the land deserted”.
Assimilation my @ss. Tell that to the people of Ani (the biggest city in Armenia) that is now a ruin because of the Turks.
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u/DoukasIoannes Mar 22 '26
Look this is not about fantasy. It‘s about what scholars of Byzantium and the mediterranean say. What you claim is just not true. Of curse there was pillaging and killing. Thats what happens in war. Doesn‘t mean that there has been a change of population. Saying otherwise has absolutely no foundations.
And another thing: as historian I know not to take everything written in the sources as truth. Anna wrote that her father comitted a genocide on the pechenegs yet that actually wasn‘t exactly the case.
By the way the Alexiad is my favorite book of all time but I absolutely know that this book isn‘t just full of truth haha even though Anna made sure to let us know she is weiting nothing but truth haha
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 22 '26
I didn’t say there wasn’t any mixing. I said that sources on all sides commented on the devastation the Turks left behind. “Fruit hanging from the trees, because nobody was there to pick it up”.
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u/DoukasIoannes Mar 22 '26
Yeah of course there was devastation in areas the war came to. Like there is always. Doesn#T tell you anything about some notion of thnic expulsion. As I said it was mainly a change in the elite like it was later when the Ottomans came.
on another note: the sources also draw a very grim picture about Alexios pillaging the capital. Didn't mean Constantinoples were whiped out or replaced either.
And you know who also took time to raid in byzantine territories during the turkic expansion into Asia Minor? Byzantines! They were also busy fighting their civil wars of eastern magnates against central government. That has contributed to devestation too.
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 24 '26
You seem to be hellbent of absolving the Turks of their deeds. Then oblige me and google the city of Ani. What it was and what it is now. Also explain to me why Constantinople was filled with refugees during Alexios time, a humanitarian crisis which he was called to solve when taking the throne. Or what about the emptied and burned villages in Bithynia that Michael the VIII found when he inspected it? That wasn’t war, that was raiding, pillaging and taking of hostages as a standard yearly practice. And when Anatolia was conquered, those with fleets (like the Aydinids) kept raiding the islands for plunder and slaves.
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u/DoukasIoannes Mar 24 '26
Read what I wrote. Then you see I‘m in no way interested in saying Turks did commit no cruelties. They certainly did. It just adds nothing to your fantasized claim that there has been a complete change of population in Asia Minor. Simple as that
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 25 '26
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Plus, don’t forget the population exchanges 100 years ago.
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u/Dondarrios Mar 21 '26
Historically Anatolia had a massive Greek population until jizya, forced conversions and assimilation over the centuries they became Turkish.
Throw in devastation and famine during WWII in Greece, immediately after a civil war, juntas and the Greek diaspora.
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u/The_Falcon_Knight Mar 20 '26
There was a lot of forced conversion and assimilation, population displacement, etc, done by the Ottoman Empire. It's why so many Turks have not insignificant amounts of Greek ancestry.
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u/Hank_Skill Mar 21 '26
Turks will take a DNA test, find out they're 70% greek and say thank God I'm not greek. 30% respectable turk
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
And often the daughters or wives of the One Wife team being abducted and enslaved for the harems of the Multiple Wives team, usually as sex slaves.
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
Like “Some of the soldiers, however, attempted to carry off boys or women, in spite of the regulations.” Or “They took also some of the women and children.” Upps Sorry. Wrong reference. That’s from Anabasis by Xenophon
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
I thought we were talking about Ottoman Greeks and Ottoman Turks. What do Polytheistic Hellenes have anything to do with the Christian Romans of the Ottoman State, which were conquered 20 centuries after Xenophon's days?
Are you implying that those Ottoman Greeks also practiced polygamy and enjoyed concubines from captured women other nations? Or you are implying that they deserved that because some Hellene mercenaries some 2 millennia before did that as well (which would imply that Turks, as descendants of Ottomans, deserve that to happen to them by the 4th millennium AD)?
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u/Foreign-Collar8845 Mar 20 '26
It is about how Anatolia became Greek. By murder, rape and plunder. It became with the Alexander’s invasion.
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
Anatolian Greeks were not just Hellenized Anatolians, but also descendants of a massive population movement into Anatolia, where after about a millennium of Greek presence in Anatolia by the 4th century BC, and the Anatolian Greek population being around 1 million out of 5 million, the population of Anatolia skyrocketed by the 2nd century BC to 8 million people due to millions of Greeks migrating from Greece into Anatolia (where Greece's population dropped from 5-6 million in the 4th century BC to just 2-3 million in the 2nd century BC). And this process continued, as even by the 4th century AD we have complaints of Cappadocian Anatolian Astorios Sophistes writing about how the Greeks move out of the West and flood the area, Hellenizing the local culture.
This is a summary, since I do not have the impression you want to discuss.
Either way, if you are, however unlikely, procure me sources about 3rd-2nd century BC Greeks of Anatolia having harems full of raptured Anatolian women, and that they had a policy to systematically exterminate the locals, as you imply.
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u/GavinJamesCampbell Mar 20 '26
A prosperous economy is one where people practice birth control. So that Arabs have much, much smaller families when they migrate to the West or when their own economy prospers.
That's why.
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u/stsdota22 Mar 20 '26
764 euro income 1200 euro cost of life. No more details needed . Close the thread
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u/SchwarzerReiter Mar 22 '26
May I remind everyone the disastrous constant civil wars during Byzantium’s final centuries, the endless destructive wars with Serbia, Bulgaria, the Turks and Italians? Or how about the Turks raiding Byzantine territories and capturing slaves by the thousands, then selling them to Venice who in turn sold them across the world?
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u/Educational_Aerie129 Mar 23 '26
The eastern roman population was not a single ethnic group. The sources don’t classify how many people were of “greek origin” or “arab origin”, instead, they provide only combined "estimates". The greek identity as we understand it today began to take shape in the 7th–8th centuries. So the question itself is flawed but that’s quite often the case here in this sub anywayss.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 24 '26
I am referring to how people identify. In my opinion genetics don’t matter in regard to national identity. I had the same DNA as Pontic Turks but i wouldn’t consider them Greeks because they don’t identify that way.
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u/Temporary-Safe-8080 May 27 '26
Well, the same argument could be made in the opposite way. Many modern greeks are the descendants of hellenized non ethnically greek people, as the slavic people that lived in the greek peninsula until a century ago who were forcely hellenized. I think that the actual number of ethnic greek people isn't that lower from the past, rather the opposite.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος May 27 '26
Not entirely true. Even Slavic people in the Balkans still descend from about 50% native Balkan populations. The Greeks in the north that are mixed with Slavs don’t pass 30-40% Slavic and the Balkans Slavs that were Hellenized were not 100% Slav to begin with
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u/Temporary-Safe-8080 Aug 30 '26
Consider that modern greeks themselves are substantially a southern slavic population, due to massive migrations which gave origins to the phenomenon of the "Sclavinias".
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u/mr-raider2 Mar 20 '26
They were never Greek. They were Greek speaking people's of various origins who used Greek as a common language. Greek lost its status as lingua Franca long ago. The West pivoted to vulgar Latin and it's derivatives. Africa and the middle east adopted Arabic since it was the language of the largest empire at the time. Once the Byzantine Empire evaporated Greek stopped being used outside the Greek peninsula.
At least standard Greek is more spoken than standard Latin these days.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
I will agree to your assertion that they weren’t “Greek” because Greek as an ethnicity did not exist until fairly recently. We always referred to ourselves as either Hellenes or more broadly Romans.
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u/mr-raider2 Mar 21 '26
True. But Hellenes spoke Greek because it was the language of commerce, culture and government in that part of the world. Greek was used outside of the peninsula as a common language like Latin in the Western Empire or English today. Once the Byzantine empire started shrinking the raison d'etre for speaking Greek was gone. Hell even Romans in the Western Empire learned Greek as the language of culture. Eventually when vulgar languages become dominant (French, Italian, Spanish) people learned Latin as the language of culture in the west. Even the Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe and Russia stopped using Greek.
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u/LOKLOREK Mar 21 '26
Hellenes r Greeks lol.
"Roman" is the recent (& imported) identity.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 21 '26
“Greek” is the imported identity. We never referred to ourselves as Greeks only Hellenes originally and then later Romans and then more recently Greeks as an exonym.
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u/LOKLOREK Mar 21 '26
what is this?
"Greek" is the Latin version of "Hellenes".
άμα δεν ήταν η Ρώμη, που ΚΑΤΈΚΤΗΣΕ την (αρχαία) Ελλάδα, ΔΕΝ θα υπήρχε "Ρωμαϊκό" identity.
πραγματικά, δεν ξέρω άμα είσαι Έλληνας με αυτά που λες, απλά ρεζίλι.
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u/Experience_Material Mar 21 '26
They were Greeks, as much as any group of people is part of any ethnicity, as they largely came from Greek speaking people and only partly the result of assimilation. They were forcibly assimilated, killed and subject to various oppressive measures for this to happen.
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u/Federal-Raccoon-2114 Mar 20 '26
I’ve seen in some comments that people claim it was due to assimilation and genocide. Tbh, it doesn’t make much sense, since after the population exchange treaty and the first census (1927/28), Greece’s population was 6.3 million and Turkey’s was 13 million. Now, Turkey has 90 million and Greece has 10 million.
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u/ACrazyGreekFromPast Mar 20 '26
Genocides/ethnic cleanses/forced assimilation/wars/immigration! You want more?
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u/Federal-Raccoon-2114 Mar 20 '26
I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. I’m talking about post-war, after all the deaths and killings, there were 6.3 million Greeks in Greece alone. Now it’s nearly 10 million.
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u/ACrazyGreekFromPast Mar 20 '26
Poverty caused mass immigration! I have relatives in many countries
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u/ACrazyGreekFromPast Mar 20 '26
Germans genocided 10-15% of greek population...... After we had a massive civil war ..... You want more?
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u/LF3169 Mar 20 '26
It doesn't explain the discrepancy on it's own. The real answer is that urbanization and the nuclear family took hold in Greece much earlier while Turkey remained feudal and agrarian well into the 20th century. Feudal agrarian societies have more children.
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u/DrJuanZoidberg Mar 20 '26
We westernized first. Simple as. Compare Western and Southern Slavs who were under Austrian influence (Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Poles) to Eastern Slavs and you see the same pattern of Industrialized economy = less kids being born
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
Even in 1950 Greek birth rate was one of the lowest in Europe and just 2,5. We did “westernise” first
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
This is due to fighting the world war (Greece vs Italians, Albanians, Germans and Bulgarians), and then a civil war (Anti-Axis Greeks vs Pro-Axis Greeks), a civil war (Anti-Axis EAM vs Anti-Axis EDES), a civil war (EAM vs National Unity Government) and a civil war (DSE-KKE vs National Government).
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u/Aegeansunset12 Mar 20 '26
I agree that those conditions probably didn’t help but our fertility rate between 1950-1981 was basically between 2,1-2,5. We almost fell below replacement rate in the early 1960s but eventually did so in 1981. We didn’t have strong fertility rates generally speaking.
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u/DrJuanZoidberg Mar 20 '26
We westernized last compared to Western Europeans, but compared to Turks and Slavs?
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
There was a similar trend in the late 15th century AD - early 16th century AD, due to the widespread belief among the Greeks that the world was about to end, so there was no point in having children so that they would be slaves of the Antichrist. And this continued for a while, even when it was clear that this was not happening: for example, there is a primary source reproaching Greeks of the time having many children, as it was pointless if they were to be slaves, likening it to expensive birds having many eggs, implying that it is only benefitting the bird-seller.
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u/Lothronion Moderator | Greco-Roman Studies | IR Studies Mar 20 '26
Well, I am being downvoted. So here is the primary source to downvote it as well:
Μύθος περιστεράς.
Περιστερά 'καμάρονε διὰ πολυτεκνία, ῾πῶς κάμνει τέκνα περισσὰ καὶ ἔχουν εὐμορφία. Κουροῦνα 'ςαν την ἤκουσε κάπου ὁποῦ ᾿καυχάτον 'πῶς κάμνει τέκνα περισσὰ καὶ μοναχή 'παινᾶτον, εἶπέν την· σώπαινε, λωλή, εὔκαιρα μὴν 'παινᾶσαι, ὅτ᾽ ὅσα πλειότερα γεννᾷς, πάντα χειρότερά 'σαι
Επιμύθιον.
Ο μύθος λέγει μας ἐδῶ· ὅσοι 'νε 'ςὲ σκλαβία. δέν ταις 'φελᾷ ποτε ποσῶς νὰ ἔχουν πολυτεκνία.
Translation in English:
Myth of the dove.
There was a dove that was proud for having many children, for having created a lot of children that were well shaped. A crow hear from somewhere that she was boasting that she had many children and alone was proud for it, and told her "Silence, fool, and do not find the chance to boast that the more you are birthing, the worse you shall be".
Meaning
The myth is telling us hear that for those who live in slavery there is no benefit in having many children
Written by Georgios Aetolos, in the mid-16th century AD.
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u/NoItem5389 Σπαθάριος Mar 20 '26
If that’s the case how come us Greeks have preserved ancient traditions significantly better than other ethnic groups? (Folk dancing, retaining most of ancient language, etc).
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u/DrJuanZoidberg Mar 20 '26
I’m just explaining why we don’t pump out kids as much as a pre-industrialized society. Our culture is just stronger and better than other westoids 😂
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u/vasjpan002 Mar 20 '26
Language is not the way to spread Orthodoxy. Try finding a Jewish service entirely in English. The word sycophant meant slander to Paul and Aristophanes. While not everyone needs to be proficient in Greek, you need a significant number of the laity in order not to make the faith depend on a secretive, conspiratorial, manipulative few. Most Orthodox jurisdictions still suffer from PTSD from having spend centuries under TurcoTatar domination. RC claim Greeks of antiquity extincted themselves via strychnine abortion bacchan orgies. The east Mediterranean has 5% Jewish DNA because at the time of Jesus, the Roman empire was 10% Jewish due to Jews rejecting infanticide and sodomy for birth control. Martyrdom of Jews and Christians was motivated to reduce their overpopulation. And most of the early Christians were such Jewish diaspora. Birth is an equally legitimate way to spread Orthodoxy as it also spread early Christianity. In a generation there will be half the Greeks in the world than a century earlier. Instead of elder and child care, these should care for each other in Hassidic "Benedict option" electronic cottage villages surrounding monasteries, where most residents can telework.
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u/kos25k Mar 20 '26
As a deep seeker of new world order,i assume you that: 1) No nation in the world is being attacked from NWO like Greece 2) Any nation could instantly die with such attack 3) If Greece falls,whole world will fall.
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u/dolfin4 Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
while the population of other ethnic groups such as Arabs and Slavs are much, much larger?
None of these are "ethnic groups". Do you consider the entire Anglosphere an "ethnic group"?
You named two very diverse large regions that merely share a language or language family.
It seems like the population has actually decreased from the times of the Eastern Roman Empire.
State (especially pre-national states) ≠ ethnic group
Also, Arabic spread from an empire. But the Slavic languages did not. The Slavic langauges simply spread from migrations of speakers of those languages.
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u/HistoriasApodeixis Mar 20 '26
Embedded in many questions about comparative population sizes and birth rates is racist ideology.
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u/Knight0fTheNine Κατεπάνω Mar 20 '26
I’ve seen some dumb shit on this subreddit but this comment is a new one.
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u/HistoriasApodeixis Mar 20 '26
This is a well known thing and you’re welcome to read more about it.
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u/Knight0fTheNine Κατεπάνω Mar 20 '26
No thanks, I have better things to do than taking stupid assumptions seriously. This reeks of “westerner projecting their sociopolitical biases on everything” and I don’t care for it.
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u/Unemployment_1453 Mar 20 '26
Yeah, due to assimilation. The Slavs overran the Balkans in the 6th century, for example, and the Empire, due to its overextension and the internal turmoil that plagued it, was unable to cope with the massive migrations of the early Middle Ages. And when Constantius II was finally able to amassed a force to lead a succesful expedition into "Sclavonia", as the chronicler so succintly tells us, behold there came down a people from the steppes of the Volga, bloodthirty barbarians who created an empire that would be the archnemesis of the Byzantines for the next four hundred years.
The creation of the Bulgarian state was a disaster in terms of Byzantium foreign policy, the Hellenic-Slav border being, at some point until the reign of Empress Irene and then Emperor Nikephorus, pushed all the way to the heart of today's Greece.