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Graecians

The Graecians (/ˈɡriːʃənz/; also Graei and Graeci; Ancient Greek: Γραῖοι, Graȋoi and Γραικοί, Graikoí), were an ancient Hellenic tribe. Their name is the origin of the Latin (and English) name of the Greeks as a whole.^[1][2]

It is possible that their name is derived from the toponym of Graea (Γραία), a city in Boeotia identical with Tanagra according to Pausanias.^[3] The word means "old" based on the adjective γραῖα "old (feminine)".^[4]

According to the historian Georg Busolt, the Graecians were among the first to colonize Italy (i.e., Magna Graecia) in the 9th century BC when they established the city of Cumae; they were the first Greeks with whom the Latins came into contact, which then made them adopt the name of Graecibysynecdoche as the name of the Hellenes.^[2] Aristotle (4th-century BC) records that during the deluge of Deucalion, the Graecians were the inhabitants of Hellas (i.e., "the country about Dodona and the Achelous [river]") who were also known as Hellenes.^[5] In the Parian Chronicle, the Hellenes were originally called Graecians and established the Panathenean Games in 1522–1521 BC.^[6]

Hesiod stated that the eponymous ancestor of the Graecians was Graecus (Γραικός), the son of Deucalion's daughter Pandora, who also had a brother, Latinus.^[7] Other sources have Graecus as the son of Thessalus.^[8]

• List of ancient Greek tribes

• Beekes, Robert (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17418-4.
• Hard, Robin (2004). The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology. London and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). ISBN 0-415-18636-6.
• Robertson, Joseph (1788). The Parian Chronicle, or The Chronicle of the Arundelian Marbles; with a Dissertation Concerning its Authenticity. London: J. Walter.
• Smith, William (1856). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: Walter and Maberly.