2500 years ago, no country called Greece
1000s of different communities spread across the Mediterranean
Different environment, loyalties, and ideas that set them against
each other
What linked them together and separated them from barbarians?
Herodotus: Common blood, language, shrines and rituals, and
common customs -> To Hellenikon, The Greek Thing
A sense of culture that linked peoples from Sicily, North Africa and
Asia Minor together, and to the Parthenon in the centre