Known almost down to our own day by
their historical name of Romans, they have now fallen back on the name
of Hellenes. And to that name they have a perfectly good claim. If the
modern Greeks are not all true Hellenes, they are an aggregate of
adopted Hellenes gathered round and assimilated to a true Hellenic
kernel. Here we see the oldest recorded inhabitants of a large part of
the land abiding, and abiding in a very different case from the remnants
of the Celt and the Iberian in Western Europe. The Greeks are no
survival of a nation; they are a true and living nation, a nation whose
importance is quite out of its proportion to its extent in mere numbers.
They still abide, the predominant race in their own ancient and again
independent land, the predominant race in those provinces of the
continental Turkish dominion which formed part of their ancient land,
the predominant race through all the shores and islands of the AEgaean and
of part of the Euxine also. In near neighborhood to the Greeks still
live another race of equal antiquity, the Skipetar or Albanians.
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