Where does the history of ancient Greece begin?

Answer 1

Strictly there was no such thing as 'Ancient Greece' - it's an invented, modern category. The ancient Greeks called themselves 'Hellenes' and for them 'Hellas' was not a single country but - like 'the Arab world' today - a cultural category. It's thanks to the Romans that we speak of 'Greece'. Hellas included all Greek settlements between Phasis in Colchis (Georgia today) in the East to the 'Pillars of Heracles' (Gibraltar) in the West, about 1000 or so communities at any one time. The Greek language is first attested at Cnossos in Crete from about 1400 BC(E). Paul Cartledge (Cambridge University and New York University) has written a book called *Ancient Greece. A History of Greece in Eleven Cities* (Oxford University Press, 2009). His small but representative selection of just 11 starts with Cnossos and ends with Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul). In between come Mycenae, Argos, Miletus, Sparta, Massalia, Syracuse, Athens, Thebes and Alexandria.