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In Latin literature, Gręci (or Greeks, in English) is the name by which Hellenes are known.
Aristotle and Apollodorus first write about Graikoi, who seem to be the same people as Selloi from Epirus. The name becomes known to Latins with the colonization of Italy from Greek settlers. While Greeks call themselves Hellenes, the Romans begin to call them Gręci, the name of the specific Greek colonists.During the Roman era, and especially after Christianity became the official religion of the empire, the name Hellene came to be associated with the pre-Christian religion, and fell out of use. The Greeks, who were now citizens of the Roman Empire, called themselves Roman, or Rhomaioi.
After the fall of the West Roman Empire in 395 AD and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe the Latin term for the Greeks is used broadly. In East Roman Empire a change takes place. While in general the citizens of the Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which remained in existence after the fall of Rome in the 5th century. The Byzantine period is usually consider are called Romans, the Greeks assume the name Gręco to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Byzantines. After the SchismIn Christianity, the East-West Schism usually called the Great Schism (though this latter term sometimes refers to the Western Schism), was the event that separated Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Roman Catholicism in 1054. The two churches split along doct the name Gręco meant orthodox and LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma meant CatholicGeneral meaning Catholic means universal or whole''. With respect to the Christian Church, the early Christians used the term to refer to the whole undivided church. It is in that sense that all Christians today claim ownership of the term, including Prot. After a while the two terms assumed a national character as well.
After the independence of the modern Greek state from the Ottoman EmpireOsmanlı İmparatorluğu Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye The Ottoman Coat of Arms Imperial motto: unknown The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital İstanbul ( Constantinople) Sovereigns Sultans the term Gręco or Greek was abandoned totally by the Greeks themselves. The new country was officially named "Hellenic republic" (or Hellas) and the people "Hellenes". The rest of the world calls them Greeks nevertheless and their country GreeceGreece formally called the Hellenic Republic (in Greek: ) Hellenike Demokratia , is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. It is bounded on land by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.