GREECE GLOSSARY

2025-12-08

color code: = mythology; = history & culture; = geography; = archaeology & architecture

Wace

Alan John Bayard Wace (1879 - 1957) was an English archaeologist, director of the British School at Athens (1914 - 1923), professor at the University of Cambridge and at the Farouk I University in Egypt. He excavated at the sites of Sparta, Mycenae, Troy, Corinth, and Alexandria. Along with Carl Blegen he made important contributions to the decipherment of Linear B tablets.

wanax

An ancient Greek word for "(tribal) king, lord, (military) leader". It is inherited from Mycenaean Greek and is used by Homer to describe the role of Agamemnon in the Trojan War. For other Greek leaders Homer uses the term basileus. This is usually rendered as "king", just like wanax, but a better translation would be "prince" or "chieftain". When Agamemnon gives orders to the basileis they are not to be obeyed automatically. Rather, the wanax in Mycenaean Greece is expected to rule over the other basileis by consensus rather than by coercion. When Agamemnon offends this tradition, Achilles feels treated unjustly and revolts - the central theme of the Iliad.

War of Independence

On 25 March 1821, Greek revolutionaries started the uprising against the Ottoman empire, a war that lasted until 1827 and led to the formation of modern Greece. - All Greek regions, with very few exceptions, came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century. Kindled by the French Revolution of 1798 and ideas of the European Enlightenment, Greek nationalism grew and in 1814 the secret Filiki Eteria ("Friendly Society") was founded in Odessa (although their original objective was not the formation of a national state). In Europe, there was tremendous sympathy for the Greek cause, and some philhellenes like the renowned poet Lord Byron and the American physician Samuel Howe even took up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries. After the fights had begun by the Maniots in the Peloponnese, the Greeks under the leadership of Theodoros Kolokotronis captured Tripolis. The Ottoman sultan called on Egypt for assistance, and by the end of 1825 Ibrahim Pasha had brought most of the Peloponnese under Egyptian control. Now the three great powers - Russia, Britain, and France - intervened, sending their naval forces to Greece. In 1827 they destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, and Greece declared its independence with Ioannis Kapodistrias as its first head of state. In the London Protocol of 1830, France, Russia, and Great Britain recognized Greece as a fully sovereign and independent state. In the aftermath, the assasination of Kapodistrias resulted in a power vacuum so that Britain, France, and Russia stepped in and declared the new country a monarchy and placed 17 year old Prince Otto of Bavaria on the throne. - In modern Greece, the War of Independence is still fresh in the collective mind and the independence day on 25 March is celebrated by Greeks all over the world.

white-ground painting

A style of vase painting used in Greece where the figures are rendered on a white background. It appears in Attica around 500 BC. This technique allowed more artistic freedom than the black-figure or red-figure painting, but has a more fragile surface. It was therefore not suitable for vases in everyday use and mainly used for ritual and funerary ceramics.

Wooden Horse

After ten years of an unsuccessful siege of Troy, Odysseus devised the plan to build a large hollow wooden horse in which a small group of warriors could be concealed. Epaios manufactured this horse which was left on the shore when the other Greeks apparently sailed home. Despite the warnings of Kassandra and Laokoon, the Trojans pulled it into the city walls. At night the Greeks returned; their companions crept out of the horse and opened the city gates, and Troy was doomed. - The photo shows a modern tourist versiob set up at Troy.