Then, as the Roman Empire became too unwieldy and attacked by barbarians to the north, the empire was divided into two, and this division ran roughly along the lines of where Greek was spoken (a map helps here). You might remind both your children-and your Evangelical Christian friends (particularly if, like me, you live in the American South)-that this is why The New Testament was written in Greek. The Eastern part of the Roman Empire had always spoken Greek as its primary administrative language, and the Romans continued this practice. First of all, talk about how the Roman civilisation was in fact Greco-Roman civilisation, a fusion of these two high Mediterranean cultures. READ MORE: Teaching children Greek through fun, engaging stories Unless you majored in East European Studies, you might never have heard of Byzantium at all. If you went to school before Western Civilisation courses got axed out due to political correctness, you may have talked about the Ancient Greeks, and then moved West to Rome and never вЂњback EastвЂќ again, even though East Rome-Byzantium, survived for another 1000 years. Did the Portokaloses talk about Byzantium at all? We know that the yiayia hated the Turks, but do most Greek viewers know how the Turks got there, or what was there before? How often did you talk about the Byzantine Empire and its one thousand-year history in Greek school or Sunday School? Obviously, I am exaggerating for effect, but ask yourself. Never mind that one must also suspend belief to make this jump our dinner table talk, and historiography in general, seems to oblige a two-millennium fast forward. This hiatus in historiography and instruction lasts almost 1800 years, until suddenly the poems, the dances, and the rebellions began again, and this nation extinguished for about two millennia arose again, as if in suspended animation for all this time. The Parthenon, Alexander the Great, perhaps a word on the New Testament being written in Greek and the Apostle PaulвЂ™s travels in Greece, and then вЂ¦ an intermission. Gus Portokalos in Big Fat Greek Wedding made a point of talking about вЂњthe history of our people,вЂќ at the dinner table, to the neighbours, and to the вЂњluckyвЂќ future son-in-law getting baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church, whose вЂњancestors were singing in trees while Greeks were writing philosophy.вЂќДЄdd in the Greek Orthodox Church, the costumes, parades, Greek School (if you indulged in this), and you had a sort of timeline. Dinner table historical conversations are a Greek pastime. The date of 29 May, when heroic Constantinople finally fell to the Turks, always merits a discussion. We often talk about history around the table.

Greece in the byzantine empire