ASPIS 2

PRIMARY SOURCES OF GREEK HISTORY AND FOLKLORE

translated into English

1. The Greek nation, is famous for the knowledge of everything. 833 A.D.

 

“After receiving a letter, Theophilus (from the leader of the Saracenians Mamum about the transfer of knowledge to them, mainly about geometry,), he considered it inappropriate to transmit this knowledge, which the Greeks are famous for, for the peoples of idolaters, and did not agree with what he was asked....................

2. The exchange of the sword of Muhammad with patrikios Nikitas! 969 A.D.

From there, he sent preachers (Nikiforos Fokas) to the leader of Carthage, as a gift he presented the sword of the murdered and incompetent Muhammad, which he took as a trophy in the fortress, which he had captured in Palestine, asking again for patrikios Nikita

3. The greatest and most venerable emperor of Romeon against the bloody nation of the Bulgarians! 965 A.D.

“Thus, while he was busy, the messengers of Bulgarians appeared before him, demanding ordinary taxes for their leader, for this reason, they were sent to the Emperor....................

4. Theodora’s response to the threats of the Bulgarians, 863 AD

“The leader of the Bulgarians, having learned that a woman with a small child rules the Romans (Greeks), was greatly devastated.

That is why the messengers, who were sent to the queen, were sent with threats to annul the agreement, and to invade the country of the Greeks..............

5.The baptism of Vogoris in 864.

''Something else happened which led the ruler to the right religion and confirmed him in it. He had an insatiable appetite for hunting and he wanted to satisfy it, not only out on the chase but also when he was relaxing at home – by looking at pictures of hunting scenes. Having just built himself a new house, he now engaged a painter, a greek monk named Mehtodios. He told this monk to fill the dwelling with pictures but (as though he were under the guidance of devine inspiration) he did non specify in so many words which and what kind of wild animals were to................ 

6. When the night hasn’t clouds, the stars become even brighter. 11^th  century

“If you look at the starry sky,

You would say it's a meadow or green grass

the ground is paved with brilliant stones

it's not much compared to the stars and even the best things on earth

... clear sky............................

7. The visiting of emperor Manuel II Paleologos at London, 1400

''On the feast of St Thomas the apostle [21 December], the emperor of the Greeks visited the king of England in London to seek help against the Saracens, and was honourably received by him, staying with him for two whole months at enormous expense to the king, and being showered with gifts at his departure. ......................

8. Constantinople: One homeland for all people

“Like herds of animals, people from all over the earth come here to visit a place of worship. All the nations of the earth and all the languages of the world in Constantinople come into contact with each other, communicate and exchange information with each other, buying and transmitting what they need from here to their homeland, since everything can be found in this city. There is no chance to see our city devastated and calm, it is always full of foreigners....................

9. I lose my self-control by the Byzantine women, 7th c.

"Allow me to stand behind you, not to be tempted, because everyone knows I'm crazy with women, and I'm afraid that if I see the greek (Rum) women, I'll lose my self-control."..................

10. The people of the Balkan Peninsula *, at the beginning of the 19th century.

24. [People of the Balkan Peninsula]

Generations living on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula are Turks, Slavs, Greeks and Vlachs.

The Turks, those who lived in the province of Asia Turkestan and along the Caspian Sea, and the Slavs are Bulgarians, Serbs, Bosnians and Arvanites, where in ancient times the Bulgarians were called Thracians, and Illyrian Albanians.

This clan of Albanians and Bulgarians, Serbs and Bosnians, inhabited the Balkan Peninsula many centuries ago, escaping from the territory of European Scythia, which was also called Sarmatia. But the character of this Northern Slavic clan is still preserved in all parts of the Balkans, having its own special language.................

11. Characteristics of the people of the Balkan Peninsula, early 19^th  century

“26. [Characteristics of the people of the Balkan Peninsula]

Since the people of the Balkan Peninsula are very different, their customs are also different. The Turks are Ottomans, they have big bodies, merciless, ignorant, moderate and not as bad, as Europeans think, coffee and tobacco lovers. They sit cross-legged and sleep on the ground on the carpets. Turks eat little and fast and love hunting. They do not speak much and explain everything briefly......................

12.  One statistics of the Cyclades at 1813

« To his Excellency, the most Fortunate, the most Merciful,

my Benefactor and most generous Lord and Master,

Hassan, by the grace of God Captain Pashaw.

The Islands are—Naxia, Paros, Tinos, Andros, Myconi, Zea,

Thermia, Anaffi, Astropalias, Amorgos, and Antiparos.

Naxia,

The largest and most fruitful. Besides the city, it contains 35 villages. In all the island they count 20,000 souls. It abounds in oranges, but particularly in lemons ; the juice of which, and distillations from the rind,....................

13. The marble emperor

“When the time came for the Turks to conquer Constantinople, and they entered the city, King Constantine Paleologos, riding a horse, blocked their path. There was a countless crowd of Turks, thousands surrounded him, and he repeatedly struck them with a sword. Then his horse was killed, and he fell down too.

And then the Arab raised his sword to defeat the king, but the Angel of the Lord came and turned the king into marble to save him from death, seized up him, and carried him into a cave deep underground, near the Golden Gate..................

14. The royal head and the eagle, tradition from Thessaly.

Emperor Constantine was killed after all. They cut off his head and presented it to the Sultan, who stood at the castle and was afraid to enter while Konstantin was alive. When the sultan saw the king’s head, he was delighted and said: “Now this is my city” and went to the Saint Sophia, and there he put Constantine’s head on a pillar in the square, and all the Turks gathered to look at it.

Then the sultan embalmed his head and gave it to Pasha, so that he showed it to all the kings of the world, so that everyone would believe that the sultan really killed the king and captured the city, and that everyone recognized him as the first king of the world..............................

15.  A tale from the region of Epirus - Monoviza (a woman with one breast)

“Was a queen in one kingdom and she had only one big breast, and she threw it on her back. Her name was Vodina, she had one only child and he was crazy, and he came to destroy our lands. But the inhabitants of Epirus killed him, and when a queen found out that her son was killed, she came to avenge her child, armed her ships and took some from the island of Corfu, and arrived with a large army in Avlona and in the port of Forty Saints, and during months captured the city of Berati, the entire region of Liaburian and reached Argiros......................

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ASPIS 3

PRIMARY SOURCES OF GREEK HISTORY AND FOLKLORE

translated into English

1. The destruction of the colossus in Rhodes. 652/653 AD

 

"During this year, Moab captured Rhodes and destroyed the colossus of Rhodes, 1360 years after its construction, bought it by a Jewish merchant from Edessa and loaded nine hundred camels with copper."........................

2. The great mathematician Theophilus Palaeologos heroically dies. May 29, 1453

“Theophilus Paleologos did the same (he fought and tore the opponents with claws and teeth). Watching the emperor fight to save a city, that was in danger, he cried out: It is better to die than to live! Then he rushed at his enemies,..................

3. The huge sea whale Porfyrios. In the time of Justinian I

“During the reign of this emperor, a whale was caught, which was named Porfyrios, who had been harassing the Byzantines for fifty years or more. When he appeared, many boats sank, and many people died.

They used many tricks to trap him, but it was all in vain, however he was eventually caught, hunting dolphins.................

4. Constantine the Great about homosexuals.

"Another law was sent, so that all homosexuals would die, since this is shamelessness, and not leave anyone suffering from this pathological disorder."..................

5. Medical case of Siamese twins men. In the time of Romanus Lacapenus

 

“These days, one strange couple, two Siamese boys, came from Armenia to the kingdom. They were expelled from Constantinople as a bad omen. However, during the reign of Constantine, they arrived again.......................

6. Patriarch Theophylact (+956) leaves the Divine Liturgy to see his newborn foal.

 

“He had an unstoppable love for horseback riding and have collected more than two thousand horses in his stein. He did everything to feed them. He gave them not only grass and barley, but also pine nuts, peanuts and almonds, as well as dates and raisins, the best of their kind, mixing them with aromatic wine, cinnamon and various flavors....................

7. Nikiforos Pastilas, drunk, heroically battles in Crete in 960

 

“As soon as the barbarians (Arabs), who lived in fertile and high mountains, saw indiscipline and indifference to precautionary measures, they left their mountains, immediately lining up in a belligerent order and launched an attack against them. Those (Byzantine soldiers), although...................

8. The touching moment of Andronikoi, grandfather and grandson, in the midst of their conflict. 1323

“A few days later he goes out and meets the king, his grandfather, outside in front of the city walls. While the grandfather-king did not get up from the horse, his grandson descended from the horse nearby and, although his grandfather protested, he went up and kissed his hand and his leg, although he remained sitting motionless.

Then he sat on his horse, and they hugged and kissed each other, exchanged a few short sentences, and parted. And the king went to Constantinople, and the young man left for the army camp near the temple of Themitoros Pigi....................

9. Albanian raids impede the development of agriculture and crafts!

“Fear of Albanian raids is a serious obstacle to the development of agriculture and crafts.

From time to time, Albanians invade Moria (Pelopones), even when least expected of them.

They rob people, destroy the countryside, kill men, kidnap girls and boys and return to their mountains,.......................

10. Plan of Saint Sophia

(At Vizye of Thrace)

“When the emperor in Constantinople decided to build the Saint Sophia, no architect could offer him a construction plan that he would like. When the emperor once came to church service and when he took the holy bread, this bread fell to the ground, but when the king bent to pick it up, he did not find it.

Suddenly he sees a bee with this holy bread in his mouth flying out in the window. Decree comes out,....................

11. The ghost and Elena Mataraga. Zakynthos 1794

“Elena Mataraga was 20 years old, and she loved her fellow villager, who died. However, her parents married her to someone else because of other interests.

The night after his funeral, Elena saw the ghost of her beloved, silently standing at the edge of her bed. He appeared to her, on the second and third nights in a row........................

12. The vampires help the lovers!

“Strange stories begin to circulate on the island. One said that he saw a dead man walking and screaming in the dark night.

Another saw how at midday something flew through the air in a burning chariot. Another claims that at midnight he woke up from loud sighs and, opening his eyes, saw in the fire a white ghost, laden with chains, tormented by a herd of devils.

All these monstrous stories accumulate day by day, exaggerate, become more frightening, and everyone gradually begins to believe that the dead terrorize the living in order to free themselves from their sins, that they pull the feet of sleeping people, run through the fields, through thorns and bushes and in ultimately turns into a huge black dog that cools people's blood all night..........................

13. The indifference of the Greeks of Revolution about the Democracy

 ...........................

14. About the stork.

“The stork is the opposite of the crow because he takes care of his baby birds with great love and goes and eats all day and whatever he eats comes and throws vomit for his birds and feeds them until they are full.

The next day if he can't find food, he gives his children the yesterday's meal that he had in his stomach. But also his birds, as they grow older, take care of their elderly parents.

15. Cut off the tongues

“When the Turkish sultan conquered the whole country, he wanted to destroy Christianity. He quickly realized that he could not completely exterminate the Christian faith, since all those people who spoke Greek, should have forgotten their language first in order to change their faith.

He issued a decree to cut off the tongues of all children, and when they grew up, they could not pass on the Greek language to their descendants,........ 

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ASPIS 4

PRIMARY SOURCES OF GREEK HISTORY & FOLKLORE

 translated into English

1.Wealth remains between us, in John III, 13th c.

“Because he saw the Roman wealth lost in vain clothing imported from other nations, in the varied colored silks of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and in the beautiful Italian woven fabrics, he ordered that none of his subjects be used unless one of his subjects and that is, to dishonor himself and his gender....................

2. How did the monks live? on Romanos Argyropoulou. 11th c.

«The income was distributed to the monks, who did not live a life of asceticism but lived a tender, carefree, and full of comforts, giving them entire tracts of land and, indeed, the richest and most fertile. But let's not talk about them anymore..»..........

3. Horseback riding on the horse race. on Romanos II, 10th c.

 ............................

4. Where did go at night the teenager Andronikos III? 14th c.

“He used to hang out with his friends at nights with a woman who was from a non-informal family but was immoral in behavior. She had a man named Adonis, a beautiful young man. Because the jealous had burned out  the king's soul, he had set archers and swordsmen to guard the woman’s door. So one night, around midnight, the brother of the Andronikos, despotes Konsgtantinos,.......................

5.The appearance of Zoe and Theodora, 11^th c.

6. Such were the differences that marked the sisters in character. In personal appearance there was an even greater divergence. The elder was naturally more plump, although she was not strikingly tall. Her eyes were large, set wide apart, with imposing eyebrows. Her nose was inclined to be aquiline, without being altogether so. She had golden hair, and her whole body was radiant with the whiteness of her skin. There were few signs of age in her appearance: in fact,................

6.The character of Zoe and Theodora, 11^th c.

«4. For those who did not know them it may be instructive if I give here some description of the two sisters. The elder, Zoe, was the quicker to understand ideas, but slower to give them utterance. With Theodora, on the other hand, it was just the reverse in both respects, for she did not readily show her inmost thoughts, but once she had embarked on a conversation, she would chatter away with an expert and lively tongue. Zoe was a woman of passionate interests, prepared with equal enthusiasm for both alternatives -- death or life...................

7. The princesses visit their grandmother. 9th c.

 ..................

8. The Caesar Varda's Interest in Science. On Michael III, 860s.

17. The Caesar Bardas greatly honored wisdom and learning, even though he was more interested in its display. He gathered wise men at the Magnaura, some of them philosophers and geometricians, others astronomers, and still others grammarians, and instructed them to teach all who came for free. And he paid such great attention to these matters, that he appointed the great philosopher Leo to teach philosophy, his student Theodore to teach geometry,........................

9. The prophecy of the liberation of the empire  from the time of Constantine the Great. 4^th c.

"And a snake stepped out of its nest, ran a little bit, and immediately afterward, an eagle jumped up, grabbed the snake and flies high and the snake was impacted by the eagle's body curled up. The eagle climbed to high heights, not much time again seemed to come and fall with the snake there in the same place, because the snake injured him, people ran and stabbed the snake and the eagle was released. Caesar trembled from them too much and summoned their sages and wise men told the point and they thought and said the Caesar:........................

10.The lamb with golden hair

Many years ago, was a king, with three children. After the king died, he left his property to his children to share. The two older children drunk every day at the wine stores and ate their father's money and became poor. The youngest child, guarded the property left by his father, and married and born a very beautiful girl and built a house inside earth and put her in. And the king killed the craftsman who built the house, and put somebody to shout and say that whoever deserves to find his king's daughter, take him for his wife, but if he does not find her, he will kill him...............

11. The snow of the mt. Olympus at Bythinia.

'”One winter day, where God walks in the Kesis dagi (the mount Olympos in Bithynia) he lost his knife he was holding. He got it wet, but because of the many snow he couldn't find, he got angry and the mountain was always snow-covered. And since winter-summer the snow has not been out of at this mount.”.............

12. The tomb of the emperor

“Near the Vefa Meidani, inside one chain, in the yard there is the tomb of the emperor. In the past, there was a candle on his tomb, but now they don’t light the candle. In the other side of the yard, there is the tomb of the Arab who killed our emperor, with rich clothes.”..................

14. The song of the Roumeli

The Foreign says to Roumeli:

Everyone is happy, everyone is playing games,

Roumeli and the islands sit bitterly

Roumeli, why don't you enjoy it, why don't you play games?

Roumeli says to the Foreign:

In the slavery you see me in the chains of the Turks

Find me happy, how dare you?

Are you a foreign and just got here? And you still don't know?

What is happening in Roumeli, and what is going on at Constantinople?

Are you a friend of the Greeks and want to learn?

What do I have and am not happy about? Why am I sad?................

15. Which is the national name of the inhabitants of the Greek land? 18th c.

“Today's Greeks are abusively called Romaioi. It is well known that all of Greece was in ancient times a part of those where they were supplemented by the great authority of the Romans, whom the ancient Greeks called Roman, and their language Italian, and in their language they were called Romans.

So Roman became common to all the inhabitants of different nations where they were subject to the Romans, but each nation had its own name.

After Constantine the Great transferred the throne of the empire from Rome to Byzantium in Thrace, which was originally a Greek city, he was later called emperor of the Romans, and his Roman troops, named Byzantium new Rome, thinking that they would now inspire the souls of that patriotism of old Rome, the inhabitants of Byzantine where most of the Greeks were, and all the Thracians, and all the rest of the Greeks called Romaoi, the name of their tyrants, and said that the term Hellenes is a name which belonged to pagans............................

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