I have given this chapter, which deals mainly with Hellenes and Achaeans, the sub-title of ‘Greek Nationality’ revisited. The Greek nationality I am revisiting (though only briefly) is the subject of a paper I wrote long ago in 1951, entitled ‘The Problem of Greek Nationality’. I gave it at the general meeting of the Classical Association held that year in Liverpool and in it I discussed and criticised a view prevalent at that time, that Greek history could be usefully interpreted in terms of ‘a struggle for Greek unity’ and the failure of Greeks to set up a Greek nation. This seemed to me rather an absurd theory for several reasons. One was that to apply the modern idea of a nation to ancient Greece was patently anachronistic. The ‘panhellenic’ note which can be detected in, for instance, the Lysistrata, the Olympian speeches of Gorgias and Lysias or the writings of Isocrates had nothing to do with such a concept. Nor did it seem reasonable to assess people in terms of what they failed to accomplish.

Today, indeed, such an approach to Greek history must seem strangely out-of-date. Although it was adopted at that time by such distinguished historians as Gaetano De Sanctis in Italy and Max Cary in England, its real origins lay in the drive to create a united Germany in the nineteenth century and the nationalism of Bismarck's Reich.