Graecians

It is possible that their name is derived from the toponym of Graea (Γραία), a city in Boeotia identical with Tanagra according to Pausanias.^[3] The word means "old" based on the adjective γραῖα "old (feminine)".^[4]

According to the historian Georg Busolt, the Graecians were among the first to colonize Italy (i.e., Magna Graecia) in the 9th century BC when they established the city of Cumae; they were the first Greeks with whom the Latins came into contact, which then made them adopt the name of Graeci by synecdoche as the name of the Hellenes.^[2] Aristotle (4th-century BC) records that during the deluge of Deucalion, the Graecians were the inhabitants of Hellas (i.e., "the country about Dodona and the Achelous [river]") who were also known as Hellenes.^[5] In the Parian Chronicle, the Hellenes were originally called Graecians and established the Panathenean Games in 1522–1521 BC.^[6]

Hesiod stated that the eponymous ancestor of the Graecians was Graecus (Γραικός), the son of Deucalion's daughter Pandora, who also had a brother, Latinus.^[7] Other sources have Graecus as the son of Thessalus.^[8]

• List of ancient Greek tribes