Ancient Greece and wine importance. Records inscribed on tablets in Linear B include details of wine, vineyards and wine merchants, as well as an early allusion to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Greeks embedded the arrival of winemaking culture in the mythologies of Dionysus and the cultural hero Aristaeus. Early remnants of amphoras show that the Mycenaeans actively traded wine throughout the ancient world in places such as Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Sicily and southern Italy. As the Greek city-states established colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the settlers brought grapevines with them and were active in cultivating the wild vines they encountered. Sicily and southern
Names of the Greeks Names of the Greeks The Greeks () have been identified by many ethnonyms. The most common native ethnonym is "Hellen" (), pl. Hellenes (); the name "Greeks" (Latin: "Graeci") was used by the ancient Romans and gradually entered the European languages through its use in Latin. The mythological patriarch "Hellen" is the named progenitor of the Greek peoples; his descendants the Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans and Ionians correspond to the main Greek tribes and to the main dialects spoken in Greece and Asia Minor (Anatolia). Among his descendants are also mentioned the Graeci and the Makedones. The first Greek-speaking people, called