infobox statehood i dont understand the infobox says that the first states were formed around bc while the last independent state was abolished in runcimans' the fall of constantinople is provided as a reference thats fine but did a state called greece or ellada or hellas or ellas really existed in the antiquity and or during the middle ages the term ancient greece doesnt refer to a particular state like the roman empire or roman republic but it refers to a historical period there were several city states like athens sparta and so on and later in the middle ages there was the byzantine empire and its succesors such as the despotate of morea and so on none of those souvereign entities was called greece nor hellas ellas etc of course all of them play an important part in the greek history and culture so the greek people claim them as their own however its the statehood continuity we are talking about here the modern greek state was created in and thats the only real beginning of the story before that territory was ottoman turkey before that byzantine empire before that roman empire before that and so on there was no state called greece