Perhaps because of the fact that modern Greece is, through the Orthodox Church, inextricably linked with the Byzantine heritage, the precise meaning of this heritage, in its various aspects, has hitherto been surprisingly little discussed by scholars. This collection of specially commissioned essays aims to present an overview of some of the different, and often conflicting, tendencies manifested by modern Greek attitudes to Byzantium since the late eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The aim is to show just how formative views of Byzantium have been for modern Greek life and letters: for historiography and imaginative literature, on the one hand, and on the other, for language, law, and the definition of a culture. All Greek has been translated, and the volume is aimed at Byzantinists and Neohellenists alike.

'admirably edited... every talk has been reworked into a true article', The Times Literary Supplement '...this collection, carefully edited by RIcks and Magdalino, presents important contributions that will interest the historian and the literary scholar, as well as Hellenists, Byzantinists, historians of modern Greece, and social historians. It is a positive contribution to the study of modern Greece.' Speculum 'The present volume will be useful to students of the classical tradition who wish to acquaint themselves with the various versions of Hellenism and find out how those competed with one another during the last two hundred years in the process of shaping the Modern Greek Identity.' International Journal of the Classical Tradition

David Ricks, King's College London, UK and Paul Magdalino, University of St Andrews, UK Alexis Politis, George Huxley, Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Caroula Argyriadis-Kervegan, Peter Mackridge, Panagiotis A. Agapitos, Ruth Macrides, Robert Shannan Peckham, Anthony Hirst, Marianna Spanaki, Roderick Beaton, N. Makrides, Eftychia Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, Nikos Gavriil Pentzikis.