Laudator Temporis Acti

M.I. Finley (1912-1986), The Use and Abuse of History (New York: The Viking Press, 1975), p. 62:

Consider the word 'Greek', whether as noun or as adjective. It is literally impossible to make any statement including 'Greek' which excludes some sort of generalization. Furthermore, it is impossible to make such a statement which would be true without greater or less qualification (excepting such truisms as 'All Greeks must eat'). In the first place, there is no meaningful definition of 'Greek' which does not differentiate in time, between a Mycenaean Greek and a contemporary Greek, to give the most extreme example. Second, applied to the ancient world any definition must face the fact of mixed populations, part Greek, part something else. Third, any meaningful statement, even when restricted to 'pure' Greeks at a fixed moment of time, must allow for variations in ideas or practices, whether by region or by class or for some other reason.