Greece

Greece is a country in southeastern Europe. Its capital is Athens. The country has land borders with Albania to the northwest, Bulgaria and North Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the Northeast.

Languages

The national language is Greek. A large majority of the native population use Greek as their first or only language.

Culture

The culture of Greece has evolved, beginning in Mycenaean Greece and continuing into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern continuation, the Byzantine Empire. Other cultures and nations, such as the Latin and Frankish states, the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Genoese Republic, and the British Empire have left their influence on modern Greek culture, though historians credit the Greek War of Independence with revitalising Greece and giving birth to a single, cohesive entity of its multifaceted culture.

In ancient times, Greece was the birthplace of Western culture. Modern democracies owe a debt to Greek beliefs in government by the people, trial by jury, and equality under the law. The ancient Greeks pioneered in many fields that rely on systematic thought, including logic, biology, geometry, government, geography, medicine, history, philosophy, physics, and mathematics. They introduced important literary forms as epic and lyrical poetry, history, tragedy, comedy and drama. In their pursuit of order and proportion, the Greeks created an ideal of beauty that strongly influenced Western art.

Magical Culture

Young wix from Greece can attend Durmstrang.

Colophon

Colophon was once an ancient Greek city, but was destroyed centuries ago. The ancient Greek Apollonian oracle, founded by Mopsus, was located in Colophon.

Mykonos

An island in Greece that is popular as a tourist destination. Dai Llewellyn, a famous Welsh Quidditch player, was eaten by a Chimaera while on holiday there.

Zagoria

Zagoria is a region and a municipality in the Pindus mountains in the region of Epirus, in northwestern Greece. When Gethsemane Prickle worked to relocate a Chimaera that was threatening a remote village in Zagoria; one of her team nearly lost an arm in the process.

Famous Residents

Greece is known for having various magical creatures and great wizards and witches in residency.

• Andros the Invincible — famed for producing a Patronus the size of a giant.
• Calchas — a Seer who was defeated by his fellow Seer Mopsus in a competition of their powers.
• Circe — a sorceress who lived on the island of Aeaea and an expert in transforming sailors into pigs.
• Cyclops — giant
• Falco Aesalon — the first known Animagus.
• Georgios Xenakis — Greek wizard and Quidditch referee
• Herpo the Foul — a Dark wizard who was the first to hatch a basilisk and the first to create a Horcrux.
• Mopsus — a Seer
• Poineros the Nasty
• Socrates — philosopher

Ministry of Magic

Greece has a Ministry of Magic.

Creatures

• Basilisk
• Siren
• Chimaera
• Manticore
• Griffin
• Three-headed dog
• Hippocampus

Quidditch

TBC

At Absit Omen

• Ligeia Canterbury visited Crete in 2002 for a manticore hunting trip tracking a manticore. She came across the surviving Eurasian griffon vulture chick from a disturbed nest which she dubbed Buzzard.
• Zoe Antonopoulos lives in Athens
• Emily Flickwick is studying the Oracles of Greece and their relation to modern Wizarding Seers
• Lydia Hollingbury is a Greek descendent who lived there for a while

Characters Born in Greece

• Nikolas Antonopoulos, Defence Attorney
• Evgenia Daniels, Archivist at the National Museum of Wizarding History
• Persephone Demos, Gatekeeper to Azkaban
• Savvina Katopodis, Gringotts translator
• Terry Katsaros, Bodyguard
• Waldo Lundy, Divination Professor
• Elias Nanopoulos, International Liaison
• Mauros Thessalonikios, Greek Ministry of Magic worker and Aeaean Institute Professor