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TheGreco-Roman world/ˌɡriːkoʊˈroʊmən,ˌɡrɛkoʊ-/, alsoGreco-Roman civilization,Greco-Roman culture orGreco-Latin culture (spelledGræco-Roman orGraeco-Roman inBritish English), as understood by modernscholars andwriters, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were directly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of theAncient Greeks andRomans. A better-known term isclassical antiquity. In exact terms the area refers to the "Mediterranean world", the extensive tracts of land centered on theMediterranean andBlack Sea basins, the "swimming pool and spa" of the Greeks and the Romans, in which those peoples' cultural perceptions, ideas, and sensitivities became dominant in classical antiquity.
That process was aided by the universal adoption ofGreek as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in theEastern Mediterranean and ofLatin as the language ofpublic administration and offorensic advocacy, especially in theWestern Mediterranean.
Greek and Latin were never the native languages of many or most of the rural peasants, who formed the great majority of theRoman Empire's population. However, they became the languages of theurban andcosmopolitanelites and the Empire'slingua franca for those who lived within the large territories and populations outside theMacedonian settlements and theRoman colonies. All Roman citizens of note and accomplishment, regardless of their ethnic extractions, spoke and wrote in Greek or Latin. Examples include the Roman jurist and imperial chancellorUlpian ofPhoenician origin; the mathematician and geographerClaudius Ptolemy ofGreco-Egyptian ethnicity; and the theologianAugustine ofBerber origin. Note too the historianJosephus Flavius, who was ofJewish origin but spoke and wrote in Greek.[citation needed]
Based on the above definition, the "cores" of the Greco-Roman world can be confidently stated to have been the coasts of theMediterranean Sea, specifically theItalian Peninsula,Greece,Cyprus, theIberian Peninsula (Spain,Portugal andAndorra), theAnatolian Peninsula (modern-dayTurkey),Gaul (modern-dayFrance), theSyrian region (modern-dayLevantine countries,Central and Northern Syria,Lebanon,Israel andPalestine),Egypt andRoman Africa (corresponding to modern-dayTunisia,Eastern Algeria andWestern Libya). Occupying the periphery of that world were the so-called "Roman Germany" (the modern-dayAlpine countries ofAustria andSwitzerland and theAgri Decumates, southwesternGermany), theIllyricum (modern-dayNorthern Albania,Montenegro,Bosnia and Herzegovina and the coast ofCroatia), theMacedonian region,Thrace (corresponding to modern-daySoutheastern Bulgaria,Northeastern Greece and theEuropean portion ofTurkey),Moesia (roughly corresponding to modern-dayCentral Serbia,Kosovo,Northern Macedonia,Northern Bulgaria andRomanian Dobrudja), andPannonia (corresponding to modern-dayWestern Hungary, theAustrianLänder ofBurgenland,Eastern Slovenia andNorthern Serbia).
Also included wereDacia (roughly corresponding to modern-dayRomania andMoldavia),Nubia (a region roughly corresponding to the far south ofEgypt and modern-dayNorthern Sudan),Mauretania (corresponding to modern-dayMorocco,Western Algeria andNorthern Mauritania),Arabia Petraea (corresponding to modern-dayHejaz region ofSaudi Arabia,Jordan,Southern Syria and Egypt'sSinai Peninsula), and the Tauric Chersonesus (modern-dayCrimea and the coast ofUkraine).
The Greco-Roman world had another "world" or empire to its east, the Persians, with which there was constant interaction:Xenophon'sAnabasis (the'March Upcountry'), theGreco-Persian wars, the famous battles ofMarathon andSalamis, the Greek tragedyThe Persians byAeschylus,Alexander the Great'sdefeat of the Persian emperorDarius III and conquest of thePersian empire, or the later Roman generals' difficulties with the Persian armies, such asPompey the Great, and ofMarcus Licinius Crassus (conqueror of the slave generalSpartacus), who was defeated in the field by a Persian force and was beheaded by them.[1]
In the schools ofart,philosophy, andrhetoric, the foundations ofeducation were transmitted throughout the lands of Greek and Roman rule. Within its educated class, spanning all of the "Greco-Roman" eras, the testimony of literary borrowings and influences are overwhelming proofs of a mantle of mutual knowledge. For example, several hundredpapyrus volumes found in a Roman villa atHerculaneum are in Greek. The lives ofCicero andJulius Caesar are examples of Romans who frequented schools in Greece.
The installation, both inGreek andLatin, ofAugustus's monumental eulogy, theRes Gestae, exemplifies the official recognition of the dual vehicles for the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in theParallel Lives byPlutarch is one example of the extent to which "universal history" was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famousLatins andHellenes. Most educated Romans were likely bilingual in Greek and Latin.
Graeco-Roman architecture in the Roman world followed the principles and styles that had been established by ancient Greece. That era's most representative building was the temple. Other prominent structures that represented that style included government buildings like theRoman Senate. The three primary styles of column design used in temples in classical Greece wereDoric,Ionic, andCorinthian. Some examples of Doric architecture are theParthenon and theTemple of Hephaestus in Athens, and theErechtheum, next to the Parthenon, is Ionic.
InAncient Greece, several philosophers and historians analysed and described elements we now recognize as classical republicanism. Traditionally, the Greek concept of "politeia" was rendered into Latin as res publica. Consequently, political theory until relatively recently often used republic in the general sense of "regime". There is no single written expression or definition from this era that exactly corresponds with a modern understanding of the term "republic" but most of the essential features of the modern definition are present in the works ofPlato,Aristotle, andPolybius. These include theories ofmixed government and ofcivic virtue. For example, inThe Republic, Plato places great emphasis on the importance of civic virtue (aiming for the good) together with personal virtue ('just man') on the part of the ideal rulers. Indeed, in Book V, Plato asserts that until rulers have the nature of philosophers (Socrates) or philosophers become the rulers, there can be no civic peace or happiness.[2]
A number of Ancient Greekcity-states such asAthens andSparta have been classified as "classical republics", because they featured extensive participation by the citizens in legislation and political decision-making. Aristotle consideredCarthage to have been a republic as it had a political system similar to that of some of the Greek cities, notably Sparta, but avoided some of the defects that affected them.
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BothLivy, a Roman historian, andPlutarch, who is noted for his biographies and moral essays, described how Rome had developed its legislation, notably the transition from akingdom to arepublic, by following the example of the Greeks. Some of this history, composed more than 500 years after the events, with scant written sources to rely on, may be fictitious reconstruction.
The Greek historianPolybius, writing in the mid-2nd century BCE, emphasized (in Book 6) the role played by theRoman Republic as an institutional form in the dramatic rise of Rome's hegemony over the Mediterranean. In his writing on the constitution of the Roman Republic,[3] Polybius described the system as being a "mixed" form of government. Specifically, Polybius described the Roman system as a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy with the Roman Republic constituted in such a manner that it applied the strengths of each system to offset the weaknesses of the others. In his view, the mixed system of the Roman Republic provided the Romans with a much greater level of domestic tranquillity than would have been experienced under another form of government. Furthermore, Polybius argued, the comparative level of domestic tranquillity the Romans enjoyed allowed them to conquer the Mediterranean. Polybius exerted a great influence onCicero as he wrote his politico-philosophical works in the 1st century BCE. In one of these works,De re publica, Cicero linked the Roman concept ofres publica to the Greekpoliteia.
The modern term "republic", despite its derivation, is not synonymous with the Romanres publica.[4] Among the several meanings of the termres publica, it is most often translated "republic" where the Latin expression refers to the Roman state, and its form of government, between the era of the Kings and the era of the Emperors. This Roman Republic would, by a modern understanding of the word, still be defined as a true republic, even if not coinciding entirely. Thus,Enlightenment philosophers saw the Roman Republic as an ideal system because it included features like a systematicseparation of powers.
Romans still called their state "Res Publica" in the era of the early emperors because, on the surface, the organization of the state had been preserved by the first emperors without significant alteration. Several offices from the Republican era, held by individuals, were combined under the control of a single person. These changes became permanent, and gradually conferred sovereignty on the Emperor.
Cicero's description of the ideal state, inDe re Publica, does not equate to a modern-day "republic"; it is more likeenlightened absolutism. His philosophical works were influential when Enlightenment philosophers such asVoltaire developed their political concepts.
In its classical meaning, a republic was any stable well-governed political community. BothPlato andAristotle identified three forms of government:democracy,aristocracy, andmonarchy. First Plato and Aristotle, and then Polybius and Cicero, held that the ideal republic is amixture of these three forms of government. The writers of the Renaissance embraced this notion.
Cicero expressed reservations concerning the republican form of government. While in histheoretical works he defended monarchy, or at least a mixed monarchy/oligarchy, in his own political life, he generally opposed men, likeJulius Caesar,Mark Antony, andOctavian, who were trying to realize such ideals. Eventually, that opposition led to his death and Cicero can be seen as a victim of his own Republican ideals.
Tacitus, a contemporary of Plutarch, was not concerned with whether a form of government could be analysed as a "republic" or a "monarchy".[5] He analysed how the powers accumulated by the earlyJulio-Claudian dynasty were all given by a State that was still notionally a republic. Nor was the Roman Republic "forced" to give away these powers: it did so freely and reasonably, certainly inAugustus' case, because of his many services to the state, freeing it fromcivil wars and disorder.
Tacitus was one of the first to ask whether such powers were given to thehead of state because the citizens wanted to give them, or whether they were given for other reasons (for example, because one had adeified ancestor). The latter case led more easily to abuses of power. In Tacitus' opinion, the trend away from a true republic wasirreversible only whenTiberius established power, shortly after Augustus' death in 14 CE (much later than most historians place the start of the Imperial form of government in Rome). By this time, too many principles defining some powers as "untouchable" had been implemented.[6]
By AD 211, withCaracalla's edict known as theConstitutio Antoniniana, and although one of the edict's main purposes was to increase tax revenue, all of the empire's free men became citizens with all the rights this entailed. As a result, even after theFall of the Western Roman Empire, the people who remained within the lands (including Byzantium) that the empire comprised continued to call themselvesRhomaioi. (Hellenes had been referring to pagan, or non-Christian, Greeks until theFourth Crusade.) Through attrition of Byzantine territory in the preceding 400 or so years from perceived friends and foes alike (Crusaders, Ottoman Turks, and others), Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) fell to the Turks led by Mehmed II in 1453. There is a perception that these events led to the predecessor ofGreek nationalism through theOttoman era and even into modern times.
Greco-Roman mythology, sometimes called classical mythology, is the result of the syncretism between Roman and Greek myths, spanning the period of Great Greece at the end ofRoman paganism. Along withphilosophy andpolitical theory, mythology is one of the greatest contributions ofclassical antiquity toWestern society.[7]
From a historical point of view,early Christianity was born in the Greco-Roman world, which had a massive influence onChristian culture.[8]
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