Ajay Kumar at 20:36, 29 August 2023

2023-08-29T20:36:09Z

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{{Short description|Areas of influence by ancient Greece and Rome}}
{{About |the ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire|
the modern form of wrestling|Greco-Roman wrestling|
the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire|Byzantine Empire}}
{{no footnotes|date= November 2015}}
[[File:L'Olympieion (Athènes) (30776483926).jpg|thumb|upright=1.35 |The [[Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens|Temple of Olympian Zeus]] in [[Athens]], construction started by [[Peisistratos|Athenian tyrants]] in the 6th century BC and completed by Roman Emperor [[Hadrian]] in the 2nd century AD.]]
[[File:Merida Roman Theatre2.jpg|thumb|Roman Theatre of Mérida, Spain.]]

The '''Greco-Roman civilization''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|ɡ|r|iː|k|oʊ|ˈ|r|oʊ|m|ən|,_|ˌ|ɡ|r|ɛ|k|oʊ|-}}; also '''Greco-Roman culture''' or '''Greco-Latin culture'''; spelled '''Graeco-Roman''' in the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were directly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the [[ancient Greece|Greeks]] and [[ancient Rome|Romans]]. A better-known term is [[classical antiquity]]. In exact terms the area refers to the [[History of the Mediterranean region|"Mediterranean world"]], the extensive tracts of land centered on the [[Mediterranean Basin|Mediterranean]] and [[Black 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 of [[Greek language|Greek]] as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in the [[Eastern Mediterranean]] and of [[Latin]] as the language of [[public administration]] and of [[law|forensic advocacy]], especially in the Western Mediterranean.

Greek and Latin were never the native languages of many or most of the rural peasants, who formed the great majority of the [[Roman Empire]]'s population, but they became the languages of the [[urban area|urban]] and [[cosmopolitanism|cosmopolitan]] [[elites]] and the Empire's [[lingua franca]] for those who lived within the large territories and populations outside the [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)#Empire|Macedonian settlements]] and the [[Colonies in antiquity#Roman colonies|Roman 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 chancellor [[Ulpian]], who was of [[Phoenicia]]n origin; the mathematician and geographer [[Claudius Ptolemy]], who was of [[Greco-Egyptian]] origin; and the famous post-Constantinian thinkers [[John Chrysostom]] and [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]], who were of [[Syrian people|Syrian]] and [[Berber people|Berber]] origins respectively. Note too the historian [[Josephus Flavius]], who was of [[Jews|Jewish]] origin but spoke and wrote in Greek.

==Cores==
[[File:Culture of Antiquity.png|thumb|upright=2.05|A map of the ancient world centered on Greece.]]

Based on the above definition, the "cores" of the Greco-Roman world can be confidently stated to have been the [[Italian Peninsula]], [[Greece]], [[Cyprus]], the [[Iberian Peninsula]], the [[Anatolian Peninsula]] (modern-day [[Turkey]]), [[Gaul]] (modern-day [[France]]), the [[Syria (region)|Syrian region]] (modern-day [[Levant|Levantine countries]] of [[Israel]], [[Syria|Central and Northern Syria]], [[Lebanon]] and [[State of Palestine|Palestine]]), [[Egypt]] and [[Africa (Roman province)|Roman Africa]] (corresponding to modern-day [[Tunisia]], [[Algeria|Eastern Algeria]] and [[Libya|Western Libya]]). Occupying the periphery of that world were the so-called "Roman Germany" (the modern-day [[Alpine countries]] of [[Austria]] and [[Switzerland]] and the ''[[Agri Decumates]]'', southwestern [[Germany]]), the ''[[Illyricum (Roman province)|Illyricum]]'' (modern-day [[Albania|Northern Albania]], [[Montenegro]], [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] and the coast of [[Croatia]]), the [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonian region]], [[Thrace]] (corresponding to modern-day [[Northern Thrace|Southeastern Bulgaria]], [[Western Thrace|Northeastern Greece]] and the [[East Thrace|European portion]] of [[Turkey]]), [[Moesia]] (roughly corresponding to modern-day [[Central Serbia]], [[Kosovo]], [[North Macedonia|Northern Macedonia]], [[Northern Bulgaria]] and [[Northern Dobruja|Romanian Dobrudja]]), and [[Pannonia]] (corresponding to modern-day [[Hungary|Western Hungary]], the [[States of Austria|Austrian ''Länder'']] of [[Burgenland]], [[Slovenia|Eastern Slovenia]] and [[Serbia|Northern Serbia]]).

Also included were [[Dacia]] (roughly modern-day [[Romania]] and [[Moldavia]]), [[Mauretania]] (modern-day [[Morocco]], [[Algeria|Western Algeria]] and [[Mauritania|Northern Mauritania]]), [[Jordan]], [[Syria|Southern Syria]] and Egypt's [[Sinai Peninsula]]) and the Tauric Chersonesus (modern-day [[Crimea]] and the coast of [[Ukraine]]).

The Greco-Roman world had another "world" or empire to its east, the Persians, with which there was constant interaction: [[Xenophon]], [[Anabasis (Xenophon)|The Anabasis]], the March Up Country, the [[Greco-Persian Wars|Greco-Persian wars]], the famous battles of [[Battle of Marathon|Marathon]] and [[Battle of Salamis|Salamis]], the Greek tragedy ''[[The Persians]]'' by [[Aeschylus]], [[Alexander the Great]]'s [[Battle of Gaugamela|defeat]] of the Persian emperor [[Darius III]] and conquest of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian empire]], or the later Roman generals' difficulties with the Persian armies, such as [[Pompey|Pompey the Great]], and of [[Marcus Licinius Crassus]] (conqueror of the slave general [[Spartacus]]), who was defeated in the field by a Persian force and was beheaded by them.<ref>[[Appian]], ''The Civil Wars''.</ref>

==Culture==
{{Main|Ancient Greek culture|Culture of ancient Rome}}
In the schools of [[Ancient Greek art|art]], [[Ancient Greek philosophy|philosophy]], and [[rhetoric]], the foundations of [[education]] 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 hundred [[papyrus]] volumes found in a Roman villa at [[Herculaneum]] are in Greek. The lives of [[Cicero]] and [[Julius Caesar]] are examples of Romans who frequented schools in Greece.

The installation, both in [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Latin]], of [[Augustus]]'s monumental eulogy, the [[Res Gestae Divi Augusti|Res Gestae]], exemplifies the official recognition of the dual vehicles for the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in the ''[[Parallel Lives]]'' by [[Plutarch]] is one example of the extent to which "[[Universal history (genre)|universal history]]" was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famous [[Latins (Italic tribe)|Latins]] and [[names of the Greeks|Hellenes]]. Most educated Romans were likely bilingual in Greek and Latin.

== Architecture ==
{{Main|Ancient Greek architecture|Ancient Roman architecture|Classical order}}
Graeco-Roman architecture in the Roman world followed the principles and style 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 the [[Roman Senate]]. The three primary styles of column design used in temples in classical Greece were [[Doric order|Doric]], [[Ionic order|Ionic]], and [[Corinthian order|Corinthian]]. Some examples of Doric architecture are the [[Parthenon]] and the [[Temple of Hephaestus]] in Athens, and the [[Erechtheion|Erechtheum]], next to the Parthenon, is Ionic.

==Politics==
{{Main|Ancient Greek politics|Roman politics}}
{{confusing section|date=December 2010}}

By AD 211, with [[Caracalla]]'s edict known as the ''[[Constitutio 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 the [[Fall of the Western Roman Empire]], the people who remained within the lands (including Byzantium) that the empire comprised continued to call themselves ''[[Rhomaioi]]''. (''[[Hellenes]]'' had been referring to pagan, or non-Christian, Greeks until the [[Fourth 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 capitol 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 of [[Greek nationalism]] through the [[Ottoman era]] and even into modern times.

== Religion ==
{{Main|Greco-Roman mythology}}
'''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 of [[Roman paganism]]. Along with [[Ancient philosophy|philosophy]] and [[Political theory]], mythology is one of the greatest contributions of [[Classical antiquity]] to [[Western world|Western society]].<ref>Entry on " mythology" in ''The Classical Tradition'', edited by [[Anthony Grafton]], [[Glenn W. Most]], and Salvatore Settis (Harvard University Press, 2010), {{p.|614}} '' and passim''.</ref>

From a historical point of view, [[Early christianity|early Christianity]] was born in the world of Greco-Roman influence which had a massive influence on [[Christian culture]].<ref name="PerryChase2012">{{cite book|author=Marvin Perry, Myrna Chase, James Jacob, Margaret Jacob, Theodore H. Von Laue|title=Western Civilization: Since 1400|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N6jytVCocwMC|date=1 January 2012|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-111-83169-1|page=XXIX}}</ref>

==See also==
{{commons category|Greco-Roman world}}
*[[Classical Antiquity]]
* [[History of Western civilization before AD 500]]
*[[Classical mythology]]
*[[Greco-Roman mysteries]]
*[[Greek and Roman Egypt]]
*[[Hellenistic Greece]]
*[[Legacy of the Roman Empire]]
*[[List of Greco-Roman geographers]]
*[[Magic in the Greco-Roman world]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
*Sir William Smith (ed). ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography''. London: Spottiswoode and Co, 1873.
*Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (ed). ''Oxford Classical Dictionary''. Oxford University Press, 2003.

{{Ancient Greece topics}}
{{Ancient Rome topics}}
{{Western culture}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greco-Roman World}}
[[Category:Greco-Roman world| ]]
[[Category:History of the Mediterranean]]
[[Category:History of Greek Antiquity by period]]
[[Category:Ancient Rome by period]]
[[Category:Classical civilizations]]
[[Category:Classical antiquity]]
[[Category:Western culture]]
[[Category:Ancient history by region]]

Greco-Roman world - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 20:36, 29 August 2023