Back

Wikipedia

Wiki Details

The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), is the term used by modern scholars and writers to describe the geographical regions and countries that were culturally—and so historically—directly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government, and religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The term "classical antiquity" is used for describing the time period when the Greco-Roman culture exerted its greatest influence and dominance on the European continent. Specifically, the term "Mediterranean world" refers to the extensive tracts of land centered on the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins which are considered the "swimming pool and spa" of the Greeks and the Romans. In these regions, the cultural perceptions, ideas, and sensitivities of these peoples became dominant in classical antiquity. The Roman world was very inspired by Greek culture. Early Romans studied Greek and copied their clothes, makeup, hair, etc. Romans and Greeks are considered the most civilized people of the western world. Both Greece and Rome also had a very patriarchal society driven mostly by Aristotle. Child brothels were very common back in Greco-Roman societies, with children being married off by their father at very young ages, although this changed after Julius Caesar. Despite starting western civilization, Greeks and Italians are more closely related to other Mediterraneans, such as Middle Easterners and North Africans than North and Central Europeans.
That process was aided by the universal adoption of Greek as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean and of Latin as the language of public administration and of 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. They became the languages of the urban and cosmopolitan elites and the Empire's lingua franca for those who lived within the large territories and populations outside the Macedonian settlements and the 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 of Phoenician origin; the mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy of Greco-Egyptian ethnicity; and the theologian Augustine of Berber origin. Note too the historian Josephus Flavius, who was of Jewish origin but spoke and wrote in Greek.

 Back

General info from Wikipedia.org