Regions of the world that were historically influenced by the ancient Greeks and Romans
This article is about the ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire. For the modern form of wrestling, see
Greco-Roman wrestling. For the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, see
Byzantine Empire.
Roman Theatre of Mérida, Spain.
The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman ( or ); spelled Graeco-Roman in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth), when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally (and so historically) were directly, long-term, and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is also better known as the Classical Civilisation. In exact terms the area refers to the "Mediterranean world", the extensive tracts of land centered on the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, the "swimming-pool and spa" of the Greeks and Romans, i.e. one wherein the cultural perceptions, ideas and sensitivities of these peoples were dominant.
This process was aided by the universal adoption of Greek as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and of Latin as the tongue for public management and forensic advocacy, especially in the Western Mediterranean.
Though Greek and Latin never became the native idioms of the rural peasants who composed the great majority of the empire's population, they were the languages of the urbanites and cosmopolitan elites, and the lingua franca, even if only as corrupt or multifarious dialects to 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, such as the Roman jurist and Imperial chancellor Ulpian who was of Phoenician origin, the mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy who was of Greco-Egyptian origin and the famous post-Constantinian thinkers John Chrysostom and Augustine who were of Syrian and Berber origins, respectively, and the historian Josephus Flavius who was of Jewish origin and spoke and wrote in Greek.
Cores/Domains of the Greco-Roman world[edit]
A map of the ancient world, centred on Greece.
Based on the above definition, it can be confidently asserted that the "cores" of the Greco-Roman world were the Italian Peninsula, Greece, Cyprus, the Iberian Peninsula, the Anatolian Peninsula (modern-day Turkey), Gaul (modern-day France), the Syrian region (modern-day Levantine countries of Israel, Central and Northern Syria, Lebanon and Palestine), Egypt and Roman Africa (corresponding to modern-day Tunisia, Eastern Algeria and Western Libya). Occupying the periphery of this world were the so-called "Roman Germany" (the modern-day Alpine countries of Austria and Switzerland and the Agri Decumates, the territory between the Main, Rhine and Danube rivers), the Illyricum (corresponding to modern-day Northern Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the coast of Croatia), the Macedonian region, Thrace (corresponding to modern-day Southeastern Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece and the European portion of Turkey), Moesia (roughly corresponding to modern-day Central Serbia, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria and Romanian Dobrudja), and Pannonia (corresponding to modern-day Western Hungary, the Austrian Länder of Burgenland, Eastern Slovenia and Northern Serbia).
Also included was Dacia (roughly corresponding to modern-day Romania and Moldavia), Mauretania (corresponding to modern-day Morocco, Western Algeria and Northern Mauritania), Jordan, Southern Syria and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula), 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, The Anabasis, or, the March Up Country, the Greco-Persian wars, the famous battles of Marathon and Salamis, the Greek tragedy "The Persians" by Aeschylus, Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persian emperor Darius III and conquest of the Persian empire, or, the later Roman generals' difficulties with the Persian armies, such as 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).
Culture[edit]
In the schools of art, 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 is overwhelming proof of a mantle of mutual knowledge. For example, several hundred papyrus volumes found in a Roman villa at Herculaneum are in Greek. From the lives of Cicero and Julius Caesar, it is known that Romans frequented the schools in Greece.
The installation, both in Greek and Latin, of Augustus's monumental eulogy, the Res Gestae, is a proof of official recognition for the dual vehicles of the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in the "Parallel Lives" composed by Plutarch is one example of the extent to which "universal history" was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famous Latins and Hellenes. Most educated Romans were likely bilingual in Greek and Latin.
Architecture[edit]
"Greco-Roman" architecture is the architecture of the Roman world that followed the principles and style established in ancient Greece. The most representative building of that era was the temple. Other prominent structures that represented the style included government buildings, like the Roman Senate, and cultural structures, like the Colosseum. The three primary styles of column design used in temples in classical Greece were Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. Some examples of Doric architecture are the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, while the Erechtheum, which is located right next to the Parthenon is Ionic.
Politics[edit]
The Romans made it possible for individuals from subject peoples to acquire Roman citizenship and would sometimes confer citizenship on whole communities; thus, "Roman" became less and less an ethnic and more and more a political designation.
By AD 211, with Caracalla's edict known as the Constitutio Antoniniana, all free inhabitants of the Empire became citizens. As a result, even after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the people that remained within the empire continued to call themselves Romans even though Greek became the main language of the Empire. Rhomaioi is what they continued to call themselves (Hellenes had been referring to pagan(Non-Christian) Greeks until 4th Crusade, ensuing births of successor breakaways, decisive and irreversible shrinking of Byzantine Greek realms, and finally leading to prototype of Greek nationalism) through the Ottoman era and even into modern times.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Sources[edit]
- 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.
