To: Classical Collectors
Today we take some time for an overview of the achievements of the Greeks and Romans.
What exactly did they do well ? And why do we remember them and study them ?
Why do we remember the Greeks and Romans ?
The ancient Greeks and Romans are of formative importance, setting the template for much in modern and Western culture and society. (There is a whole wider current debate that our view of the Greeks and Romans is too Euro-centric, since they were really more Mediterranean with extensive links with north Africa and the Near East and the roots of Western culture are wider than the Greeks and Romans alone. I'll probably post on that separately. In the meantime, suffice to note that they set the template for much European, modern and Western culture.)
1. creating forms and models in the arts, science and thinking, as well as governance, the military and the law 2. developing them to a high level of quality and sophistication
3. having great enduring influence since
1. Greek-Roman culture occupied much of the Mediterranean and south and western Europe
2. it has continued to be applied and interpreted since, through the church, the arts and thinkers
The culture of modern society is actually based and formed to a significant extent around Greek and Roman culture:
that is why we find their cultures accessible and why they feel so ‘modern’ and even ‘Western’. (For example, why films such as Gladiator and Ben Hur are easy to follow.)
So, there are several good reasons for Westerners and other Europeans to study the Greeks and Romans:
1. they played a large role in shaping our culture and so help us to understand ourselves
2.their influence has endured well into the mediaeval and modern eras and shaped how much of Western culture itself has been conducted
3. their works are fine and attractive human achievements in their own right
The Greeks - some eminent figures
Creative:
Philosophy Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
History Herodotus, Thucydides
Oratory Demosthenes
Architecture Iktinus
Sculpture Pheidias
Poetry Homer, Pindar, Theocritus
Drama Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander
Science Aristotle, Ptolemy
Medicine Galen
Mathematics Euclid Practical:
Politicians Pericles Government, Law Cleisthenes, Solon
Generals Miltiades, Themistocles, Nikias
The Romans - some eminent figures
Practical:
Military The Scipios, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar
Government Augustus
Law Justinian
Creative:
Philosophy Cicero
History Livy, Tacitus
Oratory Cicero Letters Cicero, Seneca, Pliny
Architecture Vitruvius
Poetry Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus
Comedy Terence, Plautus
Science, Medicine Elder Pliny
Sameness and difference among the Greeks and Romans
The Greeks and Romans had much in common: they were both people of the ancient north Mediterranean, land-based but seafaring, with similar levels of technology. They engaged in the same activities across society and performed well in most of them.
However, it is also true that in general, the Greeks excelled in the areas of creativity and thinking; and the Romans in the worlds of governance, law and the military. This is summed up in famous lines by the Roman poet Virgil, in his epic poem The Aeneid (6.847-853):
About the Greeks:
Others will forge breathing bronzes more smoothly sculpture
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
(I believe it at any rate), and draw forth living features from marble. sculpture
credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore voltus,
They will plead law-suits better and trace the movements oratory
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
Of the sky with a rod and describe the rising stars. astronomy
describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent:
about the Romans:
You, O Roman, to govern the nations with your power- remember this! government
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; These will be your arts – to impose the ways of peace, empire
hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
To show mercy to the conquered and to subdue the proud. empire
parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.
The inter-relationship of the Greeks and Romans
The inter-relationship of the Greeks and Romans was not one of two cultures which emerged at the same time and alongside each other.
Rather, Greek culture began earlier by about a thousand years (c 1800BC) than the Roman (c 800BC)
And it peaked earlier: the classical Greek era was 500-300BC and the classical Roman era was 100BC to 100AD.
As a result, the Greeks were pioneers in many areas, particularly the arts and thinking. The Romans followed them a few centuries later.
The Romans felt culturally inferior to the Greeks, since the Greeks were so eminent in arts and thinking
But the Romans imitated the Greeks and created works of comparable merit.
A further twist is that each society visited the other:
many Greeks settled in colonies in southern and central Italy which was known as ‘Great Greece’ (Magna Graecia)
and conversely the Romans, as their empire expanded, conquered Greece and ruled it from c 150BC until the fall of Rome c 400BC.
There was an irony in the relationship between the Greeks and Romans: the Romans conquered Greece in military terms and absorbed it into their empire. But the Romans adopted Greek culture and in that sense the Greeks overcame the Romans culturally. This is summed up in a famous couplet by the Roman poet Horace in the 1st century BC:
‘Greece captured took captive the fierce victor [ie Rome]
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit
And brought its arts to rustic Italy
Et artes intulit agresti Latio’
The Romans then went one step further: the Romans adopted Greek culture widely and spread it throughout their Empire - they helped to widen the influence of the Greeks and preserve their culture
Together, they created something of a hybrid: Greek-Roman culture.
The legacy of Greece and Rome
Much of the culture of ancient Greece and Rome has been passed on into Western culture in later centuries. The following are major trends with some examples. Middle Ages (400-1400) The Roman Empire had brough unity to much of Western and southern Europe. Once the Empire faded as a political unit (mainly in 400s AD), unity remained in terms of the common religion (Christianity/the Church) and a common language (Latin). The thinking of Plato influenced much Christian theology. From c 1100, Aristotle had a major influence, for example on the theologian Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle was the best-known philosopher for a long time and known simply as ‘The Philosopher’. Poetry: The ‘Divine Comedy’ of Dante (1300s) drew heavily on the Roman classical poem The Aeneid by Virgil; and Virgil is Dante’s guide through much of the poem. Renaissance (1400-1600)
The renaissance saw a major re-discovery of ancient Greek and Roman thinking and art. Their work was drawn on as models.
Drama: Performance of tragedy and comedy, the two genres of Athenian drama, as in the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote several plays set in ancient Greece and Rome: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida.
Painting: Classical myth and history became a popular theme of paintings. Sculpture: Modern portraits of the human form take their starting point as the classical Greek style.
Modern Times (1600-1900)
Philosophy: Ancient Greek philosophy is seen as the basis for later Western philosophy. Plato asked a lot of the important questions; and Aristotle worked through many issues with logic and data. Most modern philosophers drew on the ancient Greeks: Locke, Hume, Hobbes and others. Poetry: Revival of pastoral, lyric poetry (Keats, Tennyson). Writing of epic, such as Paradise Lost by Milton. History-writing: Modern history-writing, based in evidence and story-telling is modelled on that of ancient writers such as Livy, Tacitus, Herodotus and Thucydides. Oratory: British politicians in the 1700s and 1800s often looked to the models of Roman orators such as Cicero for the style of their speeches. Government: Modern political thinking and practice owes much to the ancient Greece: concepts such as democracy and oligarchy; structures such as assemblies; and practices such as secret voting. Science: Modern science picked up where the ancients (Aristotle, then others) had stopped, continuing to work with theory and evidence to advance knowledge.
Architecture: Neo-classical architecture of the 1700s revived the classical styles.
Recent Times (1900-2000s) While the direct influence of the Greeks and Romans has declined since about 1900:
many artists still re-tell the old stories, with novels such as ‘The Song of Achilles’ and films such as ‘Gladiator’ or use them as inspiration such as ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, the story of one day in Dublin based on the travels of Odysseus/Ulysses and references to classical culture remain in common use, such as ‘crossing the Rubicon’ or ‘Trojan horse’.
Not influencing
Two areas where the Greeks and Romans have had less or little influence are religion and ethics, because Christianity has largely set the course in the West since about 400AD.
The most enduring legacy
The most enduring legacy of the Greeks and Romans is that we think and act like them in many ways. Modern Western culture is highly informed by their outlook and practice.
Comments