Features of Greek and Roman Culture
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Features of Greek and Roman Culture
Features
Roman
Greek
Timeline
509 BC – 27 BC
8000 BC – 30 BC
Government
At first it was a strange mixture of democracy and a republic and the reason for that is they took it from the Greeks.
In each of their city they each had their own form of government. They were Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy.
Location & Terrain
It is in Italy. The land they choose was made of marshes and hills with ware near the rivers they use to triad.
It is surrounded on three sides by water and is also covered with mountains.
Agriculture
Framing, milling grain, and livestock that consisted of oxen, mules and donkeys for work and sheep for their milk, wool, meat and manure. Pigs were also reared. Goats, apart from providing food, were reared for their hair which was used to make ropes. Birds, such as fancy, ducks, and peacocks
Barley, Durum wheat, and millet or common wheat. Olive trees, Grapes have also been grown cabbage, onion, garlic, lentils, chick pea, beans and orchards of fig, almond, and pomegranate. Herbs were also grown like sage, mint, thyme, savory, oregano, as were oilseed plants such as linseed, sesame, and poppy. Goat and sheep quickly became the most common livestock; less difficult to rise and also providers of meat, wool, and milk (usually in the form of cheese). Pork and poultry (chicken and geese) were also raised. Oxen were rare and normally used as a work animal, though they were occasionally used as sacrificial animals. Donkeys, mules and their various mixes were raised as pack or draught animals. Horses were raised on the plains of Thessaly and Argolis. Poultry or small animals grazing on waste land or fed kitchen scraps.
Citizens
Republic Codes of Law: 1) governed citizens, 2) governed non-citizens, both based on equality under the law
Land-owning males, voter, hold office, speak in court
Religion
Nature worshippers, adopted Greek gods & emperor was a god as well
Worshipped kingdom gods (sea, sky, wind, hunting, war, sun, love, etc) one supreme-Zeus, female deities
Teachings & Philosophers
Adopted many of Greek teachers, developed language, alphabet, 12-month calendar
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Literature & Authors
Developed little compared to Greeks, poetry, prose, letters by Cicero, Seneca, Ovid, Virgil, Horace
Homer (Iliad, Odyssey), Plato (Symposium), Sophocles (Oedipus Rex), Aristophanes (Clouds), lyrical poetry, plays, major works
Expansion & Conquests
Most powerful of all cultures from Scotland to the Mediterranean, Asia, Egypt, Europe, considered as ruling the world at its peak
Egypt, Persian Empire, from Mesopotamia to Macedonia
Architecture
They build Forums, Basilicas, Baths, Markets such as Trajans market in Rome, Amphitheaters such as the Coliseums and the Circus Maximums, Theatres, Triumphal arches celebrating the victories of the Romans, Villas, Temples, Roads, Forts and Stockades, Towns, and Aqueducts.
They built temple, theater, stadiums, and palaces.
Failures
The conquered