Which contributed more to the world ancient Greece or Rome

Which one

  • Greece

    Votes: 19 47.5%
  • Rome

    Votes: 21 52.5%

  • Total voters
    40
A few years ago, there was a debate on this topic between Boris Johnson, then the Mayor of London and a big enthusiast of classical antiquity, who argued for the Greeks, and Mary Beard, one of the most prominent living historians of ancient Rome, who argued for the Romans.

 
Men think about the Roman Empire all the time. So, yeah, Rome.

Realistically though, Rome's influence is more obvious in that we can see and interact with their legacy. I see their architectural influence every day driving to/from work. Probably even more than I realize.
 
Greeks invented orgies. Romans added women to their orgies. Romans still win due to the cheer scope in architecture and lift up Europe to hygiene standards.
 
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Hellenism was influential throughout much of the then known world, and its philosophies guided and influenced even the Romans.

Romans are known for carrying on those traditions and their statecraft.
 
The Greeks for science, philosophy, and art especially with them being the inspiration and blueprint for the Renaissance.

The Romans for technology, engineering, standardization from conquering, and Christianity.
 
The burning of the Library of Alexandria is one of the greatest cultural disasters in human history.

The destruction was the loss of irreplacable knowledge (200,000 scrolls). It was not just a library but the world's first major research institution. Scholars from across the Mediterranean came to study.

Thanks, Julius.
 
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Rome by a huge margin. I don't know if anyone would even know about Greece if the Romans hadn't massively strengthened Europe to withstand the various empires surrounding it.
 
Ancient Greek texts and art are mostly important to us because they were important to the Romans. The Greeks themselves didn't come up with all their ideas themselves. A lot of them studied in the capitals of learning at the time such as Heliopolis and Babylon.
 
A real answer is Rome. The modern republic is based on Roman laws with some influence from Greek democracy. But the senate and executives are essentially Roman. Bicameral congress is a compromise in developing of governing bodies.

Roman roads and leadership as well as armies and establishment were around for around 1000 years.

I think you could argue Greeks influenced culture Rome influenced government.

Latin and Greek influence language fairly equally. I would give the edge to Greek for the introduction of Vowels.
 
The burning of the Library of Alexandria is one of the greatest cultural disasters in human history.

The destruction was the loss of irreplacable knowledge (200,000 scrolls). It was not just a library but the world's first major research institution. Scholars from across the Mediterranean came to study.

Thanks, Julius.

there never was "THE Library of Alexandria". there were at least 2 big ones, only 1 of them had a fire, neither of them actually were destroyed. the one that burned got restored.
was some of its inventory lost? yes... but most of the stuff that burned down wasn't even unique to that library. it was either copies of scrolls or scrolls that had copies in other libraries.

there never was a big event that erased hundreds of thousands of important pieces of knowledge. in reality, most of it was just lost over decades and centuries of people letting it get lost, by either letting it rot somewhere or losing interest and misplacing it.
 
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