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Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD. It comprises the interwoven civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, known together as the Greco-Roman world, centered on the Mediterranean Basin. It is the period during which ancient Greece and Rome flourished and had major influence throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. Classical antiquity was succeeded by the period now known as late antiquity.
Conventionally, it is often considered to begin with the earliest recorded Homeric Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th centuries BC) and end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Such a wide span of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. Classical antiquity may also refer to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome".Poe EA (1845). "To Helen#Revised 1845 version".
The culture of the Ancient history Greeks, together with some influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art,: Römische Kunst ( Roman art). In: Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt (1960): Bildende Kunst I (Archäologie) ( Visual arts I – archaeology). . S. Fischer Verlag. p. 192. "Bestimmend blieb (...) der italisch-römische Geist, der sich der entlehnten Formen nur bediente. (...) Ohne die Begegnung mit hätte der italisch-römische Geist sich wohl kaum in künstlerischen Schöpfungen ausdrücken können und wäre nicht über die Ansätze, die wir in den Kanopen von Chiusi (...), der kapitolinischen Wölfin (...), dem Krieger von Capestrano (...) erhalten haben, hinausgekommen. Auch die gleichermaßen realistische wie unkünstlerische Auffassung der Porträts im 2. und 1. Jahrhundert vor Christus konnte sich nur unter dem Einfluß griechischer Formen ändern." ( "Determinant remained the Italic-Roman spirit, that just availed itself of the borrowed forms. (...) Without having come across the, the Italic–Roman spirit would hardly have been able to express itself in works of art and would not have got beyond the starts that are preserved in the canopic jars of Chiusi, the Capitoline Wolf, the Warrior of Capestrano. Also the likewise realistic and inartistic conception and production of the portraits in the second and the first centuries BC could only change under the influence of Greek forms.") philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until the Roman Empire. The Romans preserved, imitated, and spread this culture throughout Europe, until they were able to compete with it.Der Große Brockhaus. 1. vol.: A-Beo. Eberhard Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1953, p. 315. "Ihre dankbarsten und verständnisvollsten Schüler aber fand die hellenistische Kultur in den Römern; sie wurden Mäzene, Nachahmer und schließlich Konkurrenten, indem sie die eigene Sprache wetteifernd neben die griechische setzten: so wurde die antike Kultur zweisprachig, griechisch und lateinisch. Das System dieser griechisch-hellenistisch-römischen Kultur, das sich in der römischen Kaiserzeit abschließend gestaltete, enthielt, neben Elementen des Orients, die griechische Wissenschaft und Philosophie, Dichtung, Geschichtsschreibung, Rhetorik und bildende Kunst." ( "The Hellenistic culture but found its most thankful and its most understanding disciples in the Romans; they became patrons, imitators, and finally rivals, when they competitively set the own language beside the Greek: thus, the antique culture became bilingual, Greek and Latin. The system of this Greco-Latin culture, that assumed its definitive shape in the Roman imperial period, contained, amongst elements of the Orient, the Greek science and philosophy, poetry, historiography, rhetoric and visual arts.")Veit Valentin: Weltgeschichte – Völker, Männer, Ideen ( History of the world – peoples, men, ideas). , Amsterdam 1939, p. 113. "Es ist ein merkwürdiges Schauspiel – dieser Kampf eines bewussten Römertums gegen die geriebene Gewandtheit des Hellenismus: der römische Geschmack wehrt sich und verbohrt sich trotzig in sich selbst, aber es fällt ihm nicht genug ein, er kann nicht über seine Grenzen weg; was die Griechen bieten, hat soviel Reiz und Bequemlichkeit. In der bildenden Kunst und in der Philosophie gab das Römertum zuerst den Kampf um seine Selbständigkeit auf – Bilden um des Bildes willen, Forschen und Grübeln, theoretische Wahrheitssuche und Spekulation lagen ihm durchaus nicht." ( "It is a strange spectacle: this fight of a conscious Roman striving against the wily ingenuity of Hellenism. The Roman taste offers resistance, defiantly goes mad about itself, but there does not come enough into its mind, it is not able to overcome its limits; there is so much charm and so much comfort in what the Greeks afford. In visual arts and philosophy, Romanism first abandoned the struggle for its independence – forming for the sake of the form, poring and investigation, theoretical speculation and hunt for truth were by no means in its line.") This Greco-Roman cultural foundation has been immensely influential on the language, politics, law, educational systems, philosophy, science, warfare, literature, historiography, ethics, rhetoric, art and architecture of both the Western world, and through it, the modern world.
Surviving fragments of classical culture helped produce a revival beginning during the 14th century which later came to be known as the Renaissance, and various Neoclassicism revivals occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries.
In pottery, the Archaic period sees the development of the Orientalizing style, which signals a shift from the geometric style of the later Dark Ages and the accumulation of influences derived from Egypt, Phoenicia and Syria.
Pottery styles associated with the later part of the Archaic age are the black-figure pottery, which originated in Corinth during the 7th-century BC and its successor, the red-figure style, developed by the Andokides Painter in about 530 BC.
Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, though settlements on the Palatine Hill may date back to the 10th century BC.
According to legend, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth. It was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, enraging the people of Rome. The people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, by his own son. Lucretia's kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus (ancestor to Marcus Brutus), summoned the Senate and had Superbus and the monarchy expelled from Rome in 510 BC. After Superbus' expulsion, the Senate in 509 BC voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a Roman Republic.
The Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC), concluded by the Peace of Callias ended with not only the liberation of Greece, Macedon, Thrace, and Ionia from Persian rule, but also with the dominance of Athens in the Delian League, which resulted in conflict with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, resulting in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), ending with a Spartan victory.
Greece began the 4th century with Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers dismissed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost its naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the latter two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. Later, in 371 BC, the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a victory at the Battle of Leuctra. The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy and the establishment of Theban hegemony. Thebes sought to maintain its dominance until it was finally ended by the increasing power of Macedon in 346 BC.
During the reign of Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians, the Thracians and the Illyrians. Philip's son, Alexander the Great, (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states but also to the Persian Empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. The classical Greek period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander in 323 BC and the fragmentation of his empire, which was at this time divided among the Diadochi.
The Hellenistic period ended with the increase of the Roman Republic to a super-regional power during the 2nd century BC and the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.
Rome acquired Imperialism character de facto from the 130s BC with the acquisition of Cisalpine Gaul, Illyria, Roman Greece and Hispania, and definitely with the addition of Iudaea Province, Asia Minor and Roman Gaul during the 1st century BC. At the time of the empire's maximal extension during the reign of Trajan (AD 117), Rome controlled the entire Mediterranean as well as Gaul, parts of Germania and Roman Britain, the Balkans, Dacia, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia.
Culturally, the Roman Empire was significantly Hellenization, but also incorporated syncretic "eastern" traditions, such as Mithraism, Gnosticism, and most notably Christianity.
Classical Rome had vast differences within their family life compared to the Greeks. Fathers had great power over their children, and husbands over their wives. In fact, the word family, familia in Latin, actually referred to those who were subject to the authority of a male head of household. This included non-related members such as slaves and servants. By marriage, both men and women shared property. Divorce was allowed first during the first century BC and could be done by either man or woman. (2010). 9781405189958, Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405189958
Many writers have attempted to name a specific date for the symbolic "end" of antiquity, with the most prominent dates being the deposing of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476,Clare, I. S. (1906). Library of universal history: containing a record of the human race from the earliest historical period to the present time; embracing a general survey of the progress of mankind in national and social life, civil government, religion, literature, science and art. New York: Union Book. p. 1519 (cf., Ancient history, as we have already seen, ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire; ...)United Center for Research and Training in History. (1973). Bulgarian historical review. Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences]. p. 43. (cf. ... in the history of Europe, which marks both the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages, is the fall of the Western Roman Empire.) the closing of the last Platonic Academy in Athens by the Byzantine Empire Justinian I in 529, and the conquest of much of the Mediterranean by the new Muslim faith from 634 to 718.Henri Pirenne (1937). Mohammed and Charlemagne English translation by Bernard Miall, 1939. From Internet Archive. The thesis was originally discussed in an article published in Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 1 (1922), pp. 77–86. These Muslim conquests, of Syria (637), Egypt (639), Cyprus (654), North Africa (665), Hispania (718), Southern Gaul (720), Crete (820), Sicily (827), Malta (870), as well as the sieges of the Eastern Roman capital (first in 674–78 and then in 717–18) severed the economic, cultural, and political links that had traditionally united the classical cultures around the Mediterranean, ending antiquity (see Pirenne Thesis).
The original Roman Senate continued to express decrees into the late 6th century, and the last Eastern Roman emperor to use Latin as the language of his court in Constantinople was emperor Maurice, who reigned until 602. The overthrow of Maurice by his mutinying Danube army commanded by Phocas resulted in the Slavic invasion of the Balkans and the weakening of Balkan and Greek urban culture (resulting in the flight of Balkan Latin speakers to the mountains, see Origin of the Romanians), and also provoked the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 in which all the great eastern cities except Constantinople were lost. The resulting turmoil did not end until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century finalized the irreversible loss of all the largest Eastern Roman imperial cities besides the capital itself. The emperor Heraclius in Constantinople, who reigned during this period, conducted his court in Greek, not Latin, though Greek had always been an administrative language of the eastern Roman regions. Eastern-Western associations weakened with the ending of the Byzantine Papacy.
The Eastern Roman empire's capital city Constantinople remained the only unconquered large urban site of the original Roman empire, as well as being the largest city in Europe. Yet many classical books, sculptures, and technologies survived there along with classical Roman cuisine and scholarly traditions, well into the Middle Ages, when much of it was "rediscovered" by visiting Western crusaders. Indeed, the inhabitants of Constantinople continued to refer to themselves as Romans, as did their eventual conquerors in 1453, the Ottoman Turks (see Romaioi and Rûm.) The classical scholarship and culture that was still preserved in Constantinople were brought by refugees fleeing its conquest in 1453 and helped to begin the Renaissance (see Greek scholars in the Renaissance).
Ultimately, it was a slow, complex, and graduated change of the socio-economic structure in European history that resulted in the changeover between classical antiquity and medieval society and no specific date can truly exemplify that.
That model continued to exist in Constantinople for the entirety of the Middle Ages, where the Byzantine Emperor was considered the sovereign of the entire Christian world. The Patriarch of Constantinople was the Empire's highest-ranked cleric, but even he was subordinate to the emperor, who was "God's Vicegerent on Earth". The Greek-speaking Byzantines and their descendants continued to call themselves "Romioi" until the creation of a new Greek state in 1832.
After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian Czars (a title derived from Caesar) claimed the Byzantine legacy as the champion of Orthodoxy; Moscow was described as the "Third Rome", and the Czars ruled as divinely appointed Emperors into the 20th century.
Despite the fact that the Western Roman secular authority disappeared entirely in Europe, it still left traces. The Papacy and the Catholic Church in particular maintained Latin language, culture, and literacy for centuries; to this day the popes are termed Pontifex Maximus which during the classical period was a title belonging to the emperor, and the ideal of Christendom continued the legacy of a united European civilization even after its political unity had ended.
The political idea of an Emperor in the West to match the Emperor in the East continued after the Western Roman Empire's collapse; it was revived by the coronation of Charlemagne in 800; the self-described Holy Roman Empire ruled central Europe until 1806.
The Renaissance idea that the classical Roman virtues had been lost as a result of medievalism was especially powerful in European politics of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reverence for Roman republicanism was strong among the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Latin American revolutionaries; the Americans described their new government as a republic (from res publica) and gave it a Senate and a President (another Latin term), rather than use available English terms like commonwealth or parliament.
Similarly in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, republicanism and Roman martial virtues were promoted by the state, as can be seen in the architecture of the Panthéon, the Arc de Triomphe, and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David. During the revolution, France transitioned from kingdom to republic to dictatorship to Empire (complete with Imperial Eagles) that the Romans had experienced centuries earlier.
Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into the 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the frequent use of characters and themes from Greek mythology affected Western literature greatly. In architecture, there have been several , which seem more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek. Washington, DC has many large marble buildings with façades made to look like , with columns constructed in the classical orders of architecture.
The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas was derived largely from that of Aristotle, despite the intervening change in religion from Hellenic Polytheism to Christianity. Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the basis of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the France theater, playwrights such as Molière and Jean Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to the strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics. The desire to dance in a manner allegedly similar to the manner of the ancient Greeks caused Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet.
Political revivalism
In politics, the late Roman conception of the Empire as a universal state, commanded by one supreme divinely appointed ruler, united with Christianity as a universal religion likewise headed by a supreme patriarch, proved very influential, even after the disappearance of imperial authority in the west. This tendency reached its maximum when Charlemagne was Coronation "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which resulted in the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state the jurisdiction of which extended through the entire civilized western world.
Cultural legacy
Classical antiquity is a general term for a long period of cultural history. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" often refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Ancient Greece, the grandeur that was Ancient Rome!" During the 18th and 19th centuries AD, reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Europe and the United States than it is now. Respect for the ancient people of Greece and Rome affected politics, philosophy, sculpture, literature, theatre, education, architecture, and sexuality.
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