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The Impact of Hellenism On Rome
by Myrle Winn
"Graecia capta ferum victorum capit et artes/intulit agresti Latio"
Hellenism's greatest prize in Italy was Rome
Horace, Epist. II, I, Lines 156-7
The name Greek is no longer a mark of a race, but of an outlook, and
is accorded to those who share our culture rather than our blood,"
said the Athenian orator Isokrates in 380 BCE.
By this time the Greek city-states no longer held political and
military dominance in the Hellenic world of the eastern
Mediterreanean. Greek culture however, continued to spread throughout
the Mediterranean into Egypt and the vast Persian empire.
By the middle of the fourth centry, King Philip of Macedonia began to
move toward an empire that united all of Greece. Upon his
assasination in 336 BCE, his son Alexander (the Greek), became king.
In one continuous campaign Alexander brought together the Greek and
Eastern empires. The spread of Greek culture from the Himalayas to
the Nile, blending the arts, cultures and institutions of Anatolia,
Egypt, Syria and Iran producing multitude of ideals and behaviours
that constituted what the heirs of the Athenians poleis and the
remainder of the western world would come to know as Hellenism.
With the conquests of Alexander, the political horizon of these
societies were extended over an immense area embracing diverse
peoples and civilizations who knew little of each other, and far less
of the ideals of Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles and
Demosthenes until many years after their deaths.
Rome came under Greek influence very early in the eight century BCE,
when Greek colonies were established in southern Italy and Sicily.
For generations Roman people were surrounded by Hellenized Etruscans
in the north, and in Naples and Sicily in the south. Though Hellenism
was to leave its unmistakable mark on almost every aspect of Roman
life and thought, they were originally very ambivalent about the
Greeks. Though Hellenism was to leave its unmistakable mark on almost
every aspect of Roman life and thought, they were originally very
ambivalent about the Greeks. On one hand they were in awe of an
obviously superior civilization, and yet there was hostility, for
Greek culture amounted to a reversal of Roman values. The Greeks were
literate, artistic, intellectual, sophisticated, delighting always in
the pleasures of life, while the Romans were hard-working, boorish
farmers with superstition ruling their lives and very often harsh
words for the 'decadent' Greeks.
After the expulsion of the Roman kings(509 BCE) the influence of the
Greeks on Italian convention began to increase. Just as Greece was
reaching its climax of culture with regard to political, military,
and artistic phases of development, the Roman farmers began to open
their eyes and realize how very much the Greeks had to offer. The
whole Italian peninsula came alive with a new civilization, similar
to the Greek model, and fashioned after it. As time went on this new
society began to gain more and more strength. Etruria began to abound
with Greek works of art, and in Lucania and Campania Greek language
and writing prevailed to a great extant.
The Greeks proved to be as gifted as a people as mankind has ever
produced, achieving supreme heights in thought and letters. They
absorbed the knowledge of the knowledge of the mysterious East, the
lore of the ancient Caldeans, the arts and crafts they found in Asia
Minor and the wonders of Egypt all to their liking. They added
immediately to everything that they learned. It was the Greeks of the
fifth and fourth centuries BCE who first became fully conscious of
the power of the human wind, who formulated what the Western world
long meant by the beautiful, and who first speculated on political
freedom. Herodotus, 'the father of history,' travelled throughout the
Greek world and far beyond, learning of the past. Thucydides, in his
account of the wars between Athens and Sparta presented history as a
guide to an enlightened citizenship and statecraft of the two great
nations.
The most famous "Greeks" after the fourth century BCE usually did not
come from Greece but from the Hellenized Near East, and especially
from Alexandria in Egypt. In later years the cities of Alexandria and
Antioch would play out a role possibly as large as Athens in the
spread of Hellenism. These two cities in particular guaranteed the
survival of the Hellenistic ideals and were the foundation of much of
the brilliance and prosperity enjoyed by the Roman Empire at the
height of its glory in the East.
Both, the Latin and the Greek branches of Hellenism came under the
political domain of the Roman Empire, and thusly Hellenism was
gradually transformed from the original Greek influence to the Roman
state and finally to the society of Europe. But even before Hellenism
came into contact with the budding Roman civilization, it had met and
interacted with the rich and ancient societies of the Near East, and
it was from this union rather than from an immediate contact with the
fifth century Greece that Roman Hellenism was born. Rome herself
became gradually Hellenized over the centuries of the Republic,
absorbing the new culture at increasing speed as her power and wealth
grew.
The greatest unifying effect of Hellenism; specifically between Rome
and Greece; was communication. The spoken word, and the language of
printing, sculpture, mosaics and architecture all of which they, and
the various provinces shared. As the provinces absorbed the culture
at a constant downhill rater, they also managed to keep their own
unique local characteristics and incorporated them when exploring the
arts themselves.
When the conquest of Magna Graecia and Sicily in the third century
BCE, and the expansion of Roman power into the eastern Mediterranean
in the second century, exposed the Romans to the cultural influences
of the brilliant Hellenistic world, the ultra-conservatives among the
Roman nobility recognized that Hellenism, with its emphasis on
intellectualism and individual happiness, represented a threat to
their traditional doctrine of subordination of self to family, class,
state, and the gods, and was thus a threat to the stability of their
rule. Accordingly, they launched a vigorous but futile campaign to
eradicate these "dangerous new ideas" from Roman life. "For indeed it
was not a little rivulet that flowed from Greece into our city, but a
mightly river of culture and learning."(1)
The anti-Hellenic movement, of which Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE),
was for a time the leader completely failed; eventually every branch
of Roman learning; philosophy, oratory, science, art, religion,
morals, manners, and dress surrenedered to Greek influence. By the
end of the second century the ancestral Roman way of life had been
transformed into a Greco-Roman culture that survived until the
decline of the Roman empire.
As the cultural 'decadence' of Greece and the joining of the noble
families took place, luxury in Rome was commented on through the
Roman historian Livy(59 BCE- 17 CE). He spoke of how the army
returned with military prizes of "bronze couches, costly
coverlets...banquets were made more attractive by the presence of
girls who played the lute and harp by other forms of
entertainment..."(2), cooking became a fine art, and the cook who was
once looked down as the lowest type of slave, was now considered to
be the practitioner of a fine art.
As Rome grew and expanded, the wall of hypocrisy grew ever higher.
Those who pointed their fingers of scorn at Greek "decadence," were
themselves products of Hellenic education; Greek "decadence," were
themselves products of Hellenic education; Greek was their second
language and Athens or Rhodes the goal of their studies. No more
perfect example could compete with Marcus Tullio Cicero (106-43 BCE)
as a Roman intellectual schooled in Hellenism. The translator of
Plato, Xenophon, Demosthemes, Homer and the tradgedians, he wrote a
history of his own consulate in Greek, and tradgedians, and even his
Latin writings, particularly the philosophical works, bear the stamp
of their Greek models. And yet Cicero's speeches and letters are
filled with unbelievably harsh judgments about the degeneracy of the
contemporary Greek.
The affects of Greek life and its culture on Rome was to last
forever. Commerce, war, and finally occupation and administration of
new territories transported the Romans throughout the Mediterranean.
Soldiers returning from eastern campaigns, and Greeks coming to Rome
as hostages, envoys, traders, professional men and educated slaves
familiarized the Romans with the Greek language and Greek ways.
Doctors and philosophers brought Greek skills. The plunder of cities
such as Syracuse and Corinth brought Greek works of art, great
libraries and learned men to Rome and teased the appetites of Roman
nobles for more. Few well-off Romans could resist the attractions of
civilized Greek life. Roman children were now taught in both Greek
and Latin, and it was now impossible to deny the benefits Rome was
acquiring.
Roman philosophy was a part of Greek philosophy, Roman art was
developed from Greek models. Roman gods were taken from the Greek
world of religion, and in the second century the forerunner of the
imperial cult began to take shape, paving the way for the divinity of
Roman emperors. In the third century BCE came the first plays of the
Greek model in Latin. The Romans even defined their early history to
fit precisely into the Trojan cycle and Rome itself. As Rome grew so
too did its magnetism for Greek artists and intellectuals, and she
suddenly found herself equal to Alexandria.
In the third century the beginnings of Roman literature appeared, and
a great deal of its form and content was modeled after the Greeks.
However, though the words of Homer and Sophocles were within reach
and would forever be considered golden, the writers of Rome such as
Horace, Sallust, and Ovid all developed their own brilliant and
unmistakable Latin flavor.
Actual works of Greek art came into Roman hands as booty from
military campaigns. There are frequent references to the Roman
borrowing of Greek forms and styles. The divisions between Greek and
Roman art at times are difficult to determine. These difficulties
arise because the Romans appropriated Greek forms but then frequently
used them for different purposes, the result is superficially close
but essentially different from the Greek.
The 1st century BCE, witnessed a belated artistic impact of Greece
upon the aristocratic and family traditions of Rome, and this
influence caused remarkable developments in portraiture. The affluent
of Rome were among the world's great art patrons. Surviving passages
in Latin literature often refer to the decoration of their palaces
and villas with Greek reliefs, decorated urns, sarcophagi, statues
and portraits busts. Wealthy Romans commissioned copies of Greek
works of all epochs ranging from sixth to the second century BCE.
Most Roman patrons knew very little of art, but they knew what they
liked. Portraits were what they wanted above all. The mentality of
upper-class Romans contained an ingrained sense of history and of
facturalism and was deeply attracted by portraits which would record
and analyze the features and expressions of the individual in his own
social and historical setting and without sparing his physical
oddities. They wanted a sculptural biography chronicling and summing
up a man's achievement and experiences. They endowed the art not only
with an incentive and with funds but with a Roman definiteness,
purpose, and dignity and with an inspiring, challenging new range of
subjects-namely their own resolute, tough, square faces, vigorously
displaying every blend between northern endurance and southern
exuberance.
At Rome there was an increasing demand for realistic portraits of the
living as well as the dead, and in the final century of the Republic
the Greek custom of erecting statues in honour of famous men was
extended to Rome, where senior officials became entitled to set up
portrait statues of themselves in public places.
The sculptors of the Roman portrait gallery that now began, and
became one of the chief glories of Roman civilization, were only very
infrequently Romans or Italians; They were very nearly all Greeks or
Orientals of Greek culture and training. In common with artists, they
had gained in esteem under the monarchies which followed Alexander.
In this most Roman of all achievements it was Greek-speaking non-
Romans and easterners who were the experts. In particular, the
employment of marble, used for sculpture and wall decoration in Roman
homes from the first century BCE onward, involved techniques with
which only those brought up in Near Eastern traditions were familar.
In the sculptural reliefs which decorate their monuments, the Romans,
and their Greek or eastern artists, achieved undeniable originality.
Scenic reliefs had many centuries earlier been a conspicuous feature
of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian art, and in the fifth and
fourth centuries BCE the Greeks began experimenting with figures
placed at different levels in battle scenes and other elaborate low-
relief compositions reminiscent of paintings. Then in the official
sculpture; and painting of the monarchs who succeeded to Alexander's
heritage, attention was increasingly devoted to narrating past and
present events of national significance.
Many of the ingredients in this past history of the sculptural relief
were utilized, in original fashion, by the Greek sculptors of the
Altar of Peace(Ara Pacis) erected by Augustus at Rome. Consecrated in
13 BCE the Ara Pacis is adorned with rich and luscious floral
decoration; the designs engraved upon the Augustan Altar include set
pieces of legendary patriotic scenes.
Architecture also was but another facet of Greek life that the Romans
borrowed various aspects of. The simple but exquisitedly executed
Hellenic style had captivated the Romans as much as other
perspectives of Greece had. From the Greeks they took the three basic
orders of architecture; Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, based on
different forms of column and foundation, and added to them a hybrid
of their own, known as Composite.
Architecture became a common denominator in the religious lives of
Rome and Greece. During the last century of the Republic the
attachment of the old indigenous form of worship was more and more
supplanted by the influence of modern Greek civilization. This
admixture of Greek mythology and Greek scepticism soon tended to
abolish the deep religious feeling characteristic of the old Romans.
The religious indifference of the upper classes grew into a decided
aversion to religion itslef, and many of the old temples fell into
disarray. When finally repaired, the old Roman temples took on a
decidedly Greek flavor.
With the influence of the Sibylline books, a great influx of Greek
gods and Greek rites took place in the early centuries of the
Republic. In the fifth century BCE the practice developed of
consulting the Greek oracle of the Sibyl at Cumae. The first Greek
gods had entered the Roman pantheon in the fifth century, but with
the entry of Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine in 293 BCE, many
more were imported, until by the end of the third century the
amalgamation of Greek and Roman religion was completed.
Within the scope of religion, and as Rome became the dominant factor
in Hellenistic politics, the Greek cities began to transfer to her
the phenomenon of king-worship. With the expansion of the Empire,
Rome came to rule eastern nations that were accustomed to worshipping
their kings as gods and readily transferred their worship to Roman
rulers.
Augustus and his successor, Tiberius, allowed the habit to continue
in the eastern provinces during their reigns, however in the west it
was discouraged. Rather than fostering the idea of divinity upon
himself, Augustus encouraged the worship of Roma , the divine spirit
of Rome. In the east teh emperor himself was a god, but his cult had
less personal character than that of the Hellenistic monarchs. He was
a god so long as he governed the State and because he governed the
State. The sanctity of the State was embodied in the Emperor's person.
Religious belief once revered in Rome was shattered by the economic
and social unrest of the second and first centuries BCE. The
seemingly unlimited population of landless masses in Rome and the
rapid individualization of Roman society under the impact of
Hellenism, created an emptiness that the educated tried to fill
through Greek philosophy, and the lower classes in Hellenic and
Oriental mystery cults.
In 155 BCE the Athenian government send the heads of the three great
philosophical schools; as a political embassy to the impressionable
Romans: Carneades the Academic, Diogenes the Stocia and Critolaus the
Peripatetic. In the course of their extended visit Carneades treated
his Roman hosts to a spectacular display of "arguing both sides."
Carneades created a sensation at Rome, particularly among the young
who came flocking to hear Hellenism's premier intellectual perform.
Hellenism took Rome by storm once again, but this time it was not
literature, art or myth that came garbed in Greek attire, but
philosophy. It was Rome's first real encounter with that aspect of
Hellenism, and it was to be a momentous one. Not all the Romans were
happy with the learned ambassadors. Cato the Censor was determined to
have all Greek philosophers banned from Rome. He publicly expressed
his disgust at what he construed to be revolutionary notions, and
exhorted the Senate to ride Rome of these troubles. His success was
minimal and short-lived.
The Romans viewed Hellenistic intellectuals with suspicion, and the
only Stoics; who believed in an uncomplaining performance of duty and
paramount virtue; were really welcome in Rome.
A Greek Stoic, Panaetius, lived for many years in the home of P.
Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the son of a noble Roman family.
Panaetius taught Scipio and many others of nobility the principles of
Stoicism. In a book "On Duties" Panaetius laid down the central ideas
of Stoicism; that man is a part of a whole, that he is here not to
enjoy the pleasures of the sense, but to do his duty without
complaint. Educated Romans grasped at this philosophy as dignified
and presentable. They found in its ethics a moral code completely
congenial to their ancient traditions and ideals. Stoicism became the
inspiration of Scipio, the consolation of Marcus Aurelius, and the
conscience of Rome.
The period which followed the end of the third Macedonian War was one
of great significant in the histyory of education in Rome. Thousands
of prisoners were brought across the Adriatic, many of whom found
employment as 'pedagogues' or tutors in Roman families. Greek slaves
tutored Roman children in the Greek language and the classics: Homer,
Hesiod, and the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Cleander. In the
third and second centuries BCE, education was gradually
institutionalized and merged with Greek intellectualism. Despite
conservative opposition schools were introduced; these were largely
in the hands of Greek slaves and freedmen. Literature, both Greek and
Latin, philosophy, rhetoric, and other aspects of the liberal arts
became part of the formal curriculum. For increasing numbers, formal
education culminated in a trip to the "university centers" of the
Greek East. Rome learned from Greek humanism.
It is clear that the Imperium Romanum was founded on the polis.
Cities provided Rome with a convenient channel for her commands and
her demnads for resources through taxation. The Romans themselves had
neither the manpower nor the funds to staff the lower levels of
provincial administration.
The situation was nothing new in the ancient world. The empires of
classical Greece, those of Sparta and Athens, subordinated other
cities without necessarily subjecting them to direct rule by imperial
power. Their principle was inherited by the Macedonian monarchs:
Alexander the Great, who took over and used the old organization of
the Persian empire in Asia, created new cities and his successors,
especially the Seleucides, added more, either re-enforcing old
communities or creating them from their demobilized soldiers.
In the Hellenized provinces, Rome based her arrangements on their own
cities from the time she first organized Siciliy onwards. In
provinces, where there was an existing network of villages, she used
these as a basis, until the majority of them became municipia under
the Principate.
No Roman magistrates were regularly installed in the Eastern
Mediterranean until 148-7 BCE. Instead commanders were sent, when and
where necessary, to fight wars and to organize peoples who had
voluntarily became allies or succumbed to Roman power.
Such indirect control was possible because the Romans were dealing
with monarchs or with well-established local institutions in the form
of a city or a non-urban political community, which they could on the
whole manipulate to achieve stability in their own interests.
Roman citizenship was a unifying factor but a distinct privelege.
Although Roman law was entreched inside colonies and municipia,
elsewhere it co-existed with local law. Laws varied from province to
province and even from city to city.
The term that the Romans came to use for the areas directly
administered by their officials was provincia, (appointment, task).
Provincia was first used with the creation of the province of
Macedonia in 148-7, and its Greek annexes in 146-145.
Rome, however, was cautious about direct intervention in Greek
affairs. The designation of "free city" was given to many cities now
in Roman control. They were allowed to be free, in possession of
their own laws, free from garrisons and from paying tribute.(4)
Rome had been learning from her Greek mentors. Such declarations had
been formally made about individual cities by Antiochus II and III
and by Philip V; even Ptolmy II and Alexander had made similar
statements.(5)
The freedom was conditional on the Greeks' continued friendship with
Rome, but the Greeks had little doubt that they were still subject to
a dominant power.
The cities in Africa were again treated differently. After the
destruction of Carthage, Rome acknowledged the freedom of those
cities which had supported her in the war against Carthage, and
granted them their own land.
In the Hellenized provinces of the Greek east the existing Greek
cities there provided the Roman empire with ready-made urban centers,
but some sort of compromise was required between the Roman
expectations and the long tradition of Greek city politics.
From the time the Romans began to exercise power in Greece, they had
tended to favor oligarchic constitutions, without trying to eliminate
entirely any of the three many elements, which were the foundation
not only of the Greek constitution but of their own republican system.
During the late Republic some Romans became citizens of Athens and
actually were elected to various governmental councils - something
which Cicero showed strong disapproval in 65 BCE.(6) It is believed
that these actions were taken in order to ensure that the wealthier
and more aristocratic section of society dominated politics and the
judiciary.
This example of Athens shows the impact that Roman power could have
on a Greek city, but also how this was mediated by the use of Greek
institutions.
In the provinces of Asia Minor Rome established colonies of veterans
at Antioch and Seleucia and founded Cremna, Parlais and Olbasa.
Baths, theatres, temples, basilicas, markets, and a system of roads
was begun, all adorning the new towns and cities. Here Rome seriously
undertook the task of spreading Hellenism. She did not acquire any
new methods, but rather followed in the foosteps of previous
conquerors. Like the Hellenistic soveriegns, they founded new cities
by bringing together isolated groups under common ground, worked for
the development of a better municipal system and encouraged inter-
provincial trade.
With the battle of Actium (31 BCE) Augustus ruled alone. "Magis alii
homines alii mores."(7) There was peace after many years and Rome was
grateful. Much of the land captured was filled with barbarians, but
much of the realm of Hellenistic culture. It was the Greeks who made
the Romans conscious of their own individual character and while Rome
assimilated the culture of the Greeks, and all they had to offer they
also shaped their history, traditions and what it meant to be a Roman.
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