Similarities and Differences Between Ancient Greece and Rome

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When we look through the history, as the ancestors of modern Europe, we see the ancient Greece and Rome. Understanding these two civilisations will lead us to understand Europe better. On the other hand, understanding ancient Greece will also make it easy to understand Rome. To make this statement clear, first we must compare these two ancient civilisations. Then we will be able to have an idea about the structure of both civilisations and descendants of them.

In ancient Greece, we first see the application of direct democracy. It gave it's place to highly improved laws, even foundations of today's laws, in ancient Rome. The main reason in this difference between Greece and Rome is that boundary of Rome was too large to have direct democracy. Greece was founded from small city states. It was easy to gather public in a place and discuss about the ideas in Greece. Greeks had the ability to speak, discuss, creating laws and even joining courts as a whole city citizens. It was impossible to gather citizens in a public place and discuss about governmental decisions in ancient Rome. Instead of direct democracy, Rome started to be administered with laws that are containing almost everything and depending on the areas they are applied. (ie, law of nations, law of nature).

In both civilisations, we see the free men as the citizens. Slaves were always a part of economy and foundation of these civilisations therefore they are called slave based governments. Women were likely to be luckier than slaves in comparison of Rome and Greece. Of course they didn't have any rights like free men, but they also had ability to eat food with their husbands and even having their own property unlike Greek women. Through the end of these both civilisations, we see that women had more rights and part in both social life and art.

Beside the change from democracy to an empire depended on laws, we can easily see the change in the status of citizens. In Greece, citizens were not just citizens, but also the law makers, but they became a part of economical and governmental process in Rome. Depending on the change in prosperity of citizens between Greece and Rome, logical foundations of governments also changed. Citizens were working to serve government in Greece, and they had the power to speak about the government, but in Rome, government became to a foundation that is working for citizens.

Change in foundations of government also caused lots of changes in art and architecture. Instead of the theatres builded on slopes in Greece, Romans built huge and flat based public buildings like Colosseum. We can see three main reasons those can also explain the main differences between architecture of Rome and Greece. First of all, invention of arches and domes helped people to construct larger and stronger buildings. Secondly, buildings can not be depended on the slope of ground like Athens. Cities were bigger and they needed to be published on larger and smoother areas. Also increasing in the number of citizens caused to have larger buildings to gather public easily.

When cities started to be filled with slaves and citizens, rich people started to get out of cities and they constructed villas out of the city. These crowded cities also contain the ancestors of today's apartments. So we can say that modern European cities are started to be founded during the ancient Rome.

Another important development in Roman art is that, it is depended on current events and usually dedicated to empires and heroes. In Greece, gods were the most important part and reason of art and architecture. Huge buildings like temples and theatres were all dedicated to gods. Greece were also trying to reach perfect in their both painting and sculpture. Body lines and the posture of body was all cogitated to have perfect proportions. Rome art was more naturalistic than Greece. This can also be a result of change in mind of citizens. I mean, people in Rome didn't have so much spare time to be idealistic like Greeks. They already started to a life depending on realities and business like today's daily life.

At the end, we can say that Rome was an empire that contains lots of cultures and civilisations. Greece was the dominant civilisation in foundation of Rome. Comparison of Rome and Greece shows us that none of the parts of a civilisation can be independent. Every distinct part of a civilisation such as art, architecture, government, military, economy and even topography of country affects and interact each other.