Greece vs. Rome; Time and Place?

Question

I'm sure this has been done to death and I searched and found a bunch of useless stuff I don't care about. So I just want the straight, quick answer. When did Ancient Rome and Greece exist and what areas did they cover? Actually as a quick extra, if they were around at the same time did Rome conquer Greece?

Answer 1

The Roman Republic was founded, according to tradition, in the 8th century BC, but gained stature within Italy. By the Punic Wars in the 3rd century BC Rome was the dominant power in the western Mediterranean. After a series of victories over the Macedonians, Rome incorporated Greece, a watershed event being the fall and sack of Corinth in 146 BC.

Classical Greece is said to have started with the reforms of Solon around 600 BC and lasting until the defeat of the Greeks at the hands of Philip of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. So yes, there was some overlap between what we think of as Ancient Greece and Rome in that rise of Rome coincided with the decline of Greece (with the Macedonians and Carthaginians being major powers in the interim).

Geographically, the Ancient Greek world included all of modern Greece (except for Macedonia and Thrace in the north), as well as the Aegean islands, western Anatolia (modern Turkey), Cyprus and Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula. There were also large Greek diasporas in places like Egypt, southern France, Spain and the Levant. All of this eventually came under the rule of the Roman Republic and later the Empire. The Roman Empire spanned all of Europe south of the Danube and west of the Rhine, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and the middle East up to Mesopotamia and Armenia under Trajan, in short many times the size of the Classical Greek world.

One note: Greece was never unified - it was a civilizational union of sorts, held together by a common language and culture, but not a common government until Philip of Macedon. Rome, on the other hand, was ruled centrally until much later in its history. The fall of Rome is traditionally thought to be 476 AD with its sack and the destruction of the Western Empire. However, the Greek speaking Eastern empire endured until the 15th century.

Answer 2

The ancient Greeks settled between 2000 and 1200 bc.
Rome was founded in april 753 bc.
In 509 bc Lucius Junius Brutus created the roman republic.
In 146 bc Greece became a Roman Province.
In 27 bc Augustus Becomes the First Roman Emperor.
In 476, after a long decline, the western roman empire comes to an end.
Afterwards is not ancient history.

Answer 3

I can't remember the dates exactly because I slept through Greek and Roman art (history), but The Roman Empire was going strong around 0 B.C and for quite a few thousand years before and a few more after. The Greeks existed earlier, I want to say some of the earlier civilizations were around 10000 B.C., but I could be wrong. There was some overlap--I believe the Greeks were eventually assimilated into the Roman Empire, but there really wasn't all that much fighting. There was actually a lot of trade, particularly of art (the Romans were great architects and engineers, but not so much the sculptors). Pretty much everything in current day Greece was a part of ancient Greece, as well as all of the islands in the Mediterranean. The Empire's borders fluctuated, but at times reached up to Britian, across much of Europe, down through the Middle East, and along the coast of Northern Africa.

Answer 4

You're choosing between a country and a city - that's not a fare comparison. Now if you say Athens vs. Rome, that's different. Even as a Greek, I'd take Rome in that comparison, because it is a more beautiful city and has more even more archaeological attractions than Athens. On the other hand, Rome is generally more expensive than Athens. That may decrease your ability to plan day trips.

Answer 5

~They were both around sometime after the fall of Babylon and before the rise of the Holy Roman Empire.