Greeks or Romans?

Which of these Ancient civilizations do you think is the best/your favorite? And Why? I think The Romans as they had one of the Best armies in the ancient world, and invented things that most of us thought where invented in the Renaissance.

 

I'd have to go with the romans just because they were bigger and more modern.
How about the romans or the Han chinese?

 

As did the Greeks.

Such as?

 

slaughtering down others who had a different religion and nailing Jews

Hey guy's the last one is supposed to be a Monty Python one okay

Regards
Kruska

 

I'd kind of have to go for the Greeks, here -- considering that Rome's civilisation was heavily influenced by the pre-existing Greek one. You might say that the Roman empire was built on Greek thoughts.

 

The Greeks gave us vast amounts of scientific, mathmatical and philosophical ideas, most of which were ignored by later western powers but maintained by Arabic civilisations and others in the middle east. They taught the Romans to fight (too well one might argue) and had a massive impact on the organisation and technological advances of the Roman Empire, I'd say the Greeks.

Even if the Romans were cooler...

 

There's the rub isn't it.
Even the bulk of Rome's gods were plundered from Greek ideology, but they just looked so damned good. We sometimes see the Vermine doing a full Century at reenactment dos, and I can't imagine what that must have looked like (multiplied a hundredfold) to the average European tribesman.

What puzzles me most is where did all that Military organisation go in the following centuries? The next expression of such well-ordered and drilled ranks is probably the 17th Century with Gustavus Adolphus's military ideas and integration of arms.

~A

 

The tactics - like most of the technologies and the like - went into the 'Dark Ages' and were vastly lost for a long time, due to the collapse of the Roman Empires and the 'return' of the Tribal Peoples they had subjugated.

I'm pretty sure the advances in Medicine that had been made did not 'return' to that point until the American Civil War Era.

The Romans were clearly more impressive due to their reach and a lot of the inventions that they made (plumbing, heating, aqueducts,) plus the size of some of their structures (Coliseum for instance).

 

What gets me is that so many of those 'dark ages' peoples are essentially Roman. The traces of empire spanned hundreds of years as well as thousands of miles.
Just always seems remarkable that they lost the military traditions of their earlier glories. Perhaps a strong illustration of how information and skill was so much easier to lose in earlier ages.

 

Right, what I meant to say was that it did not reappear in Europe for hundreds of years, despite having originated there.

 

Having studied (and still studying ) Latin and Ancient Greek I have to say that Latin is quite a beautiful language, more so than Greek. The Aenied in it's original language contains some of the most masterful literary and metric devices I have ever read. But when reading the Odyssey, I was rather disappointed in it's use of such devices. However, in terms of the civilizations as a whole, I have to choose Greece. As has already been mentioned, the Romans were greatly influenced by the Greeks, adopting their alphabet from them, an alphabet widely used today. Furthermore it is considered the birthplace of democracy, I've actually stood on the exact spot (pynx hill). The U.S. has a lot to be thankful for from Greece

 

Democracy? There is no such thing!

I went with the Romans due to their ability to conquer pretty much the entire 'known world' at the time, a feat that has rarely been mimicked (or been so expansive) since then.

 

I am with those who think the dark ages weren't nearly as dark as people make out. More recently it has been shown that far from falling the Roman legal system etc was simply taken over almost in its entireity by the so called barbarians. Also consider that the decline of the post marian army began whilst the empire was still powerful. The legions themselves contained increasing numbers of barbarian soldiers (take Britain which was garrisoned largely by germanic mercenaries) and the armies that fought in the civil wars had massive numbers of barbarians amongst them. There were even barbarian generals in Roman service, stilicho for one. It is one of the great ironies of history that at the fall of the western empire you have a barbarian general leading the roman armies against a barbarian army which had fought for rome, led by a king who had once been a general in the Roman army. Apologies for the tirade btw, on my phone which doesn't have a return button.

 

I must admit that I remain very naive on these two mighty civilizations history... but one thing I can agree on was their likeness in mythology Apollo was the God I would most likely want to be! - Who wouldn't want the gift of prophecy, music, and healing?

Background of Gods - The Olympians

Which God would you most likely be??

Mark

 

I would opt. for being Zeus (Greek) or Jupiter (Roman),

just think of all the chicks the fellow was chasing after. successfully!!

Regards
Kruska

 

I agree with the choice of the Greeks, and for the same reasons as Lou. They came up with the basis of democracy, philosophy (as accepted in the west), and most medical basics (Gahlen), and while their sciences were flawed in some areas, they were luminous in others.

The Islamic states did continue on while the Christian west "floundered" in scientific thought/advancement, but that wasn't due to lack of intelligence in the society. That can be laid directly at the door of the Catholic Church.

And let's not just gloss over the Mayan civilization in mathmatics either. The Mayan civilization also developed the concept of "zero" independently of Europe’s adoption of the Arab's adoption of the east Indian (Hindi) zero.

(the)Ancient Maya discovered two fundamental ideas in mathematics: positional value and the concept of zero. This feat was accomplished by only one other great culture of antiquity, the Hindu. But they did it 300 years or so after the Maya.

These two elements, positional value and zero, might be considered simple and basic concepts nowadays. In fact, they are, and that is precisely what set them apart as a distinct stroke of genius. Greek and Romans, with all the force of their spirit and all the strength of their institutions, did not manage to find these principles. Just try to write down a large number using the Roman notation to see how important are the notions of positional value and zero.

The Maya system is based on the number 20, not on the number 10 as our own. This means that the Maya counted from zero to nineteen before they had to move to the next order, instead of using 10 digits, from zero to nine, as we do. Perhaps they employed fingers and toes to keep the count.

…Another miracle produced by the Mayan culture was the long count calendar, a system more precise than the Gregorian corrected calendar, which is the one we currently use.

From:

The Maya Civilization, Maya Numerals And Calendar : Mexico History

And:

The concept of Zero is attributed to the Hindus. The Hindus were also the first to use zero in the way it is used today. Some symbol was required in positional number systems to mark the place of a power of the base not actually occurring. This was indicated by the Hindus by a small circle, which was called Shunya, the Sanskrit word for vacant. This was translated into the Arabic Sifr about 800 A.D. Subsequent changes have given us the word zero. In Babylone by middle of the 2nd millenium BC, the lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals.

In 498 AD the Indian mathematician and astronomer Aryabhatta stated that Sthanam sthanam dasha gunam means place to place in ten times in value, which may be the origin of the modern decimal-based place value notation. Arabs spread the Hindu decimal zero and its new mathematics to Europe in the Middle Ages.
Italics from;

Interesting Math History - Origin of the Concept of Zero

The Maya used a base 20 instead of base 10, and their symbol for zero was different from the Hindi "circle" for vacant, but the concept and usage is nearly identical.

 

Lou,

Nothing weird about that at all! Wisdom is a trait you definitely possess..... counsel

Mark