History Midterm

Anthony Aragon

HIST

Instructor

October 6, 2012

This paper is to compare and contrast the essential features of Greek and Roman society. In this paper I hope to demonstrate that Roman Empire social structure does indeed have advantage over society as found in Greek poleis. Through my analysis of the textbook and primary sources given you will be able to see that advantage.

It can be seen that the Greek and Romans differed in how they viewed their religion based in their philosophic views; these viewpoints can be seen in there architecture, sculptures and writings of the day. It can be say that one of the greatest architectural advancements the Greeks made was the temple. They funneled a great amount into the temple projects. The Temple was a designed to house the deities that were chief among the location that the temples were built. These earliest temples were called Doric, constructed in the a very simple form and had very little detail. Later Greek became more interested in mathematics and the designs became more proportioned and a standard number of columns were used and the detail increased. Here we can see that religion plays a great roll in Greek life. These temples were a place away from the everyday troubles of the world.

The Romans too created temples, but unlike the earlier Greek period, Rome was the central location of the empire’s religion. The heart of the city was a forum were the Roman citizens conducted business, the seat of government was housed and where the high priest found his home. This would bring unity rather than having each polis supporting its own deity where strife and confrontation would and did happen. The Roman forum was a symbol of Roman power and it strong civilization.

Philosophy is another area where I see the Romans with the advantage. In Greek Philosophy there were three main groups of thought. We have the pre-Socratics, the Sophists and the Socratic revolution. The pre-Socratic thinkers were mainly...