What did the romans adopt from the greeks?

Answer 1

Greek influence started very early on in the history of the Romans and (more widely) of central and southern Italy. The Greeks established colonies (settlements) in southern Italy and Sicily in the 8th and 7th century BC. Being a more advanced civilisation, their arrival had a big impact on all the Italic peoples they came in contact with during their archaic (early) period. For example, Etruscan civilisation arose out of trade with and deep influence by these Greeks in what has been called the orientalising period, where the Etruscans adopted Greek motifs for their pottery and Greek architectural styles. The Italic peoples also adopted and adapted the western Greek alphabet to create their own written languages. This included written Etruscan and written Latin (the Romans were Latins). Recent archaeological evidence has shown that the Latins were influenced by the Greeks of Cumae (a Greek city near Naples, just 125 miles south of Rome) as well as the Etruscans in their archaic period.

Already the 6th century BC the Romans started using the books of the Sibylline who were Greek oracles, some of whom lived in Cumae. They also adopted the Greek god Apollo, who was an oracular god (that is he was the god of the oracles) and built the Temple of Apollo Medicus (the doctor) in in 431. BC. Apollo's son, who mediated Apollo's association with medicine and healing, was also adopted. The Senate was instructed to build a temple in his honour by the Sybil oracles in 293 BC and also procured a statue of him from Greece. They also adopted the Greek twin gods Castor and Pollux and the mythology associated with them by the late 5th century. During the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) they 'imported' Cybele (whom they called Magna Mater, Great Mother) a Greek goddess because the books of the Sibyl oracles said that with this Rome could defeat Carthage. Besides adopting some Greek gods, at one point the Romans linked their gods to the Greek gods and their associated mythologies.

Greek influence on the Romans increased with the conquest of the Greek city of Tarentum (in the heel of Italy) and with the later contact with mainland Greece. The first educators in Rome were Greeks from Tarentum. This led to the adoption of the Greek model for education in Rome. The children of the Roman rich received an education in both Latin and Greek and were fluent in Greek. The pinnacle of their education was a stay in Greece to study Greek philosophy. The two main schools of Greek philosophy of the time, Stoicism and Epicureanism, became popular among the Roman elite. Latin literature emerged from plays which were modelled on plays and forms of drama and comedies from Greece. Roman theatres were inspired by that of the Greeks. However, whilst the seating of Greek theatres were always built on hillsides, the Romans also built theatres with their own foundations which could be built on flat land. From Augustus onwards, they modelled their statues on the Hellenistic ones. They also copied statues on those of great Greek sculptors. The Romans also adopted Greek medicine, Greek sports and Greek siege machines, such as siege towers and catapults.

Answer 2

Their alphabetic form of writing.