Greek and Roman civilizations were not primitive. Their life style was organized and constructed in an structured pattern of rules that set the base for what we know today as modern existence.
Life was seen differently in Greece than in Rome. In the Greek conception, humans and gods were almost equal characters and they portrayed both parts in the same dimension. Humans were given divine attributes, while gods were represented as humans. This was a form of magic suggestion to compare humans with gods and create the feeling of power and balance that characterized life in the Classic Period. It was this conviction of their similitude to the divine entities that gave society the strength and balance to grow and flourish for many centuries, recreating a feeling of prosperity and harmony. The godly world they reflected in their mythology and poetry was as full of conflict as the human world, this making them feel less vulnerable against the real world.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons their gods were represented as humans and performing human roles, in an attempt to endow humans with the capacity of immortality which was one of the greatest preoccupation in their culture. Many artists conceived this immortalization through their very creations.
Roman conception was less romantic and more realistic, which also caused that country to flourish as the Greek paradise began to fade. While in Greece, the purpose of human life was to achieve the perfection of a divine existence, the Romans had materialistic and practical points-of-view about the meaning of existence. The Romans used their power to dominate other cultures.
For ancient civilizations their actions and forms of expression were meant to deliver a message for future generations about their culture and role in history, to spread their ideas all over the world.
The very conception of human life determines how any civilization will develop and influence future cultures. The Greek believed in harmony and made that the centre of their...
The Romans conceived humans as a tool the gods used to reach power in the world and needed to show the greatness of Rome spreading their ideology over other cultures. Both civilizations reached greatness because they conceived their existence as an attempt to match the gods and transform human life, so meaningless and uncertain, into the powerful condition they expected to reach. This oscillation between mortal and divine, both seen through the prism of the human life as refrence was an ideology that repeated by stages during history, in alternating periods, until the contemporary world.
Under the influence of classic cultures that extended their vision to future societies, humans have always tried to dominate their lives. In every culture, from the very beginning of the civilized world, humans have tried to achieve control over their lives, to understand how it functions and to dominate it. What has never changed through many centuries of history is that human life is tightly bound to the religious world and that gods and mortals have always been together in the spiritual conception of existence. However, the concept of human life has changed dramatically during the past centuries and society has started to develop based on practical progress, material achievements and palpable ideas that appear from the same curiosity that inspired the ancient societies to develop and that is: the key to improve human life, seeking perfection.
Bibliography
Burckhardt, J. (2002). History of Greek Culture. New York: Dover publications.
Hingley, R. (2005). Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity and Empire. London: Routledge
Hurwit, JM. (1987). The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. New York: Cornell University press.
Burckhardt, J. (2002). History of Greek Culture. New York: Dover publications
Hingley, R. (2005). Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity and Empire. London; Routledge
