The contacts between the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire with the Greeks began early in Roman history, as the Latins originated in the vicinity of the Greek colonies in the western Mediterranean. The Greeks initially took little notice of the Romans who were living on their periphery and borrowing heavily from Greek culture, but contacts greatly expanded in the course of Roman expansion in southern Italy, Greece and Asia Minor. Roman culture was highly influenced by the Greeks; as Horace said, Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror"). Under Roman rule, Greco-Roman relations flourished but were frequently tinged with resentment: the Greeks retained a sense of cultural superiority, while many Romans considered the subjugated Greeks as beneath them and sought to defend their culture from what they perceived as excessive Greek influence. After Christianisation in Late Antiquity, Greeks primarily identified as Romans, but tensions rose with the Latin-speaking Romans in the West, who continued to see Easterners as "Greeks" and often as rivals.
Early influence
Greek people had settled in Southern Italy and Sicily since the 8th century BC, allowing the Italian tribes to come into contact with Greek culture from an early period and bringing them under Greek cultural influence. Italian use of the alphabet, weights and measures, and temples were derived from the Greeks. Although the Greeks referred to themselves as "Hellenes", the Romans referred to them as Graeci, since Cumae, the first Greek colony in mainland Italy, was populated by settlers from the town of Graea in central Greece. Greek merchants traded at the Forum Boarium on the Tiber as early as the 8th century BC, and Greek influence on even conservative Roman traditions such as law or religion can be discerned in the 3rd century BC. The earliest known Roman coins were minted in Greek-speaking Neapolis, and were inscribed Ῥωμαῖων, which was both the Romans' Greek-language name for themselves and the Greeks' name for Romans. The use of Greek for the inscription reflected how Greek was still more widespread in 4th century BC Italy than Latin was.
The Romans came into close contact with Greek culture during the conquest of Magna Graecia, Mainland Greece and the "Hellenistic countries" (countries that had been marked by Greek culture and language) in the 2nd and the 1st centuries BC. The Romans saw in Hellenistic cities a lifestyle that could be more comfortable than theirs. Formerly sparsely-ornamented houses acquired columns, statues, mosaics on the floors, tapestries and paintings on the walls. Meals were taken while reclining instead of sitting, conforming to Greek custom. The Romans also derived knowledge in trade, banking, administration, art, literature, philosophy and earth science from Greek influence. The comitium, a stone, circular, tiered assembly place in the Forum, was modelled on Sicilian Greek designs around 264 BC. Returning Roman generals built wooden imitations of Greek temples, and wooden Greek-style complexes to exhibit plunder from the Greeks. In 184 BC, Cato the Elder built Rome's first basilica, based on Greek design. One of the earliest all-stone structures in Rome was a round Greek-style temple built in 150 BC with looted Greek marble.
Greek views of Romans
On the other hand, the Greeks traditionally associated Italy with the Trojans or Greek veterans of the Trojan War, and Greek influence such as the cult of Dioskouroi are evident in Latium from the 7th century BC. Under the ever-growing influence of the Italiote Greeks, the Romans acquired their own national origin myth sometime during the early Republican era (500–300 BC). It was centred on the figure of Aeneas, a supposed Trojan survivor of the destruction of Troy by the Achaean Greeks, as related in the poet Homer's epic the Iliad (composed c. 800 BC). The legend provided the Romans with a heroic "Homeric" pedigree, as well as a (spurious) ethnic distinctiveness from the other Latins. It also provided a rationale (as poetic revenge for the destruction of Troy) for Rome's hostilities against, and eventual subjugation of, the Greek cities of southern Italy, especially Taras (mod. Taranto) in the period ending 275 BC.
Greek knowledge of the Romans before ca. 200 BC was scant; most Greeks viewed the Romans as remote and not of immediate concern, beyond the fascination of Greek intellectuals for legends such as the descent of Romulus from Aeneas. In the 4th century BC, Heraclides Ponticus regarded Rome as a "Greek city." Eratosthenes listed Rome together with Carthage, India and Ariana as "refined barbarians", using these peoples as examples to avoid prejudging barbarians. Pyrrhus, during his war against Rome, was surprised to find that Roman forces were not disorganised barbarians, as he expected. Some Greek cities in Italy such as Locri or Agrigentum formed positive or negative views of Rome depending on their stance in the Punic Wars, but these did not reflect general Greek attitudes. The first Roman province beyond the Alps, Gallia Narbonensis, was established at the request of the Greek city state of Massalia, Rome's ally against Carthage, when they sought Roman help against hostile local tribes in 125 BC.
In admiration of the Roman military successes, Hellenistic states such as the Seleucids and Ptolemaic Egypt adopted elements of Roman military organisation and equipment; the Seleucids seem to have organised a parade inspired by the Roman triumph. The cult of the personified Rome, Dea Roma, was first institutionalised in the Greek East, by the city of Smyrna in 195 BC, which was under Roman protection from the threat of Seleucid King Antiochus III. The cult became established in Athens by the 2nd century BC, where it was also designed to reflect Rome's protection for the Hellenic city-states, and spread to the Romans themselves in the 4th century. 1st and 2nd century BC Antigonid Macedonia, which ruled much of Hellenistic Greece, hardly adopted any Roman cultural elements, and their material culture was largely untouched by Roman contact.
Pax Romana
In the last century BC it was also seen as a necessity to be able to speak Greek as well as Latin. The everyday interpenetration of the two languages is indicated by bilingual inscriptions, which sometimes even switch back and forth between Greek and Latin. The epitaph of a Greek-speaking soldier, for instance, might be written primarily in Greek, with his rank and unit in the Roman army expressed in Latin.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 556; Adams, "Romanitas and the Latin Language," p. 200. In the Roman East, laws and official documents were regularly translated into Greek from Latin.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," pp. 553–554. Roman commentaries testify that Roman couples even used Greek for pillow talk. The identification of Romans with Greek became so close that some Roman writers in the 1st century BC and 1st century began to entertain the claim that Latin was an Aeolic Greek dialect. In 86, Domitian established the Capitoline festival, a Greek-style athletics and music festival, which not only appealed to Rome's large Greek immigrant community but increasingly also native Romans. So popular was the festival that, when Domitian was overthrown, the festival was not revoked alongside Domitian's other acts.
Roman culture formed part of a broader Greco-Roman culture and shared common ideals with the Greeks in terms of culture and civilization, partly because of the Greeks who were voluntarily or involuntarily in Rome. A common theme that emerged in Greco-Roman literature was the desire to venerate and emulate Alexander the Great. Towards the end of the Republic, with the shift towards military strongman rule in Rome, Romans began to identify with Alexander, who inspired their own empire-building and glory-seeking. For example, Julius Caesar was presented as successor to Alexander, and Roman elites worshipped Alexander. Romans frequently collected objects associated with Alexander, such as Pompey who wore Alexander's cloak, and Augustus who used a signet ring with Alexander's image. The tomb of Augustus was modelled after Alexander's tomb.
Although Greeks and Romans had friendly ties due to their similarities, they both sought to differentiate themselves, often through language, customs, and literature.
Greco-Roman exchanges in Greece
The Roman emperors encouraged the preservation of Greek customs in Neapolis, such as the continued use of Greek for most public epigraphy, or when Augustus encouraged Romans in Neapolis to dress as Greeks and vice versa. Roman elites hence used Neapolis as a space to freely indulge in Greek lifestyles, in ways which were not yet acceptable in Rome. However, by the time of Nero and Domitian these activities had spread to Rome itself. The Roman Emperor Nero visited Greece in AD 66, and performed at the Ancient Olympic Games, despite the rules against non-Greek participation. He was honoured with a victory in every contest, and in the following year, he proclaimed the freedom of the Greeks at the Isthmian Games in Corinth, just as Flamininus had over 200 years previously.On the proclamation of the freedom of the Greeks see . Nero was also Archon of Athens and was initiated into the mysteries of Demeter.
It was popular for young 1st century BC Romans to study in Athens and perfect their knowledge of rhetoric at the large schools of philosophy. The city of Sparta was a major tourist attraction for the Romans from the 1st century BC to the 4th century, who sought to see 'vestiges' (in reality, artificial revivals) of Sparta's "Lycurgan customs" of physical training such as the sphaireis ball tournament, the battle of Platanistas, the festivals of Artemis Orthia, the Gymnopaediae and the Hyacinthia.
The city of Corinth, where the Roman provincial governor resided with his staff, was particularly close to Rome; Corinthian coins were based on Roman ones, Corinthian pottery exhibited Western influences, Augustus ordered much rebuilding in the city, and Corinth was home to one of the earliest overseas Capitolia. The city became Latin-speaking until the reign of Hadrian. Greek cities like Ephesus or Athens flourished during the long era of peace (Pax Romana). Though Greek, cities like Ephesus were not explicitly distinctive from Roman cities.C. Ando, "Images of Emperor and Empire," in Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), ch. 7. One area of strong Roman influence on the Greeks was the rapid spread and popularity of gladiatorial combat in the Greek East, complete with Latin loanwords for gladiatorial terminology.
Roman backlash