Greek contributions to Ancient Rome

[guy]

Here is an interesting article by the classical historian Charles Freeman reviewing the contributions of the Greeks to Roman society.

Although a nice summary, I might have a few (mostly) minor quibbles with the article. 

In his section about Galen, for example, he writes, “His distasteful party piece was severing the squealing nerves of a pig and the restoring them in front of a public audience.” If by “severing the nerves” Freeman meant ligating (tying off) the nerve to temporarily paralyzing it, I would agree. Usually sever means to cut, however. I doubt Galen could cut a nerve and then perform microsurgery to repair the nerve to a functional state.

Then, Freeman describes the events of Hypatia’s death in very simplistic terms: “Hypatia’s death is often seen as marking the end of a pagan learning that welcomed students of whatever beliefs.” I’m not sure of the meaning of “whatever beliefs,” but it wasn’t a tolerant and accepting view, for sure.

 

 

His final statement is absolutely ridiculous: “These free-traveling Greek intellectuals were replaced by monks whose world was inevitably narrower.” I would remind Mr. Freeman that these same monks he disparages also preserved much of classical thinking after the fall of the Roman Empire.

 

Alan Cameron in his book “The Last Pagans of Rome” wrote:

“[T]he main focus of much modern scholarship has been on [the last Pagans'] supposedly stubborn resistance to Christianity. Rather surprisingly, they have been transformed from the arrogant, philistine land-grabbers most of them were into fearless champions of senatorial privilege, literature lovers, and aficionados of classical (especially Greek) culture as well as the traditional cults. The dismantling of this romantic myth is one of the main goals of this book."

 

Overall, this is a good article and his book looks interesting. Some of his historical examples are either wrong or distorted, however. 

 

https://antigonejournal.com/2023/11/greek-intellectuals-roman-empire/

Edited November 27, 2023 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

I'm not familiar with the episode about Galen and the squealing pig, but in Latin "nervus" is usually translated as "sinew" in English. Medical students doing their dissections soon discover that a nerve can be distinguished from an artery or vein (they all look alike on a cadaver) because nerves don;t stretch and break when you pull on them.

Maybe the most obvious contribution to Rome from Greece was the establishment of The Twelve Tables of Law after a  Roman legation brought back the concepts forThe Decemvirs to promulgate as the basic laws....

The Romans  may well have felt a little inferior to and jealous of The Greeks. They decided to establish the year of the overthrow of the Etruscan kings and establishment of their democratic republic as 509 BC-- two years before the traditonal date of 507 for the establishment of the Greek democracy.

Their imitation of Greek art is obvious.