thumb|Statue of [[Mars (mythology)|Mars from the Forum of Nerva, early 2nd century AD, based on an Augustan-era original that in turn used a Hellenistic Greek model of the 4th century BC, Capitoline Museums]]
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.
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.
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
thumb|350px|Roman roads and cities in Greece
thumb|The [[Discobolus, a Roman marble version of a lost 5th century BC Greek bronze original, depicting a discus thrower.]]
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. In the Roman East, laws and official documents were regularly translated into Greek from Latin. 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. The tomb of Augustus was modelled after Alexander's tomb. 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. 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
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.
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
left|thumb|Bust of Cicero, prominent translator of Greek philosophy into Latin and critic of excessive Greek influence in Rome
Some Romans resisted this Greek influence on every aspect of life. Roman elites who admired elements of Greek acculturation nevertheless considered it unacceptable to fully accept Greek identity as a hellenistēs, and names such as semi-graecus (half-Greek) were not considered positive. According to Cassius Dio, a Greco-Roman from the East, Romans typically used the term Graecus as a negative reference to the lowly origin of a Greek person. Roman writings frequently stereotyped the Greeks as untrustworthy, debauched and overly luxurious. For example, Cato the Elder prophesied Rome's demise; he considered everything Greek to be suspect; he even mistrusted Greek doctors and claimed that they plotted to poison Romans. Roman aristocrats warned of Greek influences corrupting Roman morals or Roman religious piety, and believed that excessive imitation of the Graeculus "Greekling" (a Roman slur for Greeks popularised by Cicero) would lead to the collapse of Rome. Roman perceptions of Greeks mirrored the earlier Greek perceptions of Persians: as a formerly upright and militarily strong people who had become weak, decadent and dishonest.
Under the influence of such anti-Greek sentiments, Romans sometimes avoided using the Greek language in certain situations: for instance, Cato the Elder and Gaius Marius would refuse to use Greek in an official capacity despite continuing to adopt some elements of Greek culture and intellectual life. Suetonius quotes him as referring to "our two languages," and the employment of two imperial secretaries, one for Greek and one Latin, dates to his reign.
In clothing, Roman frequently adopted Greek footwear such as solea (sandals) or soccus (soft slippers) which were more comfortable than the calceus (traditional Roman boot). However, Roman writers repeatedly condemned it as effeminate to wear them in public, until the reign of Hadrian. Nevertheless, some publicly wore Greek-style sandals to "go with the crowd". Romans also bore similar contempt for fellow Romans who wore the rectangular Greek himation/pallium with a Greek ankle-length tunic, instead of the semi-circular Roman toga with a Roman knee-length tunic. The himation was strictly limited to private casual wear, and as late as the 160s, it was considered a major indiscretion when a North African delegate showed up to Septimius Severus' banquet wearing one instead of a toga. For Romans, the idiom a toga ad pallium (to go from toga to the Greek-style pallium) meant to drop from a high status to a low one, although not as low as the bracati (people who use trousers).
Tensions carried over into political policy. Roman writers associated the Greek cultural tendencies of Nero and Domitian with their despotic reputations. Almost all Latin writers used the life of Alexander the Great as a cautionary tale: depicting Alexander as a tyrant and a violent madman whose empire was short-lived as compared to the Roman one. For Emperor Trajan, Greek intellectuals and notables were to be regarded as tools for local administration, and not be allowed to fancy themselves in a privileged position. As Pliny said in one of his letters at the time, it was official policy that Greek civic elites be treated according to their status as notionally free, but not put on an equal footing with their Roman rulers.
Greek responses to Roman domination
thumb|Roman coin showing Lucius Aemilius Paullus on the right, touching trophy; standing to the left as captives, the King Perseus of Macedon and his two sons.
Conversely, some Greeks held the Romans in disdain, who had devastated their homelands, robbed temples and public buildings, decimated the population and brought many Greeks to Rome as slaves.
Aemilius Paulus, the victor of the Battle of Pydna in Greece in 168 BC, is said to have personally sold 150,000 Greeks to Rome as slaves. Enslaved Greek teachers, doctors, entertainers were brought to Rome in large numbers, alongside vast quantities of looted Greek art decorating Roman forums, temples and villas. Greek leaders initially denounced the Romans as barbarians that had to be kept out of Greece, arguing that their treatment of captured cities was 'savage' (ὠμός) and 'lawless' (παρανομία), standard Greek criticisms of those whom they labelled 'barbarians'. Polybius similarly described Romans as greedy, brutal and overly religious, similar to descriptions of other 'barbarians'.
The Greeks had their own memories of independence, a commonly acknowledged sense of cultural superiority, and instead of seeing themselves as Roman, disdained Roman rule. The Greeks who did accept a sense of 'Romanness" did so selectively according to their preferences and self-interest, without neglecting their own Greek cultural heritage, for instance, participating in certain Roman festivals like Saturnalia to orientate their schedules to the Roman calendar. Greeks still perceived themselves as independent city-states in partnership with the Roman people (socii populi Romani) and saw 'Romanness' as equivalent to other regional labels. The use of the toga was unlikely to have been mandatory in the Greek East; Greeks generally used their own himation rather than the Roman toga for public functions. Greek himations vastly outnumber togas on statuary in the Greek East, with the exception of Roman administrative centers such as Corinth and Gortyn, or families with very close relations to Rome. The city of Nicopolis, which Augustus founded at the site of his camp during the campaign against Mark Antony to be the site of the Actian Games, refused to accept the status of a Roman colonia (unlike Corinth) due to its pride in its Greek identity.
While Dionysius of Halicarnassus explained that the Greeks of his time, in the late 1st century BC, generally saw Romans as barbarians, he argued instead that Romans "are Greeks." Greek grammarians including Dionysius, Philoxenus of Alexandria and Tyrannion developed the theory that Latin was derived from an Aeolic Greek dialect. Aelius Aristides praised Rome for bringing peace, but insisted that Rome's importance came from the momentary politics of the era, while Athens was inherently great and the source of all value, calling Greece "the center of the whole earth". This period saw the Greeks forming the peaceful hinterland near major conflict zones, and Greeks had recently suffered severely during the Jewish uprising. The Romans were hence keen to win over Greek support for strategic reasons. Antoninus Pius followed the policy adopted by Hadrian of ingratiating himself with Greek-speaking city elites, especially with local intellectuals who were explicitly exempted from any duties involving private spending for civic purposes, a privilege granted by Hadrian that Antoninus confirmed.
The Severan dynasty modelled their Greek policy on Hadrian's example, especially Severus Alexander, who became particularly connected to Athens through Athenian citizenship and membership in the tribe Adrianis. Latin became the prestige language while Greek was used to support communication. For instance, Septimius Severus was described as learned in both Latin and Greek, and when he spoke Latin to the Egyptian masses, interpreters translated into Greek. A court trial that Caracalla presided over was recorded in Latin, except for the words of the emperor and the lawyers, which were in Greek. Caracalla was also attested as an obsessive 'fan' of Alexander the Great; he emotionally and religiously venerated Alexander when visiting his tomb, drank from goblets said to belong to Alexander, carried a shield with Alexander's image, and ordered artworks of Alexander. Both Diocletian and his co-emperor Galerius chose Greek cities (Nicomedia and Thessalonica respectively) as their nascent capitals, viewing Greece as the political heartland of their empire. Their devotion to traditional Greek religion motivated the Diocletianic persecution against Christianity, after Diocletian consulted his officials and an oracle of Apollo. Meanwhile, the Western co-emperors did not fully implement the persecution.
Late antiquity
left|thumb|Personification of the senate (in Constantinople), from the [[consular diptych of Theodore Philoxenus, 525 AD]]
Declining relations in the 4th and 5th centuries
By late antiquity, the division of the two parts of the Roman Empire began to accelerate between the weakened and disorderly Latin West and the more prosperous Greek East. In Constantinople, the center of the Greek East. Outdated visions of late antiquity as a period of poverty, depopulation, barbarian destruction, and civil decay have been revised in light of recent archaeological discoveries, and it is assumed that between the 4th and 7th centuries AD, Greece continued as one of the most economically active regions in the eastern Mediterranean.
An uncomfortable coexistence emerged when Constantius II established a Senate and a Praefectus Urbi for Constantinople, in imitation of Rome, which upset the elites of Rome by threatening the privileges that Rome had once enjoyed exclusively. The religious competition that arose between the churches of Rome and Constantinople also contributed to the political conflict between the cities. In addition, the absence of the emperors from Rome encouraged Rome's inhabitants to defend the interests of their city, assert Rome's uniqueness as the cradle of the empire, and pass judgement on the 'Romanness' of the rest of the Empire. Emperor Julian, who considered himself culturally Greek and praised Hellenization as the foundation of the Roman Empire, found himself mocked as a Graeculus and a pretentious fraud by Roman troops from the Western provinces. Although some leaders in the Western Empire called upon Eastern assistance during the decline of the West, not all Westerners welcomed this interference. Praetorian prefect of Gaul Arvandus labelled the emperor Anthemius as a "Greek emperor", seeing him as an alien intruder and urging the Visigoths to remove him from power. In the late 5th century, the Gallo-Roman bishop Avitus of Vienne denounced Emperor Anastasius I as Caesar Graecorum ("Emperor of the Greeks"), and called the Eastern Empire Grecia, in response to the adoption of Monophysitism, a heresy to the West. Constantine was bilingual in Greek and Latin but was more fluent in Latin. For example, he was able to carry conversations in Greek without an interpreters, but preferred Latin for speeches and written statements, such as when addressing the Greek-speaking bishops in the First Council of Nicaea. Julian was also bilingual but was more fluent in Greek, having an "adequate" ability in Latin according to Ammianus Marcellinus, but "better read" in Greek according to Eutropius. Both Greek and Latin were still in active use by government officials and the Church during the 5th century. Later, from the 6th century, Greek culture was studied in the West almost exclusively through Latin translation. Although Latin was historically important in the military, legal system, and government, its use also declined in Eastern territories from 400 AD. Greek had begun to replace it even in those functions by the time of Justinian I (r. 527–565), who may have tried to arrest Latin's decline. Its extinction in the east was thereafter inevitable. Writing in the reign of Justinian, John Lydus recounted an incident in the 5th century when a certain Cyrus, Prefect of Constantinople, recited edicts in Greek instead of Latin. Lydus believed that this event fulfilled an ancient prophecy which predicted the downfall of Rome "when they forgot their ancestral tongue." The Eastern empire lost its linguistic diversity in the wars of the 7th and 8th centuries, becoming overwhelmingly Greek-speaking. In the East, Greek speakers saw themselves as the true Romans since Greek became identified as the "Roman" language (Rhōmaikē).
Justinian's reconquest and aftermath
thumb|[[Belisarius mosaic, Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy]]
After recapturing Rome and parts of Italy, the violent Gothic wars and the various sieges throughout Italy further disillusioned the native Roman population, worsening the reputation of Greeks such as Belisarius and his troops, who were mostly Greek or Greek speaking. When Belisarius arrived in Italy, the Goths began to propagate anti-Greek sentiment, stereotyping the Greeks that were in Rome as useless mimes and thieves. The sentiment successfully spread due to the resentment already borne between the Romans and Greeks. At the climax of the tension and violence the Romans wrote a letter to the Emperor Justinian in which they proclaimed that they would rather be ruled by Goths than by Greeks; the Roman resentment against the Greeks was not limited only to the troops of Belisarius, but to all Hellenic influence. While the Goths denounced the Eastern Romans as "Greeks", the Easterners insisted that all Romans owed their allegiance to their fellow Romans from the East, an ideological position which did not account for Italy's flexible identities and frequent defections. Hence, their labelling of individuals as "Goth" or "Roman" shifted fluidly depending on which party these persons supported at each moment. Belisarius, noting the growing distrust of the Romans, wrote a letter to Emperor Justinian I over his concerns about the intentions of the Romans: "And although at the present time the Romans are well disposed toward us, yet when their troubles are prolonged, they will probably not hesitate to choose the course which is better for their own interests. [...] Furthermore, the Romans will be compelled by hunger to do many things they would prefer not to do."
To reestablish order Justinian and Belisarius began to replace the native Roman popes and high functionaries or nobles who often conspired against the Byzantine troops in Rome or Italy, with Greek speakers from Syria, Antioch, Alexandria and Cilicia. This policy of "Hellenization" in the Italian peninsula and in the newly reconquered western provinces of the empire, each with a Byzantine exarch, was closely followed by Justinian and his successors. The Eastern Empire arranged for Italian aristocrats to live semi-permanently as second-class nobles in Constantinople, generating considerable resentment. The Greek merchant enclave in Rome, the ripa graeca, became the center of Byzantine period Rome.
In the 7th century, it had become common practice in the Latin West to refer to the Eastern remnants of the Roman Empire as Graeci "Greeks". After the dissolution of the Western Empire, there was no remaining trace of a unified Italian Roman identity, Latin speakers in the former Western provinces were no longer considered as Romans, and the Latin West used the term Romani to refer to inhabitants of the Eastern Empire (alongside the term "Greek" which served to convey a sense of distancing). In the 5th and 6th centuries, Romani still generally referred to all citizens of the Roman Empire. In the 6th century, there was a shift in meaning of "Roman" to refer briefly to Italians, and later, to inhabitants of the city of Rome. With the fading Imperial military presence in Italy, the Papacy filled the role of leading resistance to the Lombard invaders. The popes began to claim the Duchy of Rome (and later, Ravenna as well) as a separate "Republic of the Romans" or "holy republic", eventually placing themselves under the protection of the Carolingian Franks, whom the popes granted the title "Patrician of the Romans". In subsequent periods, Constantinople's subjects from Italy no longer referred to themselves as Romans.