Compare and contrast the Ancient Greeks and Romans.What did they have in common? ...

Since Ancient Greece consisted mostly of the city-states, each possessing its unique local properties and features, it is difficult to talk about the Ancient Greece as a whole. Referring to the Ancient Greek culture, people usually mean the culture of Athens, one of the richest and the most powerful city-states. When talking about it, it is impossible to omit one of the most prominent achievements of the Hellenic civilization: the direct democracy. Every adult male Greek had a right to participate in socio-political life of a city-state he lived in; in these terms, the poorest citizen was equal to the richest. Gatherting on latge squares able to house several hundred people, men exchanged opinions on economy, military, diplomatic, and other issues, and made decisions based on the opinion of the majority. In contrast, Rome was a state in which the republican model had outlived its usefulness and efficiency; Rome became an empire, suffering from unemployment, inequality, political intrigues, and poverty (all of which started in the last decades of the Republic). None of the Emperors could do anything about it. Rome is also known to have had adopted and assimilated many of the Hellenic cultural achievements.