Greece & Rome

270s Pyrrhus in S. Italy & Sicily
168 Rome conquers Macedon
146 Greece conquered: Sack of Corinth
133 Pergamon willed to Rome
64  Last Seleucid King deposed
49  Roman Civil Wars
31  Augustus defeats Antony & Cleopatra at Actium; Egypt a Roman province
 

Hellenization of Rome

• Horace: "Greece enslaved enslaved  her master"
• Roman bilingualism
• Athens as university town
• Vergil, Aeneid: Trojans > Rome
• Laocoon: Hellenistic or Roman?

Greece & Christianity

• New Testament (c. 60-100 AD)
• Travels of St. Paul (d. 60 AD)
• Sporadic persecutions
• Constantine: Christianity legal (313)

• Capital at Constantinople
• Justinian (ruled 527-565)
• Church of St. Sophia (532-537)
• Art: mosaic & icon painting
• Scholarship: copying of texts
• Sack by 4th Crusade (1204)
• Gradual encroachment by Turks
• Fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Turks (1453)
• Greek refugees -> Italian Renaissance

Ottoman Empire

• Cultural stagnation
• Greek Revolution 1821-1832
• European philhellenism: Byron

• Monarchy imported from Germany
• 1922 Defeat in Asia Minor
• World War II: Italians > Nazis
• Civil War: right wing vs. communists
• The Colonels: right wing junta 1967-74
• Democracy: EU and NATO

• C.P. Cavafy, "Ithaca" (1863-1933)
• George Seferis (1900-1971)
• Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek; The Odyssey. A Modern Sequel
• Mikis Theodorakis (1925 - )