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Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the lingua franca (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the Levant, and Egypt) and the western parts where Latin filled this role (Italy, Gaul, Hispania, North Africa, the northern Balkans, territories in Central ...
This was mainly due to the introduction of Christianity and differences between the weakened and disorderly Latin West and the more prosperous Greek East. In Constantinople, the center of the Greek East, one could find Greek-speaking poets and historians referring to Rome as a foreign city full of vice, corruption, and decadence.
A portion of these borrowings come directly from Latin, but some also from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; or from other languages (such as Gothic, Frankish or Greek) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin and Greek roots.
The Pax Romana was the longest period of peace in Greek history, and Greece became a major crossroads of maritime trade between Rome and the Greek speaking eastern half of the empire. The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the eastern provinces and in Italy, and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in ...
Greco-Roman mythology, sometimes called classical mythology, is the result of the syncretism between Roman and Greek myths, spanning the period of Great Greece at the end of Roman paganism. Along with philosophy and political theory, mythology is one of the greatest contributions of Classical antiquity to Western society. [2]
The transmission of the Greek Classics to Latin Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe. [1] Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the Early Middle Ages, but as traffic to the East increased, so did Western scholarship.
Suetonius quotes him as referring to "our two languages," [39] and the employment of two imperial secretaries, one for Greek and one Latin, dates to his reign. [40] The everyday interpenetration of the two languages is indicated by bilingual inscriptions, which sometimes even switch back and forth between Greek and Latin.
The phenomenon of cultural alienation between the Latin West and Greek East is crucial for understanding the historic relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. [23] The difference was, for one, pronounced in the language of the respective spheres.