How Did Geography Influence Greek And Roman Civilization

Geography greatly influenced the Greek and Roman civilizations. Both the Greek and the Roman civilizations were located on the Mediterranean Sea allowing them to fish and benefitted trading and transportation. Due to their closeness in proximity the Greek and Roman civilizations shared political, religious, and cultural ideas. When the civilizations formed, many ideas like the Greek’s written language, art, and culture were derived from influences from the Middle East. In conclusion, due to the civilizations’ proximity to the Middle East and each other, the ability to share and expand upon each other’s ideas strengthened both of the civilizations. There were many common political institutions in the Classical Mediterranean. One of

In Greece, farmers linked farming to the gods and goddesses creating celebrations to honor the goddess of fertility and to give their plants the proper preparation to grow. However, In Rome, landowners decided to force farmers to become laborers and parts of the lower class. Due to the unsatisfactory soil in Greece and Italy, farmers began to shift from grain growing to grape and olive growing. Compared to eastern Asia, Greece and Italy’s trading items such as olive oil, wine, silver, animal skins, and exotic animals were lesser but still commonly traded to get access to grain production. In Rome, merchants had fairly high statuses in society, but in Greece, merchants were mostly foreigners with lower statuses. In conclusion, agricultural life directly impacted the mercantile institutions in the Classical Mediterranean by giving merchants the needed products to trade and gain products the Mediterranean did not have access

Due to the fact that the Greco-Roman world focused a lot of attention on aristocrats, they were located at the top of the social hierarchy. Merchants were viewed as an important part of the social divisions causing them to have more power and respect, but even though the merchants were treated better in the Greco-Roman world, the slaves and farmers were treated poorly. Intense social divisions and inequalities are revealed when it is seen that farmers were forced to work like slaves for powerful landowners and slaves were used as servants and workers in households. Like in the other classical civilizations, the men in the tightly knit families held most, if not all, of the control. Even though in the upper classes women had power, by law they were inferior to men and like in the Chinese civilization, female children would be killed to maintain the family 's economy. In conclusion, similarly to the other classical societies, the Greco-Roman world had extreme social divisions, inequalities and gender