What comparisons can be made between ancient Rome and ancient Greece?

Question

Please give examples of how and in what ways the Romans imitated the Greeks, and also in what ways they improved on Greek methods and skills.

Answer 1

Both are mediterranean countries.

Both were agriculturally based economies.

Both cultures mined, kept slaves and used coinage as currency.

Both produced olive oil and wine.

The Athenians were originally governed by kings.

The Romans were originally governed by kings.

The Athenians were then ruled by an oligarchy, and then by democracy. The Romans were then ruled by a mixed Republican form, and then by emperors.

In Athens women were valued for not gossiping, for managing the household, and, most of all, for producing legitimate children. The aristocratic woman was secluded in the women's quarter and had to be accompanied in public places. She could own, but not sell property. The Athenian woman was subject to her father, and even after marriage, he could ask for her return. She was not a citizen.

The Roman woman was subject to the paterfamilias, whether the dominant male in her household of birth or the household of her husband. She could own and dispose of property and go about as she wished. From epigraphy, we read that a Roman woman was valued for piety, modesty, maintenance of harmony, and being a one-man woman. She could be a Roman citizen.