Greek and Roman Philosophy

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how, from the intellectual perspective, the Romans borrowed heavily from the Greeks and founded the Roman Republic on the ideals of Greek philosophy and politics. It discusses the period from around the 4th century BC to the 5th century AD, when the Greece and the Romans dominated the world, one after another. It explains how the period marks the height and decline of ancient Greece and the advent of the Hellenistic period of small states, and then a long history of Rome, first as a Republic and then as the Roman Empire.

From the Paper:

"Roman philosophy was firmly grounded in the Greek Philosophy and the concepts introduced by Greeks both in ethical philosophy and political philosophy. Initially Roman Republic suffered internal conflicts and wars between the rival leaders and interest in the Greek philosophy first can be seen in 155 BCE in Rome by an Athenian embassy, consisting of the Academic Carneades, the Stoic Diogenes, and the Peripatetic Critolaus. One of the significant work that attracted the attention of Romans noble men was of the Stoic Panaetius, but it can be said that a more widespread and thorough study of Greek philosophy came in the period of Cicero and Varro. Both writers and philosophers not only conducted a deep study of the Greek philosophy and they even translated many of the works and made it available to the public and those who were outside and the literary circles [Hooker, 1996]. The Romans were generally attracted towards the later Greek philosophy which had leaned towards ethical concepts and how to lead a good life in the society. Thus they had little or no interest in the natural philosophy of pre-Socrates and metaphysical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Four Greek schools of thought had considerable impact on the Romans namely Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism and Neo-Platonism. Among these the Epicureanism and Stoicism were the most popular and the Romans developed their own versions of these philosophies."

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