Greco-Roman
In modern Olympic and amateur wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling is a particular style and variation.
The Greco-Roman period of history refers to the culture of the peoples that were incorporated into the Roman Republic and Empire. It begins with the Roman occupation of Greece in 146 BC and ends with the fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD. Terms such as Greco-Roman World are also coined by scholars to denote the geographical borders of the culture's impact. It can be said that after the Punic Wars, Greco-Roman civilization dominates permanently over the Carthago-phoenician and the entire Mediterranean basin. The Graeco-Roman dominion reflects the essential unity of the Mediterranean world at the time when this culture flourished, between the 3rd century BC and the 5th century AD. The Mediterranean was considered by Romans "mare nostrum" or a "lacus Romanus," but their political hegemony begins with the first Punic war in 263 B.C. Prior to that period, the Greeks and Phoenicians were the most notable traders whose ships worked their way across the Mediterranean and even beyond, establishing emporia and colonies in their wake. The terminating datum point might be the year 476 A.D., when emperor Romulus Augustulus of Rome succumbs to non-Roman forces (if the far-reaching changes associated with Constantine the Great are set aside, see below).
There are many indicators in the social matrix of classical antiquity that give evidence of common heritage. Probably the single most important indicator is the alphabet, since it has become the most ubiquitous artifact of that culture.
In the schools of philosophy and rhetoric, the foundations of education were transmitted throughout the lands of Greek and Roman rule. Within its educated class, spanning all of the "Greco-Roman" era, the testimony of literary borrowings and influences is overwhelming proof of a mantle of mutual knowledge. For example, several hundred papyrus volumes found in a Roman villa at Herculaneum are in Greek. From the lives of Cicero and Caesar we know that Romans frequented the schools in Greece. The installation both in Greek and Latin of Augustus' monumental eulogy, the Res Gestae, is a proof of official recognition for the dual vehicles of the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in the "Parallel Lives" composed by the Greek Plutarch (d. ca 120 A.D.) is but one example of the extent to which "universal history" was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famous Latins and Hellenes. We may conclude that most Romans were bilingual in Greek and Latin.
Rome became the superpower of this age in the political and legal spheres, and by its military might, the enormous Roman state created an enduring amalgam of disparate peoples and bestowed relative peace and prosperity on those peoples. Caesar plundered and enslaved without apology; however, he also invited many Gallic leaders to join him in Rome as members of the Senate. The requirements of manpower in arms meant that citizenship was extended to non-Romans who served in Roman legions. By 211 A.D. with Caracalla's edict known as the "Constitutio Antoniana" the general populace came into possession of citizenship. There is more truth than irony in the fact that the Byzantines referred to themselves as "Romaioi". The imperial Roman state was nothing so much as a vast social experiment in hybridization. Imperial Rome is identified with the cultural legacy of its forebears; it sustained that tradition without innovation, until Constantine (d. 337 A.D.) broke away from the attenuated religion of the Greco-Roman past and transformed Rome's cultural matrix by acknowledging the faith of a persecuted minority. The life of Constantine is arguably a better terminus of the Greco-Roman age than any other; it may equally be considered as the herald of the Medieval Age.
Sources
L'empire gréco-romain, Paul Veyne
