Periodsc. 800 BCE – 500 CEPhase 2

Classical Antiquity

Explore classical antiquity — the era of ancient Greece and Rome from roughly 800 BCE to 500 CE that laid the cultural foundations of Western civilization.

Classical antiquity — the era spanning roughly from 800 BCE to 500 CE — encompasses the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome and their profound influence on subsequent Western culture. The term 'classical' itself reflects the enduring status of this period's achievements: they became the standard (the 'classic') against which later European cultures measured themselves.

The period saw the development of democratic government in Athens, republican institutions in Rome, systematic philosophy from the Pre-Socratics through the Stoics, historical writing from Herodotus through Tacitus, dramatic literature from Aeschylus through Seneca, and scientific inquiry from Aristotle through Galen. Roman law, Greek mathematics, and the Latin and Greek languages became the shared intellectual heritage of European civilization.

Classical antiquity's end is harder to date than its beginning. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE is the traditional endpoint, but the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire continued for another millennium, preserving and transmitting classical learning. The 'classical' world didn't simply end — it was transformed, its legacy absorbed by medieval Christianity, Islamic civilization, and the Renaissance, which explicitly sought to recover and revive its achievements.