希腊人和罗马人的影响十分明显地表现在当代欧洲的语言、思想、法律和思维方式中。古希腊是一群城邦的集合，从中发展出了早期的民主制度。雅典是最强大的和最发达的城市，从伯里克利时代开始就是知识的摇篮。公民论坛进行国家政策的辩论和立法，最著名的古典哲学家们从中产生，如苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德，后者是亚历山大大帝的老师。作为希腊马其顿王国的国王，亚历山大的军事成就把希腊文化和知识一直传播到印度河边。但是在布匿战争中战胜迦太基强大起来的罗马共和国在这一地区崛起。希腊文明传承到了罗马文化中，雅典本身也被归入元老院和罗马人民(SPQR)的旗下。罗马从阿拉伯一直扩张到不列颠尼亚。公元前44年当罗马到达全盛时，领导人尤利乌斯·凯撒被怀疑破坏共和，意欲独裁而遇刺身亡。在随后的混战中，屋大维篡夺了权力，收买了罗马元老院。宣布共和国重生的同时，他实际上开始了罗马国家从一个共和国到一个帝国——罗马帝国的转变。
The Greeks and the Romans left a legacy in Europe which is evident in current language, thought, law and minds. Ancient Greece was a collection of city-states, out of which the original form of democracy developed. Athens was the most powerful and developed city, and a cradle of learning from the time of Pericles. Citizens forums debated and legislated policy of the state, and from here arose some of the most notable classical philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the last of whom taught Alexander the Great. The king of the Greek kingdom of Macedon, Alexander's military campaigns spread Hellenistic culture and learning to the banks of the River Indus. But the Roman Republic, strengthened through victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars was rising in the region. Greek wisdom passed into Roman institutions, as Athens itself was absorbed under the banner of the Senate and People of Rome (Senatus Populusque Romanus). The Romans expanded from Arabia to Britannia. In 44 BCE as it approached its height, its leader Julius Caesar was murdered on suspicion of subverting the Republic, to become dictator. In the ensuing turmoil, Octavian usurped the reins of power and bought the Roman Senate. While proclaiming the rebirth of the Republic, he had in fact ushered in the transfer of the Roman state from a republic to an empire, the Roman Empire.
Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman literature (such as Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer and others) flourished.
It is conventionally taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire (5th century AD). It ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity (AD 300-600), blending into the Early Middle Ages (AD 600-1000). Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" may refer also to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome!"
The civilization of the ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, art and architecture of the modern world, fueling the Renaissance in Western Europe and again resurgent during various neo-classical revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries.
