Toady’s western art reflects the lifelike style of the ancient Roman art.
The Roman Empire too undertook vast building projects. They made roads and bridges; enormous baths and aqueducts, temples and theaters, as well as entire towns in the North African desert that marked Rome’s power at that time. The Roman invented the Latin language. So many languages toady, Polish, Turkish, and Vietnamese, to name a few use the Roman alphabet and therefore owe their origin to the Latin language.

Theatre
“TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, two thousand years before Shakespeare, Western theatre was born in Athens, Greece. Between 600 and 200 BC, the ancient Athenians created a theatre culture whose form, technique and terminology have lasted two millennia, and produced plays that are still among the greatest works in theatre”. (ELAC Guide to Greek Theatre 2004) The cult that worshipped Dionysus, the god of human and agricultural fertility involved intoxication, orgies, human and animal sacrifices, and hysterical rampages by women. Pisistratus, the ruler of Athens replaced Dionysian Festivals with drama competitions, which drew as many as 30,000 spectators. Tragedies, designed to show the right and wrong paths in life, then became popular. Theatre was an outcome of flowering of ideas like democracy, philosophy, mathematics, science and art. Obviously the modern world owes a great deal to what happened hundred of years before the birth of Christ.

Theatre was important in the lives of Romans as well. The emperors wanted people to be engrossed with entertainment so they would not plot against them. Ideas were borrowed from the Greek theatre. Emperor Nero used the theatre to sing and no one left till he was finished. (Roman Theatre Index 2004)

Law
The Roman legal system and governmental structure has always been highly regarded and still is the basis of continental governmental structure and law. Emperors Gaius and Flavian codified the Roman law, which is still followed in most European legal systems. In this system, all laws are listed by crimes in one or more books. Common Law is but a variation of this code. Precedents and previous rulings form the basis of judgments then and the same is the system now. Latin language is so much intertwined in the American legal structure. (Roman Legal System 2004)
Ancient Greek courts were cheap and run by amateurs. Trials were completed on the same day. The Greek ancient homicide court, called Areiopagos, was made up of magistrates (archons) who conducted preliminary hearings. They had a board of eleven members called the Eleven, which supervised prisoners and executions. They had the right to arrest any criminals and execute criminal if he was caught in the act. (Ancient Greek Legal System 2004)

Mathematics and science
Before Greece the mathematics centered on a collection of conclusions based on observation. By contrast the Greeks Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras of Sámos developed a system of deductive proof. This break through established conclusions exclusively by deductive reasoning based on explicitly stated axioms. The Greeks also invented a number system based on alphabet. Pythagoras contended that it was necessary to study numbers to understand the world. His disciples highlighted his discoveries about number theory and geometry. Whole numbers were represented by using arrangements of dots or pebbles and classified these numbers according to the shapes produced. For instance 3,6, could form a triangle and were called triangular numbers and 4, 9,16 were called square numbers because the pebbles could be arranged as squares. Number 2 suggested diversity and opinion. Four represented justice because it was the product of equals 2x2. Even today square shooter is used to refer to indicate a fair and impartial person. The geometrical arrangements led to the discovery of properties of the whole numbers.

Democritus, put forward the theory that all matter is made up of atoms. Hippocrates discovered how to construct a square equal in area to a given circle. Eudoxus produced astronomical theory to account for observed planetary motions. Another Greek Euclid deduced some 500 theorems comprising all the important results of Greek mathematics.

Eratosthenes devised a calendar that called for an extra day every fourth year. Archimedes produced theorems on complicated areas and volumes. Hipparchus was able to calculate the distance from Earth to the Moon. Archimedes discovered the principle that a body immersed in water is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the water displaced. Romans did not achieve much significant mathematical discoveries, as they wanted to apply mathematics to useful tasks rather than study pure mathematics.

Democracy
In the second half of the 6th century a mild tyranny took over, but by century's end Athenians had established a limited democracy (representative government). Greeks of the Classical Age usually were not ruled by kings. Greece is accepted as the first pseudo-democratic state in history. Most cities and towns gave every free man one voice, one vote on all matters that concerned the citizens. Greece was not ruled from the top down and can rightly be said to be the pioneers and originators of the concept of democratic rule. (Greece 2004) Similarly founders of the U.S. government borrowed from the Roman republic model. (Illustrated History of the Roman Empire 2004)

Free Market Economic System
Democracy meant dispersal of power. And as there was no concentration of power every individual man was able to develop his own interests. Because of this such eminent figures as Thales, Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras had to travel all over the ancient world by their own means. They used their enterprise and earned money and generated business and trade this way. Hence, the Greeks were the first free market society where market forces influenced economic development. The Greek empire’s concepts of freedom and individuality reached its heights before the rise of the Roman Empire. (Greece 2004)

Religion
Greeks had no official religion as such and indulged in what is known as paganism. So did the Romans. Roman gods and goddesses were influenced by the Greek colonies of southern Italy. Most religious rituals involved some kind of sacrifice. There was confusion because of one deity having several names or sex. (Illustrated History of the Roman Empire 2004) Civilizations after the Greeks were also based on centralized rule. This trend lasted right until the Medici's started banking in Venice, Italy. The Greek god of the skies Zeus had a counterpart in the Roman god Jupiter, while Hera, the wife of Zeus and queen of the gods, became the Roman goddess Juno. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was called Venus by Romans. Similarly Greek god of war, Ares, was called Mars by the Romans

Philosophy
“In his use of critical reasoning, by his unwavering commitment to truth, and through the vivid example of his own life, fifth-century Athenian Socrates set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy.” Socrates devoted his later life to the development of moral character. When presented with a plan to escape from jail he argues that an individual citizen—even when the victim of unjust treatment—can never be justified in refusing to obey the laws of the state. (Philosophy Pages Socrates 2004)

The Greek philosophical though has left its indelible prints on modern philosophy. The cradle of civilization has provided some of the most noblest and cherished ideas. Our present day society owes much to Socrates, Plato and other contemporaries. They gave us so many ideas that have introduced elements like justice, equality, decency, obedience, discipline, fair-play etc, in our daily lives. They introduced philosophical ideas that were epoch-making.

Summary/Conclusions
All over the world, and particularly in the west, people still enjoy ancient Greek plays. These plays draw packed houses every day. Western world still leans on the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers, and incorporate features of ancient Greek architecture into the designs of new buildings. Modern democratic nations have borrowed from the fundamental political principles to ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy. Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, identified the West as a region (where they lived) as distinct from civilizations in Egypt, Babylonia, and Phoenicia.