GREEK

INFLUENCE
MAPPING
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
 Beaux Arts
Beaux Arts is an opulent subset of the
Neoclassical and Greek Revival architectural
styles. A dominant design during the 
Gilded Age, Beaux Arts was a popular but
short-lived movement in the United States,
lasting from roughly 1885 to 1925.
Also known as Beaux-Arts Classicism,
Academic Classicism, or Classical Revival,
Beaux Arts is a late and eclectic form of 
Neoclassicism. It combines classical
architecture from ancient Greece and Rome
with Renaissance ideas. Beaux-Arts
architecture became part of the late 19th
century American Renaissance movement.
CAPITOL HILL IN USA

• Capitol Hill is neoclassical,

inspired by the use of ancient
Greek and Roman designs of
great public buildings.
The U.S. Supreme Court building and The
Lincoln Memorial
• The architecture, or building
design, of many government
buildings in The United States
were influenced by Greek
architecture, as seen in the use
of columns, marble steps, and
carvings. ... The U.S. Supreme
Court building and The Lincoln
Memorial look much like the
Ancient Greek building called
The Parthenon.
THE LIGHT HOUSE
• Like the first library, the first
lighthouse in the world was
located in the Greek-controlled
Egyptian kingdom of Alexandria.
The structure was called the
Lighthouse of Alexandria, or the
Pharos of Alexandria. Taller than
the Statue of Liberty, it was the
second tallest structure of its day
(only the Great Pyramid of Giza
was taller than it).
ETHNIC PERSPECTIVES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
New York: Modern Language Association, 1983 65-89
• Courses in modern Greek literature, language, and history
are offered for credit in many colleges and universities.
Some were initially promoted by members of the Modern
Greek Studies Association, founded at Princeton in 1969.
Most relate to Greece, of course, but the scholarly study
of Greek America has also expanded in recent years. Such
systematic study goes back at least to 1911, when Henry
Pratt Fairchild published Greek Immigration to the United
States. Thomas Burgess followed with Greeks in America
(1913). Since then many books and monographs,
including master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, have
helped to make the Greek minority one of the more
thoroughly researched in the nation. The most
authoritative account to date remains The Greeks in the
United States (1964) by Theodore Saloutos. Of late an
interesting adjunct to these endeavors by social scientists
has been an inquiry into the modern Greek presence in
our literature, with respect to both fictional characters
and creative writers.
• Until now the bibliographies either sparely reported or
completely ignored the Greek ethnic component. The
two-volume collection of essays Ethnic Literature Since
1776: The Many Voices of America, by W.T. Zyla and
Wendell Aycock (1978), for example has no section on
this subject. A fairly sizable segment on Greek
Americans does appear in Wayne C. Miller’s
Comprehensive Bibliography for the Study of American
Minorities (1976), although its listing of Greek writers
and Greek characters in American fiction is incomplete.
The standard literary indexes that mention immigrant
and ethnic works are also unsatisfactory. The current
popularity of the ethnic dimension in American
literature promises to hasten the needed
bibliographical work. The establishment of MELUS, for
the study of the multiethnic literature of the United
States, indicates the growing value that scholars are
placing on the new literary emphasis.
ROME ITALY
ROMAN LITERATURE OWES A DEBT TO THE
GREEKS, MORE SPECIFICALLY ATHENS
• This indebtedness to Greece was even recognized by the writers
themselves. Horace, one of the poets of the Golden Age of Roman
literature wrote that Greece introduced the arts "into a backward Latium."
Historian Nigel Rodgers in his Roman Empire wrote that Greek authors
originated many philosophical and political concepts that influenced such
Romans as Cicero, Seneca, Boethius, Catullus, and Virgil - "a Greek and
Roman synthesis" (258). He added that Rome could not and did not deny
that Greece was more refined and superior in both intellectual and
cultural pursuits from technology and philosophy to poetry and sculpture.
In reality, Rome could hardly deny a closeness to Greece since Greek cities
 had existed on both the lower peninsula and Sicily for decades.
ETRUSCANS ART
• The Greek influence on Roman painting and
sculpture was so great that historians speak of
“Greco-Roman art.” Wealthy Romans often
collected Greek art. They had monuments built in a
Greek style. Roman sculptors and painters used
Greek art as models for their own work. Roman
artists also created a lively and realistic style of
their own. Greek artists often tried to show an
ideal, or perfect, human being or god. As Rome’s
power grew, much of Roman art celebrated great
leaders and events. Roman sculptors became
especially skilled in creating lifelike portraits. They
made realistic busts, or statues showing the
subject’s head and shoulders. They also carved life-
size statues of famous generals. The statues often
seemed just as powerful as the generals
themselves. ROME ITALY.
CINICULUS ETRUSCANS
• The cuniculus was a long
underground trench. Vertical shafts
connected it to the ground above.
Etruscans used these trenches to
irrigate land. They also used them to
drain swamps and to carry water to
their cities. The Romans adopted
both of these structures. In time,
they became even better engineers
than the Etruscans. They used arches
to build huge public works, including
bridges, stadiums, and aqueducts.
GREEK ROMAN POTTERY
• Both the Etruscans and the Romans admired
Greek pottery, painting, and sculpture. The
Romans got some Greek ideas from Etruscan
art. They borrowed others directly from the
Greeks. Greek pottery was valued throughout
the Mediterranean world for its usefulness
and beauty. Greek potters created large clay
vessels for storing food, water, and wine.
They often painted black figures on the red
clay. Some of their designs showed pictures
of gods and heroes. Others showed people in
their daily lives. The Romans eagerly took the
work of Greek potters into their homes.
Roman artists imitated the technique but had
their own style
PANTHEON IN ROME
• The Romans borrowed and adapted
ideas from the Greeks as well as the
Etruscans. Greek architecture was one
important influence on the Romans. As
you remember, the Greeks built marble
temples as homes for their gods.
Temples like the Parthenon had stately
columns that added to their beauty.
The Romans used Greek designs in
their own public buildings. In time,
they learned to use concrete to make
even larger structures, such as the
Pantheon in Rome.
EGYPT
THE LIBRARY
• The first library in the world, the
library of Alexandria, was actually
built in Egypt. During during this
time Egypt was under Greek control
after submitting to Alexander’s rule.
The Macedonians started spreading
the Greek way of life to all of the
conquered lands, including Egypt.
After Alexander’s death, there was a
power struggle and the Kingdom of
Egypt came under the rule of
Alexander’s general, Ptolemy.
Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature,
Translation, and Culture, 500 BC–AD
300
This volume examines interactions between Greek and Egyptian literature, religion,
and culture as revealed in Greek and Egyptian texts, covering a period from the 5th
century BCE till the Roman Empire. Genres of texts covered include heroic narrative,
fiction, history, hymn, philosophy, esoteric religious literature, and magic. Some
chapters discuss cases of Egyptian influence on Greece, and of the Greek reception
of Egyptian ideas or literary forms. Others focus on mechanisms of linguistic or
cultural translation and transmission, or on the emergence of mixed, hybrid Greco-
Egyptian literary forms or religious patterns within the increasingly bilingual and
bicultural context of Greco-Roman Egypt. In some cases, the evidence from texts is
illuminated by parallel evidence for influence or hybridity drawn from iconography.
A few chapters also raise the possibility of Greek influence on Egyptian literature.
The volume begins with an introductory essay which surveys recent developments
in this rapidly developing field.
EGYPT AND EARLY GREEK CULTURE

• Monumental stone sculpture was one of the hallmarks of

Greek civilization. The Greeks started carving large-scale
sculptures out of limestone and marble in the mid-7th
century BC. Early Greek sculptors learned many
techniques of stone carving and methods of representing
the human form from other cultures and from earlier
traditions, especially those of ancient Egypt. Egyptian
influence is especially apparent in the standardized poses
of many early Greek statues (the so-called kouros type)—
standing straight up and down, with the left leg slightly
advanced and the arms held rigidly at the sides. The
importance of Egypt for the Greeks is in some ways
comparable with the importance of Greek and Roman
civilization in later periods up until the present day. An
Egyptianizing head from Cyprus at the Kelsey illustrates
the influence of Egyptian culture on neighboring
populations and the power of Egyptian fashions directly
—showing a man wearing an Egyptian-style wig.