Comparing and contrasting ancient Hellas and ancient Rome

I have very little time today, so I am going to leave you with the content of an article I found recently, posted on ThoughtCo. It's entitled "Comparing and Contrasting Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome," and the article does just that. For the full article, visit ThoughtCo.

Difference one: art
Much art we think of as Hellenic is actually a Roman copy of a Hellenic original. Hellenic sculptors set out to produce an ideal artistic form, whereas the goal of Roman artists was to produce realistic portraits, often for decoration (simplified, of course).

Difference two: economy
Both cultures were based on agriculture. The ancient Hellenes ideally lived on small self-sufficient wheat-producing farms, but bad agricultural practices made many households incapable of feeding themselves. Big estates took over, producing wine and olive oil, which were also the chief exports of the Romans. The Romans, who imported their wheat and annexed provinces that could provide them with this all-important staple, also farmed, but they also engaged in trade. It is thought that the Greeks considered trade degrading. Both Hellas and Rome worked mines. While Hellas also had slaves, the economy of Rome was dependent on slave labor from the expansion until the late Empire.

Difference three: social Class
The social classes of Greece and Rome changed over time, but the basic divisions of early Athens and Rome consisted of free and freedmen, slaves, foreigners, and women. Only in ancient Hellas were women eligible for a position as citizen, however.

Difference four: role of women
In Athens, according to the literature of stereotypes, women were valued for abstaining from gossip, for managing the household, and, most of all, for producing legitimate children. The aristocratic woman was secluded in the women's quarter and had to be accompanied in public places. She could own, but not sell her property. The Athenian woman was subject to her father, and even after marriage, he could ask for her return.

The Roman woman was legally subject to the pater familias, whether the dominant male in her household of birth or the household of her husband. She could own and dispose of property and go about as she wished. From epigraphy, we read that a Roman woman was valued for piety, modesty, maintenance of harmony, and being a one-man woman.

Difference five: fatherhood
In both cultures the father of the family was dominant and could decide whether or not to keep a newborn child. In the Hellenic family, sons could legally challenge the competence of their fathers. In Rome, the paterfamilias was the Roman head of the household. Adult sons with families of their own were still subject to their own father if he was the paterfamilias.

Difference six: government
Originally, kings ruled Athens; then an oligarchy (rule by the few), and then democracy (voting by the citizens). City-states joined together to form leagues that came into conflict, weakening Greece and leading to its conquest by the Macedonian kings and later, the Roman Empire. Kings also originally governed Rome. Then Rome, observing what was happening elsewhere in the world, eliminated them. It established a mixed Republican form of government, combining elements of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy, In time, rule by one returned to Rome, but in a new, initially, constitutionally sanctioned form that we know as Roman emperors. The Roman Empire split apart, and, in the West, eventually reverted to small kingdoms.