Ancient Greece/Rome

The ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome have influenced Western society more froundly than perhaps any other culture in world history.  THe political institutions of these two great cvilizations -inclduing the early froms of democracestablished in Athens and several other city-states of ancient Greece and the judicious power sharing articulated in the Roman republic-have been incorported with great success into many subsequent societies.  THe many remarkable rulers who led these two cultures or fought them---including Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus--are part of a shared world history that is echoed by Edgar Allen Poe in his poem "to Helen," in which he invokes "the glory that was Greece/and the grandeur that was Rome"