How the ancient civilization of the Great River Basin differed from the Greco-Roman civilization

Great River Civilization: 1. Introduction to Historical Facts Great River Civilization and Agricultural Civilization The ancient Great River Basin was characterized by an agricultural civilization, and agriculture was the dominant production sector in these regions. After the emergence of primitive agriculture, human beings gradually settled down and clustered into villages and communities. Around 10,000 years ago, primitive agriculture appeared in the vast expanse of Western Asia. Due to the differences in geographic location and climatic characteristics, the products and lifestyles of the people in the Great River Basin also differed. The Great River Civilization and Irrigated Agriculture In the East, residents of villages and communities built reservoirs to store water, ditches and canals to irrigate and drain floodwaters. In North Africa, the Nile River flooded regularly, and the Egyptians were particularly advanced in irrigated agriculture. In West Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers rise and fall at times, and are fierce and often flooded, so the residents of the two river basins need to build dykes and ditches to store water and drain floodwaters in order to cultivate and harvest. Forms of Management of Village Communities The inhabitants of village communities seldom socialize with the outside world. They **** the same sacrifices and worships to the same gods, and are managed by the older ones. They worked at sunrise and rested at sunset, forming a relatively closed and self-sufficient social organization. The patriarchal system is the form of management of the village community in ancient China, which evolved from the patriarchal system of the patrilineal clan society. The descent of the village community was calculated on the basis of patrilineality, and the clan lord dominated the members of the family and even had the power of life and death over them. Forms of Centralization In the great river basins, with their vast territories, irrigation of farmland often required a high degree of centralized state power. Most of the ancient civilizations of the East established centralized power and monarchies, but each operated in its own distinctive way. Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, ancient Babylonian monarchs ruled very tightly, while ancient India practiced a hierarchical caste system, and China's emperors were authoritarian. 2, literature interpretation of the "world's first rural commune" in the second half of the eighth millennium BC, in West Asia, the Levant and Zagros region generally established agricultural villages and communities, the beginning of a real agricultural economy. Archaeological sites in these areas indicate the existence of permanent villages, and hoofprints of goats have been found on mud bricks. The famous archaeologist Braywood discovered the Jamo site in the Zagros region in the 1940s and 1950s, which is 3 to 4 acres in size C14 dated to 6050 BC. *** Divided into 16 cultural layers that lasted for about 400 years, with pottery, fauna, and crop wheat, the site is considered "the world's first rural commune". Irrigated agriculture in Egypt Agriculture was the basis of the ancient Egyptian economy, and dominated the entire social life. The development of irrigated agriculture led to the unification of the Egyptian state and the establishment of a centralized system, and the centralized united state in turn led to the great development of irrigated agriculture. Therefore, both the inhabitants of Egypt in the pre-dynastic era and the rulers in the Pharaonic Egyptian era regarded the land as the greatest and most valuable asset and gave priority to the development of irrigated agriculture. The first king of the pharaoh Egyptian era Menis attaches great importance to the development of irrigated agriculture, the country's water conservancy and irrigation under the unified management of the state, the establishment of the Minister of Irrigation, specifically responsible for the construction and management of water conservancy and irrigation projects. Dams were built and reservoirs were dug near the new capital, the White City. Many inscriptions of the ministers that remain from the Old Kingdom period boast about their achievements in this field. For example, Nehaib, a minister of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, says in his own inscription that he was ordered by the king to dig canals in both the southern and northern parts of Egypt according to a pre-established plan. The technique of operating the Nile irrigation system was quite complex. Ancient Egyptians established water level measuring stations ("Nilomel") on the perilous banks of southern Egypt, and carved water level markers on the cliffs standing on the riverbed. Every year, when the water level rises to a certain mark at the onset of the Akhat season, hydrological warnings are received along the river, and the water managers open the dykes to allow the floodwaters to flow slowly into the dams so as not to wash everything away. To the beginning of the season (Peret) in November, the flood water back to the river, everywhere in turn to close the dams, so that part of the water stored in the canals and ponds, in order to prepare for irrigation in times of drought. Ancient Egyptians also learned to dig large and small canals from the once-in-a-few-years floods; the canal water will be diverted to the basin storage or sub-direction to the lower reaches. The purpose of doing so, on the one hand, used to slow down the flow rate, disaster relief; on the other hand, the flow rate slows down the flood water carried by the silt in the field more deposited. These massive water projects and complex water management systems required enormous labor, and could not be undertaken by a single lineage family, clan or village alone, but had to be accomplished by all the beneficiary villages and communities in many areas. The need to conquer nature for the right to live prompted the ancient Egyptians to organize on a large scale in the fourth millennium BC. This need for a collaborative approach and unity of action across vast areas to combat natural disasters strongly contributed to the creation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script. In the implementation of huge projects, in order to keep track of the number of people, food, the height of dams, the length of canals and other basic data, and to send "notices" to distant places in a timely manner, the unparalleled tool of writing was needed. The shape of a stone mallet with a truncated head and a rounded vertebrae, which was a unique weapon in the Negada I culture (and which has since disappeared), was borrowed as a symbol (kata) for the kata script. In order to express a wider range of words (including compound words), the morphemes in turn became phonetic symbols, followed by the development of phonetic symbols and ideograms. By roughly 3000 BCE, ideograms had developed to such an extent in practice. It is noteworthy that all the symbols of this ancient Egyptian glyphic script were taken from animals and plants native to the Nile Valley, which is further evidence that the earliest Egyptian writing originated in Africa. The ancient Egyptians created writing, which in turn helped them create one of the world's oldest and greatest civilizations. In the Neolithic era, the same is located in the Nile basin, culturally and Egypt had been on a par with the Nubians, living in the narrow section of the river valley, they operate in the production economy, animal husbandry more than agriculture, but the size of the family and clan is smaller, sparsely populated, farther away from each other, mobility and independence of the large, the contact is not very close, and therefore do not feel the need for writing, the language stayed at the long time in the Their language has long remained at the oral stage, with little or no use of the written word. When the people of the two regions fed by this great river wandered before the threshold of civilization, the former created writing and made a great leap forward in civilization, while the latter lost the opportunity to master the incomparable tools of human civilization. While the Egyptians became the creators of the four great ancient civilizations of mankind, the Nubians did not enter the ranks of the regions that created the oldest civilizations of mankind. Production and Lifestyle In ancient times the inhabitants of the Nile Valley opened canals and dykes, improved farming, and irrigated farmland was particularly well developed. The Egyptians used bricks to build rectangular houses. The inhabitants of the Two Rivers Basin mainly used oxen and donkeys pulling wooden plows to plow the land, and the main crops were barley and dates. Barley wine was a favorite drink and dates were one of the staple foods of the people. Inhabitants of China's great river basins used natural cliff caves to avoid rain, snow, wind and cold, and later developed to build shallow cave-style houses on flat land, and in the Shang Dynasty, there was already the use of version of the building (i.e., playing the base) method of building walls. Ancient Chinese food has six grains, namely, millet, millet, wheat, beans, hemp, rice. The Dharavitas of the Indus Valley planted the world's first cotton. The village community was the bastion of the caste system In ancient India, the village community system prevailed in the vast countryside. Most of the village communities were naturally formed, with thousands of families in the large ones and dozens of families in the small ones. In the village community, land is communally owned, agriculture and handicrafts are combined, and there is a fixed division of labor. This kind of village community is economically self-sufficient and has greater administrative autonomy. As a result, the villagers lead a closed life and are not particularly concerned about changes in the outside world. The caste system has been practiced within the village community since ancient times, with the higher castes keeping the lower castes tightly bound to the land of the village community for long periods of slavery and exploitation. The caste system also practiced the hereditary system of occupations and endogamy, and the low-caste people were confined to a very narrow range of occupations and interaction with one type of people, and they did not have the opportunity to choose other jobs and the freedom to interact with the whole society, thus becoming even more ignorant and backward. Therefore, despite the constant change of dynasties, the villages and communities seldom changed. Instead, they became stronger and more conservative with the passage of time. As long as the village community exists, the caste system dependent on it is bound to exist. Thus, in modern times, although India's cities have been modernized, the caste system in the rural and economically backward areas has been preserved intact. The Patriarchal System of the Western Zhou in China During the Western Zhou period in China, members of the same clan had the **** same ancestors, the **** same surname, and in a certain sense the **** same property, participated in the **** same sacrifices, and were buried in the **** same cemeteries after their deaths, and all the members of the clan were required to mourn according to the different degrees of closeness of their kinship, so that the combined clan, under the rule of the large and small zongzongzi, was tightly united to form an The clan was thus closely united under the leadership of the great and small zongzongs, forming a ruling group that relied on the exploitation of the laborers in their own territories. This patriarchal system was complementary to the hierarchical system of feudalism and the system of the lineage of emoluments, and it also had its own political functions. The King of Zhou, called the Son of Heaven, was the so-called first-born son of God, and was honored as the great patriarch of the world. The throne was inherited by the first-born son, who was the son of the world's great patriarch for generations, and was the political ****lord of all the vassal states. Because of this, the capital city where he lived was also called "Zong Zhou". The other sons of the King of Zhou were divided into vassals, and as a royal clan, their status was passed on from one generation to the next by the first-born son. To the King of Zhou, the vassals of the same family name were the lesser vassals, but within his own country, they became the greater vassals. Egyptian Beliefs The Egyptians worshiped the sun god as the main god, which also reflected the characteristics of agricultural society. The pharaohs were regarded as descendants of the sun god. In order to get the support of the divine right, successive pharaohs have donated a lot of land, wealth and labor to the temple, resulting in the formation and development of the temple priest group. There were more channel officials in ancient Egypt, who were responsible for water irrigation and enjoyed great power. The Egyptian clerks were a class of scholars who specialized in serving the ruling class. Some of them became high-ranking officials through the opportunity to take charge of official documents, correspondence and archives in the state organs, and thus became an important social base of the ruling class. Ancient Chinese Household Registration System A household registration is a book for registering the households of residents. It was first compiled in the 10th year of Duke Xian of Qin (375 BC). The household register was compiled in the Shang Yang Reform, in which five families were divided into wu, two wu into shi, and guilt was linked to guilt; the townships were aggregated and set up as counties, which were governed by the state directly by sending officials. In the following generations, the household registers were categorized and compiled on a regular basis. Household registration according to the population, name, age, occupation, property, address and other items of detailed registration, strictly prohibit concealment or unauthorized migration, as a sub-grant of land, taxation, the basis for the deployment of labor. To the Tang Dynasty gradually complete. According to the Tang Dynasty, the household registers were compiled by the people's households, which contained the number of fields and the number of acres of garden and residential lots that should be, had been and had not been received, as well as the number of acres and the number of four to, and recorded the changes of the people's household accounts. The household register was compiled once every three years by the state and county governments. Transcribe three copies, divided into the county, state, Ministry of households. Qing Yongzheng will Ding tax amortized into the field tax, the household register is no longer used as the basis for tax collection. In the 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772), it stopped being compiled. Clan Ancestral Halls In China, the ancestral halls are customarily known as ancestral halls, which are places where ancestors are enshrined and sacrifices are performed, and are regarded as the symbols of the clans. The phenomenon of worshipping ancestors and erecting temples for their worship already existed in the late primitive society. In later times, the ancestral temples of the sons of heaven and the vassals were the clan temples, and the ancestral temples of the scholars were the family temples. Xia and Shang two generations have been the ancestral temple, after the Zhou Dynasty, the provisions of the Son of Heaven seven temples, the vassal five temples, three temples of the great doctor, a temple, and the common people can only be sacrificed in the bed. That is to say, the common people could only worship their ancestors in their own apartments, and only those who were above the rank and file could set up shrines and temples. The origin of the class division can be found in the simple village shrine; the sacred word was the center of social and religious life at that time, but there was no full-time priest at that time. When villages grew into cities, the sacred shrines also grew into monasteries. The monasteries had priests and servants who were the first people who did not have to be directly involved in the production of the means of life. If the priests are regarded as the successors of the former tribal shamans, then it is easy to understand that they should be the first prominent people. Since the rituals of agriculture (e.g., the rituals for seeking rain) were of paramount importance to the Neolithic farmers, the shamans became the most powerful figures. The newly emerging priests, however, were not only responsible for the traditional supernatural phenomena, but also for an ever-increasing number of duties in the management of society. These duties were essential to an increasingly complex social house. Roman civilization Renaissance Ancient Roman literature refers to the literature that flourished under the Ancient Roman regime (including the Roman **** and state and the Roman Empire) before and after the Era. Its main language was Latin. Although the Roman **** and State was born in 510 BC (free from the Etruscan dynasty), by convention the true meaning of ancient Roman literature is counted from 240 BC. Origins and Overview The city of Rome was founded in the 8th century BC. In the area south of Etruria and west of the Tiber River, where the ancient Romans lived, the Latin Jupiter festival, which included literary and artistic activities, must have been established no later than the 7th century BC. Influenced by the Etruscan civilization, the Latins, including the Romans, gradually formed their own vernacular culture. The culture of Ancient Rome was mainly inherited from the Greek culture and gradually developed. During the period of Hellenization, Rome imported many Greek works, translated and copied them. After Rome destroyed Greece in 146 B.C., it took all the Greek myths, poems and dramas for itself, and found many slaves captured from Greece to be tutors, let them make dramas and poems, and study various sciences, which made the literature of Ancient Rome dyed with a strong Greek color. Taking mythology as an example, after contact with Greek culture, many Roman gods and goddesses were combined with Greek gods and goddesses. For example, Jupiter, the main god of the Romans, was equivalent to the Greek Zeus, and his wife Juno was equivalent to Hera. As for Apollo, the god of the sun, and the Muses, the goddess of literature and art, etc., they were directly incorporated into the Roman mythology without even changing their names. Of course, ancient Roman literature is not all the imitations of ancient Greek literature, because it is, after all, the product of Roman society, the language used is Latin. In Western scholarship, Ancient Roman literature is considered part of Latin literature in the broader sense. Unlike the ancient Greek maritime peoples, ancient Rome belonged to the inland peoples, mainly surviving by farming and herding, characterized by the coarseness, obscurantism and simplicity of the farmers and herdsmen of the last century. After the founding of ancient Rome advocated force, the pursuit of society and the state, the law and the centralization of the strong and perfect, its literature has a stronger spirit of rationality and collective consciousness, with a solemn and noble temperament, but also lacks the vivid and lively spirit of Greek literature and unrestrained children's style of naiveté. Ancient Roman literature emphasized balance, rigor and harmony in art, valued rhetoric and syntax, and favored carving and ornamentation in technique. History The development of ancient Roman literature went through three stages, namely, the *** and era, the Golden Age and the Silver Age. It should be noted that the "**** and Age" is a political concept, while the "Golden Age" and "Silver Age" are two mainly based on the development of the Latin language and the problem of characterization. Qualitative names. The *** and the age ended in 30 BC and in fact included 70 years of the Golden Age. Moreover, as a political concept, the **** and Age begins in 510 BC, but as a name associated with literary development, it begins in the first 240 years. Although the Western Roman Empire, with Rome as its capital, collapsed in 476 A.D., it is still customary in scholarly circles to regard the middle of the second century (130-150) as the end of ancient Roman literature.Latin literature after the middle of the second century has been defined as "Postclassical Latin Literature," a period in which Latin literature after the mid-2nd century is defined as "Postclassical Latin literature", in which period Latin literature had already begun the transition to medieval Christian literature, and did not belong to the traditional sense of ancient Roman literature. ***The formalization of Ancient Roman literature was closely related to a Greek named Livius Andronescu, who lived in the 3rd century BCE. He was the founder of ancient Roman literature and translated Homer's epic poem The Odyssey and a great deal of ancient Greek lyric poetry. Livius is largely credited with introducing certain gems of ancient Greek literature to the Romans, who lacked a tradition of written literature, and with transplanting some of the major forms of ancient Greek literature to ancient Rome, which lacked a backbone of literary genres. Poetry There were many all-round writers among the early Roman poets. The poet Aeneus (239-168 BC) not only rewrote and composed tragedies, but also wrote plays and four to six volumes of satire. His epic poem "Chronicles" traces the history of Rome, beginning with the experiences of Aeneas and ending with the wars of the author's lifetime, and spans 18 volumes, though it has been largely dispersed, with less than 600 lines remaining. From a literary-historical point of view, the Chronicle rejects the ancient Theognomonic meter and adopts the short, six-step meter used in Homer's epics. But stylistically, there are obvious traces of imitation of Homer. The influence of Aeneas on Roman literature was so profound that Cicero, Lucretius and Virgil all said they had been influenced by him, and he was honored as the "Father of Roman Literature". Comedy Plautus (c. 254 - 184 BC) was fluent in ancient Greek and was the most famous playwright of his time. Plautus is said to have written 130 plays, but only 21 of them are attributed to him, while the others are all forgeries. His comedies were mainly modeled on the Greek neo-comedian Minander's genre comedies, which satirized the corrupt practices of Roman society. His major works include The Twins, The Captives, The Merchants, The Donkey, The Locusts and others. Terentius (190 - 159 BC) was born in Carthage, was a slave and was later freed. He wrote six comedies in his life***, including The Mother-in-Law, The Two Brothers and other representative works which were adapted or translated from the ancient Greek New Comedy. His comedies have a strict structure, elegant language but lack of vividness, delicate portrayal of the inner conflicts of the characters, and natural characterization. His comedies were not as funny as those of Plautus, and at that time they were favored only by educated audiences. Terence had a considerable influence on later comedies, and his works were imitated by Molière in France and by Steele and Sheridan in England. Golden Age (100-17 BC) The "Golden Age", the classical or brilliant period in the history of the development of Latin and Latin literature in the broad sense (including rhetoric, history, and philosophy), covers the years of activity of two notable figures, namely, the "Period of Cicero "Cicero (70-30 BC) and Augustus (31-14 BC). During this period, Rome entered a phase of massive expansion, and in 27 B.C. ended the *** and system of government and established the empire. Under the rule of Augustus (i.e., Octavian) (31-14 BC), the ancient Roman Empire entered a period of unprecedented prosperity, and Latin literature and art also experienced an unprecedented boom. During his reign, Octavian took measures to stabilize the social order and promote economic development, which brought peace and stability to the once turbulent Roman society. Octavian himself attached great importance to the cultural construction, he enlisted the literati to serve his own cultural policy, this period of great writers Virgil, Horace, Ovid and so on were his royal writers. It is for this reason that the literature of this period lacks the spirit of philosophical inquiry and the enthusiasm for political debate of the **** and the times, but rather affirms the peaceful life and strong national power brought about by the existing order. The literary style was less vigorous than that of the previous period, but the technique was more mature, and the perfection of form was sought. Poetry Lucretius (99 BC-55 BC) was born at the end of the ****Ho Dynasty. His only surviving work, the Treatise on the Nature of Things (一译《論自然》)****, in six volumes of more than 1,000 lines each, is a philosophical poem. The poem focuses on the philosophical ideas of Epicurus and the atomic theory of Democritus, expressing the view of life that matter is indestructible and that mortals need not fear death. Lucretius was a famous wise man in the history of ancient Roman literature, and Virgil once said that he envied him for knowing the causes of things and being a "happy man". Born into a wealthy family in Verona, northern Italy, Catullus (84-54 BC) frequented Roman high society and was the most accomplished lyric poet of the Golden Age. He was a staunch ****harmonist who openly opposed Julius Caesar and wrote many bitterly satirical short poems. There are 116 surviving poems by Catullus, who utilized aphoristic language to express intense, passionate, complex and subtle feelings. His lyric poetry influenced many of the great European poets of later times. Born into a family of auctioneers, Horace (65 - 8 BC) was a lyric poet on a par with Catullus. He was well educated at an early age, was fluent in Latin and Greek, could recite the original texts of Homer's epics, and traveled to Athens to study philosophy. His representative works include The Collection of Long and Short Sentences, 17 pieces, and The Collection of Gossip, 18 pieces. The former shows the author's opposition to civil war and his fantasies about the coming of the Golden Age; the latter satirizes the vices of the Roman society. But Horace's most famous works are the later Songbook (a translation of the Songbook) and the Poetic Art. Horace's lyric poetry transformed the meter of Greek lyric poetry, skillfully conceived, beautiful language, elegant and dignified, with intentionality, love, poetic art as the theme, blending philosophy and feelings along the way, many people competed for imitation. The Poetry and Art is the highest achievement in literary theory during the Roman period, and is regarded as a classic by classical literature. Virgil (70 - 19 years ago) was the greatest poet of ancient Rome, whose epic poem Aeneas Chronicle was the first literati epic in the history of Western literature. Born into a peasant family, Virgil's lyrical poetry is full of romantic idylls. His representative works include "Pastoral", "Agricultural Poems" and "Work and Time", which mainly express his feelings about love, current affairs and country life. However, Virgil's most accomplished work is the epic poem The Chronicle of Aeneas. The poem, which consists of 12 volumes and is nearly 10,000 lines long, was written at the behest of Augustus. The epic tells the story of Aeneas, the son of the king of Troy and the goddess Venus, who traveled to Italy to establish a new dynasty, celebrating the achievements of his Roman ancestors and the glory of Rome. The poet wrote Aeneas as the ancestor of Caesar and Octavian, thus affirming Octavian's "divine lineage". Although Virgil intended to imitate Homer's epic in composing Aeneas, the whole poem emphasizes the sense of mission and responsibility, and is full of seriousness, elegance and compassion, which is typical of Roman style. In terms of linguistic features and artistic techniques, the Aeneas is ornate in its rhetoric and slightly dull in its style. Virgil's influence on later generations was enormous. Dante considered Virgil to be the wisest and most knowledgeable about mankind, and thus made him the guide to Hell and Purgatory in the Divine Comedy. Spenser's The Immortal Queen and Milton's Paradise Lost also show traces of imitation of the Aeneid. Another great writer of the Golden Age was Ovid (43-18 BC), who as a young man had studied rhetoric in Rome. As an adult, however, he became a poet rather than a litigator as his father had wished. His representative poems include the 49 Love Poems as well as the Love Arts and the Ancient Dames. Ovid's most famous work, however, is the mythological poem Metamorphoses, written in epic meter and comprising 250 mythological stories, a compilation of Greek and Roman myths, which provided important material and creative inspiration for later literary figures. Collections of stories such as The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales imitated the Metamorphoses in their framework. In addition, the compositions of great literary figures such as Dante, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Molière, and Goethe were all influenced by him to varying degrees. Lyric poets of the Golden Age also included Propertius (50-15 BC) and Tibullus (54-19 BC). The former was famous for his delicate love poems, while the latter was good at describing simple idyllic scenes. Prose Ancient Roman prose originated from the oratory of Cato (234-149 BC) and flourished in the "Golden Age", i.e., the end of the **** and state and the reign of Octavian. During this period, the political struggles and class conflicts in Rome were intense, and the legal system of the ruling class had begun to take shape, which made many politicians enthusiastic about the study of eloquence, resulting in the rapid development of the genre of prose. Cicero (106-43 BC) was the most famous essayist of this period. He studied philosophy and law as a young man and worked for a time as a lawyer before entering politics at the age of 43 as consul and later governor of Sicily. He followed Pompey against Julius Caesar during the Civil War, defending the position of the aristocratic senators, and was later assassinated in the midst of a political tilt. Cicero's main prose achievements were oratory and letters. About 900 of his letters are extant, mainly including 16 volumes of Letters to Atticus and 16 volumes of Letters to Friends. These letters reflect the social life at the end of the ****he period and depict a wide variety of political figures in a style close to the spoken language. His speeches were passed down in 58 pieces, which were divided into two categories: court speeches and political speeches. Cicero's prose focuses on the programmatic organization of the material, sophisticated syntax, rich vocabulary, symmetrical paragraphs, and resonant tones, which is called "Cicero's syntax". His speeches had strong motivational power, and sometimes he even went so far as to infect the audience's emotions by means of insulting and distorting facts. Cicero's contribution to Latin prose was very great, and he established the principle of "accuracy, fluency, freshness and eloquence" in Latin literary language. His prose style had a profound influence on later generations and became a model for the prose of all European nations. His political rival Julius Caesar even openly praised him: "Your achievements are superior to those of a military general, and the expansion of your intellectual field is more valuable than the expansion of the Roman Empire." Julius Caesar (102 - 44 BC) was the adoptive father of Augustus, a famous militarist, statesman, and dictator in the history of Ancient Rome, who was assassinated by the ****harmonists in 44 BC. His contributions in prose mainly include the seven volumes of his historical work The Battle of Gaul and the three volumes of his Recollections of the Civil War, which recalled the war between him and Pompey. The language of his prose is concise and condensed, simple and unadorned, reflecting a style very different from that of Cicero. In addition, the historians Sallust (d. unknown) and Livy (64-17 BC) developed the Latin style. The Silver Age (17-130) The hundred years after Octavian's death are known as the "Silver Age" of Roman literature. During this period, Rome was weakening politically, and internal conflicts were becoming more and more intense. The development of literature was characterized by the growing interest of the court, which advocated fancy styles and abusive use of rhetoric, making the style seem crowded and bloated. This feature reached its climax in the first half of the 2nd century. It became fashionable for young aristocrats to publicly recite empty and insubstantial poetry, and literature became a minority pastime. The most accomplished literary styles of the Silver Age were satirical literature reflecting the thoughts of the slave-owning underclass and works reflecting the discontent of the old **** and faction. Poetry Lucan (39-65) was one of the most accomplished poets of the Silver Age, composing the Pharsalia, the finest epic poem after the Aeneid. Matthias (40-104), on the other hand, was the finest epigraphic poet of the age, and his major work is the Epigraphic Poetry (a translation of the Aphoristic Poetry), which consists of 12 volumes and more than 1,500 poems. His style is short and concise, abrupt and subtle, and rich in wit and humor. Zhu Wenner (60-127), on the other hand, was famous for his satirical poems. His poetic style was grim and sharp, and his line "Even if there is no genius, anger produces verses" has become a famous saying. 19th century European bourgeois revolutions, Juvenal's works were greatly valued, and Schiller, Hugo, and Belinsky all gave him a high appraisal. In lyric poetry, Stettius (45-95) was almost the only accomplished poet who specialized in depicting the pleasures of life of the leisure class. Drama Seneca (4-65) was the most important writer of tragedy in ancient Rome. Influenced by Stoic philosophy, he was skilled in rhetoric and philosophy and served as a teacher to the famous tyrant Nero. He advocated that people use inner peace to overcome the pain of life and propagated compassion and benevolence. In his life*** he wrote nine tragedies and one satirical play, most of which were taken from Greek tragedies. The style of his works is sublime and serious, mixed with a lot of moralizing, which makes his dialogues and characters lack of realism. His masterpiece is the tragedy The Trojan Women. In his later years, Seneca was killed by Nero for joining the Senate nobles in their opposition to Nero's tyranny. Prose The term "prose" is not used here in the narrow sense of modern literature, but rather to refer to the "prose style" of Latin literature, as opposed to the poetic style, including essays, novels, biographies and chronicles. Strictly speaking, the genre of "novel" in the history of European literature was born in the Roman period. The Satyricon of Petronius (birth and death unknown) is a legendary novel, two chapters of which are still extant, extensively documenting the popular hedonistic life of the semi-Hellenistic cities of southern Italy. The language of the characters conforms to the dialect, and the writing is elegant and witty. Despite the differences between its form and that of the traditional novel, academics tend to regard it as the first tramp novel in the history of European literature. The recognized "father of the novel," however, was Apuleius (124-175), who was born in North Africa to a family of military officers and traveled widely, studying philosophy and illusion. His most famous work is the novel The Golden Ass, written in autobiographical form, the first long novel in the history of Western literature to have a profound impact. In chronicles and biographical literature, representatives include Tacitus (55-118), Plutarch (46-120), and Suverturnius (69-140). Tacitus was the last representative of the **** and aristocratic schools, and his major works include the Histories and Chronicles. Although these two works are both historical works, they have a strong literary character, and their view of history originates from "the individual creates history", in which the factual description of the successive emperors and generals is very real and contagious. Plutarch's representative work is the "Greek and Roman biographies", recorded from the semi-mythical characters until the 1st century Roman emperor's biography, Shakespeare, Goethe and so on have been taken from the material to create. However, this work is characterized by many distortions in historical facts, and its influence gradually diminished after the 19th century. Suvitonius wrote "Twelve Roman Emperors", which described the Roman society and the 12 emperors from Caesar to Tumisan***, the line is simple and fluent, and it is a rare work of ancient Roman literature that does not care about rhetoric. In addition, he also wrote a "biography of famous people, later generations of ancient Roman literati almost all the understanding of the life of this book.