from kingdom to republic to dictatorship to Empire (complete with Imperial Eagles) that Rome had undergone centuries earlier. Cultural legacy Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" often refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome! In the 18th and 19th centuries AD, reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Europe and the United States than it is today. Respect for the ancient people of Greece and Rome affected politics, philosophy, sculpture, literature, theatre, education, architecture, and sexuality. Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into the 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the endless use of characters and themes from Greek mythology left a deep mark on Western literature. In architecture, there have been several Greek Revivals, which seem more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek. Washington, DC is filled with large marble buildings with facades made out to look like Greek temples, with columns constructed in the classical orders of architecture. In philosophy, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas was derived largely from that of Aristotle, despite the intervening change in religion from Hellenic Polytheism to Christianity. Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the foundation of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theater, tragedians such as Molière and Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to the strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics. The desire to dance like a latter-day vision of how the ancient Greeks did moved Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet. Timeline See also Classical architecture Classical tradition Classics (Classical education) Outline of classical studies Outline of ancient Egypt Outline of ancient Greece Outline of ancient Rome Post-classical history (the next period) Regions during classical antiquity Ancient history of Cyprus Hellenistic Greece History of the Balkans Roman Britain Roman Dacia Troy Notes References Citations Sources Grinin L. E. Early State in the Classical World: Statehood and Ancient Democracy. In Grinin L. E. et al. (eds.) Hierarchy and