Classical antiquity
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire (5th century). It ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity (300-600), or, using the similar and better-known periodization of history, with the Early Middle Ages (500-1100).
Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" typically 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!"
