History Memes

Greek was always the language of art and philosophy in Rome, but the status of Latin amongst the elite varied according to the period. It would probably be more correct to regard the Roman elite as bilingual, with Greek sometimes privileged as a language of culture, but at other times simply learned as a lingua franca, especially for the eastern parts of the Empire.

In the Late Republic, for example, both Caesar and Cicero were fluent Greek speakers, but also advocates for a more robust literary Latin to develop. Caesar, notably, often held his conversations in Greek, while Cicero was noted to use anti-Greek invectives; but both wrote on the subject of the need for a Latin language which had the flexibility and artistic potential to challenge Greek.

The Emperor Tiberius in the Early Empire literally apologized to the Senate for using a Greek loan-word; while the generally conservative/republican Emperor Claudius referred to Greek as one of "our languages." During the Flavian dynasty, Latin was privileged, but during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, a noted Hellenophile, Greek came back into style.

And so on, and so forth, until Greek became dominant everywhere except the military and administration in the 4th century AD; and then in the administration in the 6th century AD Byzantine Empire, and then even in the Byzantine military from the 7th century AD onwards.