The Latin West and Greek East are the two cultural halves of the Roman Empire. In the West, Latin was the main language of law and government. In the East, Greek was the language of culture and everyday life, as it had been before Rome arrived.
Key takeaways
- Latin dominated in the western provinces and Greek in the eastern ones, and educated Romans were expected to know both.
- The east kept its Hellenistic culture, while western provinces were Latinised.
- After AD 395 the line between East and West became a political border, and our data tags each province as Eastern or Western, such as Aegyptus (Eastern) and Italia (Western).
- The two sides drifted apart in language, and by Justinian's time Greek was replacing Latin even in the Eastern empire's law.
How the Latin West and Greek East worked
The Roman Empire had two main languages. In the west, Latin was the language of towns, soldiers and officials, and it gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages [1]. In the east, Greek stayed the language of culture and trade. Koine Greek served as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean during the empire [1]. Educated Romans were expected to learn both: Greek helped to pass as an educated person, and Latin was useful for a career in the army, government or law [1].
The empire was deliberately multilingual. The Roman government mainly wanted to make itself understood [1], so it used interpreters, and inscriptions are often found in both languages side by side. Local languages continued too. Coptic remained in use in Egypt, Aramaic in Syria and Punic and Libyco-Berber in parts of North Africa [1].
The line between the two halves was cultural first and political later. The western provinces were Latinised, while the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture [2]. The emperor Diocletian set up separate imperial courts in the Greek East and the Latin West [1]. After the permanent split of AD 395, the cultural boundary became a political one, and the two sides drifted further apart.
The shift in the East was slow. Latin had been important in the military, law and government, but its use in Byzantine territories declined from AD 400, and Greek had begun replacing it even in those roles by the time of Justinian I [2]. In the West, knowledge of Greek declined [1]. Spoken Latin later broke up into the early Romance languages [1], which is why French, Italian and Spanish exist today.
An example from our data
The map does not draw languages. It does tag each of its AD 200 provinces with the half it fell into after 395. Italia, with its capital at Roma, is tagged Western. Aegyptus, with its capital at Alexandria, is tagged Eastern. So is Syria, with its capital at Antiochia. Compare Africa Proconsularis, capital Carthago, which is tagged Western.
On the slider, you can see the split on the year 395 page, where the empire measures 4.72 million km². By AD 476 the Western provinces have gone and the outline is 1.94 million km² (the year 476 page). The halves are tags in our data, not the real language boundary, which was never a clean line. All the provinces are listed on the provinces page, and the homepage explains East and West in more detail.
The thing people get wrong
It is easy to think that Latin was the language of the whole empire, and that everybody in it spoke the same tongue as the Roman legions. It was not. Greek was the shared language of the eastern Mediterranean, and local languages such as Coptic, Aramaic and Punic carried on in daily life [1]. Even the army did not always use Latin: in Syria, Palmyrene soldiers used their own dialect of Aramaic for inscriptions [1]. The other mistake is to think the line between Latin and Greek was a hard border. The two languages mixed, and bilingual inscriptions show how closely they were used side by side [1].
Latin West vs Greek East
| Latin West | Greek East | |
|---|---|---|
| Main language | Latin | Greek |
| Roman halves after 395 | Western Roman Empire | Eastern Roman Empire |
| Local languages | Celtic, Punic and others | Coptic, Aramaic and others |
| Later result | Romance languages | Greek stays the language of the Byzantine state |
Frequently asked questions
Which language was spoken in the Eastern Roman Empire?
Mostly Greek, which had been the common language of the eastern Mediterranean for centuries. Other languages such as Coptic in Egypt and Aramaic in Syria continued in daily life.
Did everyone in the Roman Empire speak Latin?
No. Latin was the language of government, law and the army, but many people spoke local languages, and Greek was widely used in the East.
When did the Roman East stop using Latin?
Gradually. Latin use declined in Byzantine territories from about AD 400, and Greek had begun to replace it even in law and government by the time of Justinian I.
Sources
- Roman Empire, Wikipedia.
- Byzantine Empire, Wikipedia.
- Every figure from our own map is worked out from the datasets on the data sources page (checked against Ancient World Mapping Center outlines and Pleiades).