A.T Robertson

The Ancient Greek Language

"It is not speculation to speak of the ancient Greek language as a world speech, for the inscriptions in the ancient Greek language testify to its spread over Asia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Sicily and the isles of the sea, not to mention the papyri. Marseilles was a great centre of Greek civilization, and even Cyrene, though not Carthage, was Grecized. The ancient Greek language was in such general use that the Roman Senate and imperial governors had the decrees translated into the world-language and scattered over the empire. It is significant that the Greek speech becomes one instead of many dialects at the very time that the Roman rule sweeps over the world. The world persisted after the division of the kingdom and penetrated all parts of the Roman world, even Rome itself. Paul wrote to the church at Rome in Greek, and Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, wrote his Meditations in Greek. It was the language not only of letters, but of commerce and every-day life... It was really an epoch in the world's history when the babel of tongues was hushed in the wonderful language of Greece."