In his clear and often exciting narrative, Professor German Hafner analyzes twelve centuries of brilliant creative endeavor and traces the intricate pattern of cultural and artistic relationships between the various regions of Italy, Greece, and the lands of the Orient. To an Italy that was a welter of small tribes and cities struggling for supremacy, Greek settlers early brought their culture. They created ceramics, statues, paintings, and buildings worthy of the highest achievements of their homeland before lapsing into barbarism as the Romans embarked on their long climb to world rule. The Romans absorbed the cultural elements of the peoples the conquered -- especially of the Greeks, and not least the Etruscans -- until step by step Italy came to form a single artistic unit with its center at Rome. The standard of what we now regard as distinctively Roman art spread throughout the Empire. Beautifully illustrated in this book are the dancers, wrestlers, warriors, horsemen, centaurs, gods, goddesses, and other themes that, throughout Antiquity, moved the peoples of the Mediterranean lands to the heights of artistic achievement. -- From publisher's description.