<P> This process was aided by the universal adoption of Greek as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and of Latin as the tongue for public management and forensic advocacy, especially in the Western Mediterranean . </P> <P> Though the Greek and the Latin never became the native idioms of the rural peasants who composed the great majority of the empire's population, they were the languages of the urbanites and cosmopolitan elites, and the lingua franca, even if only as corrupt or multifarious dialects to those who lived within the large territories and populations outside the Macedonian settlements and the Roman colonies . All Roman citizens of note and accomplishment regardless of their ethnic extractions, spoke and wrote in Greek and / or Latin, such as the Roman jurist and Imperial chancellor Ulpian who was of Phoenician origin, the mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy who was of Greco - Egyptian origin and the famous post-Constantinian thinkers John Chrysostom and Augustine who were of Syrian and Berber origins, respectively, and the historian Josephus Flavius who was of Jewish origin and spoke and wrote in Greek . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section does not cite any sources . Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section does not cite any sources . Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr>

What art was influenced by writing from the classical greco-roman culture