spoke Greek mainly didn't they?

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 14:48, 2 replies)

The Roman in the street did
I think the intelligensia and ruling classes spoke Latin
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 14:59, closed)

Greek
In Roman culture Greek was what you spoke to show how educated you were (in the same way that Latin is to us in the modern world). It was the language of philosophy, culture and art. The state language was Latin though.

In fact it remained Latin - even after the fall of the Western Empire. Latin was the official language in the Eastern/Byzantine Empire that survived another millenia and was only replaced by Greek in 620AD (150 years after Rome itself had fell) by Heraclius.

Before that even though every man and his canis spoke Greek the government and army continued to use Greek.
(Audax Victor, Wed 7 Apr 2010, 15:08, closed)