The Story of the Roman Empire

Greek language and greek ideas were every bit as successfully spread to others through being conquered as through the greeks themselves conquering others. The places in the middle east that alexander had conquered would later become part of another civilization with the dominated by the arabic language and later the islamic religion. But it is in the west, where the romans conquered the greeeks, that the greek influence was the strongest and the most long lasting. We don't quite know why it happened, but we can trace quite closely how it happened.