Honestly, it was the camel. Also, going up the Nile helped even better.
Religion
The Romans were quite content to swipe most of the religion of the Greeks. Many of the gods served the same function with different names in both religions. You could quote Adonis[agriculture,<em><u>resurrection</u></em>], Apollo(light, prophecy), Pluto(The underworld), even some minor ones like Iris [rainbow], Others had a name change but served the same function. Eros (Greek),Cupid(sexual love). The point is that you have to understand that religion for the Romans was more or less a social convention rather than some deep rooted theology that needed slavish obedience. Easy come, easy go. The Greeks on the other hand were much more spiritual if you will. Their playwrights and poets were very careful about how they interpreted what the Gods did and how they did it. The Greeks called it as they saw it. The gods were not perfect; they could exhibit a wide variety of human foibles which the ordinary Greek citizen had best beware of. Offending the Gods was a very serious crime, but the Jehovah doesn't take kindly to that either.
The Romans paid homage to the Gods (women more than men -- sound familiar?), but they were much more tolerant, until the offense became political. Then there was all sorts of H*ll to pay. The whole history of Christianity and Rome can be summed up in the Crucifixion. Rome really didn't want to do anything about Jesus: they considered him a harmless gadfly. But that is what the crowd wanted (mostly Pharisees), and so Pilot gave Christ to them.
Literature
Stylistically there was not much developed in Rome. The poetry was mostly written by men (what else is new?), in what I consider a man's style and background of interests. I don't know that anyone ever wrote a cookbook in either culture. I have a science background and my mother tried to teach me to cook (she was old world). We drove each other crazy. Her measuring devices below a cup was the palm of her hand. "Mom you could at least put that into tablespoons." The comment was lost on her. That was the same sort of "cookbook" used by the Romans and Greeks. There were comedies and tragedies (some like Oedipus Rex are performed today. The plot is a classic: Oedipus was doomed to kill his father and sleep with his mother.)
Lest you think all Greek Theater was kind of far out, there were comedies. One of the most famous (my favorite actually) is Lysistrata. The plot is very interesting maybe even tempting for the modern woman. The plot centers around the women of Athens (Sparta and Thebes), to organize themselves to withhold sexual favors from their men. Though a comedy, it has really serious comments to make about the battle of the sexes in humanity. It is very political while at the same time being funny.
Roman really did not add anything revolutionary to this situation. Well, I have to leave this now and look at your other one. I don't know how much time I have today. If you need me to go through the other two parts, I will later on. Just leave me a note.
A polis controlled itself either by a king democracy
A colony did not it was ruled by another city
