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FreelancePoliceman the Greeks colonized Italy long before the Romans did, and the later Romans' culture was largely based on the Greek one. all through the middle ages (primacy of the Church) this influence continued, you can smell Plato (neo-platonism), Aristotle and the stoics in every work of religion, art, literature. the intellectual thinkers in the Roman empire have always spoken those "languages", and don't you dare saying that the middle ages had no enlightened artistic peaks.
btw, if the Greeks were the ones to promote what you define humanist values, we owe it to them for passing it along, not to the Ottomans. uh