Why did science not flourish in Ancient Rome the way it did in Ancient Greece?
You might think about it in another way, the Greeks flourished in what we know as the late ancient age when there was a huge thirst for knowledge ans power. The Greeks invented, discovered, understood a few basic things that had a huge impact later in the early medieval period. the Greeks were surely inventors, be it architecture, warfare or social inventions. Now if you look at the Romans, they were a war loving state. Greeks had never expanded their territories (Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians) except Alexander the Great like the Romans did. In fact a majority of Greece's warfare were defensive in nature, they fought the Persians and other princely states within. And any nation or kingdom that spend more time defending their borders are bound to be more innovative than the offensive ones. (Compare the Byzantines with the Mongols, while the Byzantines were amazing in defensive warfare innovations the Mongols had very little innovation to offer to the world.)Another point to be noted here is that Rome's need for innovation was met by the discoveries and inventions of the regions they had conquered. Egypt, Gaul, Western Europe, they had best of all the worlds. As Rome flourished information and intelligence came flowing in from all directions, from all the lands they ruled. So naturally the need for being innovative themselves was virtually negative for the Romans themselves.
What developments during the middle ages and the renaissance contributed to the scientific revolution?
Much of it happened in the Islamic world and then filtered into Latin Europe, mostly via translators in Spain. Greek scientific and philosophical writing had been preserved in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire much more than the western - Egypt, Syria, etc. - and the Muslims inherited this when they conquered these areas in the seventh century. By the ninth century they had translated most of it into Arabic and began to commentate and continue the development of this tradition. They also adopted things like a decimal place-numeral system from the Indians (hence our "Arabic," as opposed to "Roman," numerals) which made mathematical calculations faster and more accurate. Most mathematical and technical terms in English that begin with "al-" (Arabic for "the") come from Muslim thinkers. Algebra, Algorithms, Alchemy (the beginnings of chemistry), etc. Thinkers like Ibn Sina ("Avicenna" to westerners) both commentated on the works of Aristotle but made original advances in fields like math, astronomy and medicine. Avicenna, working in medicine, pioneered scientific methods in using systematic experimentation to get the best results. Muslim astronomers even probed the idea that the earth revolved around the sun, although none of them finally adopted the idea. All of this started to filter into Europe, with some early translations in the 10th-11th centuries and a big wave in the 13th. Roger Bacon in the 13th century asserted that observation and experience were surer guides to knowledge than the authorities or pure logic relied on by most medieval thinkers. Another Bacon, Francis (not sure if there's a relation), would develop this into full-on empirical method in the 16th century. Meanwhile, medieval Europe had become very adept at borrowing technologies developed elsewhere (like gunpowder or paper) or devising its own (like the magnetic compass) and putting them to practical use. This would lead to things like the telescope which made the discoveries of Galileo possible.
What would be a good thesis statement for comparing and contrasting Ancient Greece and Rome?
I am explaining their differences and similarities in Art, Science, And Technology, and i really need to improve my thesis statement which is: Ancient Rome and Greece differed vastly through creations and advances in Art, Science, and Technology.