Classical Antiquity is a period in the history of the Near East and Mediterranean, extending roughly from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD.It is conventionally taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th century BC), and continues through the emergence of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th to 6th centuries, the period during which Late Antiquity blends into the "Dark Ages" or Early Middle Ages.