Ancient Rome’s World Advances - Essay

Ancient Rome’s World Advances
Brianna
HIS 103
Marek McKenna
7/15/2012

The ancient Romans were very busy exploring new resources and building many new things. Roman technology and engineering was a very important part of their everyday life. Without either many of our technologies and the things we have today, I believe wouldn’t have become. The inventions of the past are now the better inventions of the future. We are always finding way to advance in our technology to make living easier and better. Roman technology was and important part of the Roman life and made a huge difference when many of the technologies were discovered. One of the huge technologies that they had was their concrete. Concrete were a huge part of the building and paving of streets. This was a huge step and helped move the army quickly across the country when it needed to be. It also connected them from one city to another easily in order to make trading better. Building roads made things a lot easier. We would get nowhere in today’s world without roads. Roads that we have run everywhere, from one side of the U.S. to the other. So looking back on ancient history without the Romans starting concrete and making roads who knows when it would have come along and what we would have today. Not only was the concrete used for roads but it was also used for the making of buildings, baths, walls, aqueducts, arches, bridges, and much more. So with the new technology of the concrete brings me along with the technology of aqueducts. The advanced Roman waterway system was known as aqueducts. The aqueducts were the most visible and glorious piece of the ancient water system that Rome had. They stood as a testament to the Roman engineering. They were built from a combination of stone, brick, and special volcanic cement, which is called pozzuolana. This waterway system ran underground. Channels went through rock or dug below the surface and carried water where it was possible and was needed. The Romans had approximately 260 miles in the aqueduct system with only 30 of the miles that were visible. They were mainly built to carry the flow of water in areas where digging, burrowing, or surface grades showed problems, for example valleys. The system required the use of gravity in order to maintain the continuous flow that it had. When the water reached Rome it flowed into reservoirs that held the water supply for the city. From there they were connected to networks of pipes that led the water into public fountains, baths, and even private villas. Some of the aqueducts that were built back then are ancient structures that are still in use today. Heaton, C. (2011). Roman engineering was a huge step in advancement of living. Romans were the first major civilization that created plumbing. They were the first ones who built baths. Not only were they nice but it was showing their use of a natural resource at their own benefit. One of the ways it was used was with Hadrian’s Wall. It was 117 kilometer long and 6 meters high, and 3 meters thick. It was made in a part of England where soldiers used it if they suffered from the wind or the cold. The wall had toilets, washrooms, and forts that could hold up to 1,000 men. By having this it was allowing the men to use this area and facility rather than being out and in the open with no running water. Could you imagine what we would do now days without running water? We wouldn’t know what to do. Another part of engineering would be the building of the Colosseum. This used the technology of concrete in order to build this. The coliseum was one of Rom’s most famous building that still exists to this day. The construction was started around 72AD by Emperor Vespasian. His son Titus reigned over its completion and the official ceremonies in 80 AD. The huge theater was built encompassing four floors. The first three had arched entrances while the fourth one had rectangular doorways. The arena measured to be 79x45 meter, which is 237-135 feet. It consisted of wood and sand. Nets were put around the side to protect the audience. The interior was divided into three parts, the arena, podium, and cavea. Today if you were to look at the Colosseum two-thirds of the original building has been removed and the rows of seats in the cavea are missing. The Colosseum was the Empires primary stage for gladiatorial combat for nearly 4 centuries. It took a lot of technology and engineering to build this place. Today it is one of the most widely visited ancient building still in existence. Chris, H. (n.d.). So there are a few technologies along with engineering that are still in somewhat of existence today. Without the start of these where would we be today and what would we have? I believe things would have been different and not as many ancient buildings would be in existence today. Rome was known as the first true modern city. All of these advancements and engineering were very well built and started and are revisited today. It’s amazing to say even if we build today we use the technologies that we started thousands of years ago. The Romans helped paved our way for advancements today. The question of how this made the giant cities livable, are shown through the advancements of technology and engineering in ancient Rome. The plumbing and use of roads made the use of water resources and traveling easier. While having engineering it allowed us to use the technologies to make buildings and waterways possible, along with many other things. So therefore without all these it made life somewhat more easy and livable.

Reference

Chris, H. (n.d.). Unrv hstory. Retrieved from http://www.unrv.com/culture/colosseum.php
This website along with the one below helped me also get a better understanding of the Colosseum and a better understanding of the structure.
Heaton, C. (2011). Unrv history- roman empire. Retrieved from http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-aqueducts.php
This website helped me get a better understanding of what aqueducts are and how they worked.
Mahdavi, F. (2012). World history: The human experience to 1500. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education
The book gave very good references on when Rome first started all together. It summed up a lot about what all went on during the time of the Roman civilization.