How Did Rome's High Regard For The Arts

In this essay I will be discussing how the Romans high regard for the arts, learning, and law as

well as being an open minded civilization lead to their political advances and achievements

through out their time period. I believe that Rome's high regarding of the arts and learning lead

to them being a strong civilization because it taught them how to be more open minded as well

as to give them an insight into what their people want in their government and how they want

to be lead.

Rome's strongest upholding of the arts was most prevalent in the Hellenistic age. During the

Hellenistic age Alexander the Great encouraged the arts as well as science, music, and new

knowledge. In the heart of Alexandria Egypt a great museum was built which was the heart of

all new
knowledge and the arts. Within the walls of this great museum resided numerous

laboratories, a lecture hall, as well as a zoo where scholars could study zoology as well as

biology. A library located within the great museum was the epicenter of knowledge in the

ancient world. It held thousands of scrolls some scholars even said that it had help up to

700,000 scrolls within its library.
Later in the library's all of the scrolls as well as the library

where destroyed in a great fire. This is a good Insight into how the ruler Alexander the Great

valued the arts highly during the Hellenistic period, it showed that the great ruler wanted to

introduce his people to the arts to help better their knowledge and help better their

government through these new ideas. Another great development in the Hellenistic age was

the introduction and new roles for women. Advances for women during this time period

included them to read as well as write and where no longer restricted to their homes. Some

1 women even made careers out of the introduction to these new advances including them being

able to become philosophers, poets, or even rulers. Some female rulers ruled along side their

husbands as well as their sons who where the true rulers but one of the real true first women

rulers included Cleopatra the VII who came to the throne in her own power. Another

“advancement” of the Hellenistic age was during this time period political turmoil lead to
the

rise of a new form of philosophy and schools of philosophy. The new form of philosophy was

named Stoicism and was founded by the leader “Zeno”. Stoics philosophy taught people that

everyone including slaves and women had a meaning in the world due to us being equal in the

power of reason. Stoics also had extremely high moral standards as well as the ideas of

protecting fellow citizens no matter who they where or what their story was.

Pythagoras was a scholar who had formulated the relationship between the

sides and angles of a right triangle which would later become the “Pythagorean

theorem”. Another mathematician included Euclid who wrote a book called “the

elements” which was the foundation for geometry which is still used by many scholars

as well as mathematicians today. These mathematicians and scholars have helped the

people of the ancient civilizations as well as the people of today help them calculate

math problems and solutions and helped many people develop many theories and

solutions to complex equations. Another scholar and scientist who derived a theory from

these solutions was the astronomer Aristarchus who developed a theory that the earth

rotated around its axis as well as orbited around the sun. This surprisingly was not

2 accepted by many scientists until about 2,000 years later. Eratosthenes was another

astronomer who had calculated the circumference and also proved that the earth was

round by using calculations and theories derived from mathematicians including

Pythagoras as well as Euclid. Ptolemy was an astronomer who believe in a geocentric

universe which means that the earth had been the center of the universe and that all

other planets as well as the sun had rotated around the earth. This theory was widely

accepted by many scholars and scientists as well as common folk who accepted the

geocentric universe from Ptolemy and denied the Aristarchus’ theory until later on in the

sixteenth century when scholars and scientist found out that Aristarchus was correct

and denied Ptolemy’s theory. Mathematicians like Pythagoras and Euclid helped pave

the way for scientists who helped calculate the circumference of earth as well as find

new advances in the scientific community. Romans had a high craving for knowledge

which showed up in their advances in the scientific community. Many inventions helped the

people of Rome for the better including the introduction of Archimedean screw which was

powered by either a windmill or animal labor which allowed water to be transferred from a

lower place to a higher level, this new invention helped introduce new techniques to field

irrigation, as well as helping bring water from wells up to the surface without the use of a

bucket and pulley. These could allow farmers to better water their crops without as much

physical labor, allowing people clean fresh water, and allowing a flow of water for people.

Archimedes was well known throughout the scientific community of the Hellenistic age for

using and applying the power of physics to help create inventions to better the people of

Rome. Finally a great medical philosopher and Doctor was the Greek philosopher Hippocrates 3 who studied illnesses which he then looked for a cure. He took a similar oath in which doctors

in this day and age still take a similar oath.

Research from scholars as well as scientists from the Roman Empire has shown that the people

of Rome craved knowledge through the introduction of books, women having more rights, new

sciences, philosophy's, new medical sciences, new engineering and inventions to help better

the people, as well as a great museum which held an extensive library in which Romans could

satisfy their craving for knowledge.