Page 21 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Giulio Romano’s fresco, 1526–35, depicting the Roman gods Mars (Ares to the
Greeks) and Venus (Aphrodite) – the Romans liberally adopted Greek mythology

IMITATING THE GREEKS
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The Romans copied the Greeks… a lot. As their powerful
predecessors fell, Rome freely incorporated Greek culture
Roman civilisation only really got into the columns and triangular pediments
its stride in the third century BC. By that had been all the rage in Greece
then, the Greeks had been cultivating for centuries began to emerge.
their culture for centuries. In the Another example of the Greek
second century BC, Macedonia was influence on Rome is the pantheon
the main military power in the Greek of gods, renamed by the Romans
ROMANS ROADS world, but Rome was a greedy neigh- but, in terms of myths and imagery,
bour and fought four separate wars completely interchangeable with the
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Straight, paved, well-drained – against it. By 146 BC, Macedonia and Greek gods. Zeus was Jupiter and
Rome’s superhighways weren’t the rest of the Greek world had fallen Ares was Mars, while soothsayers
the first, but they made the under Roman rule. and oracles both also appeared in
Roman architecture is an interest-
Greek culture.
world’s most extensive network ing example of Greek influence. The The Greek Olympic Games flour-
very first structures in Rome were cir- ished under Roman rule and even
In the fifth century BC, King Darius of Persia cular, implying a Celtic influence, but chariot racing seems to have origi-
ordered the construction of the ‘Royal Road’, over time that all changed. Instead, nated in Greece.
which stretches over 1,600 miles – but not all
of it was paved, nor was all of it straight. The
oldest paved road in history is in an Egyptian
quarry and is around 4,600 years old. CONCRETE FEAT
The Romans could see potential in these
early roads, so they borrowed the idea and The Romans (sort of) invented concrete, the quick and
enhanced it. At the peak of the Roman cheap material that helped build the empire
empire there were 29 military highways
radiating from the capital, with 113 provinces There is a form of concrete that is The Romans recognised that
interconnected by 372 roads – nearly a naturally occurring, so technically it building arches and domes using a
quarter of a million miles in total. At the time, predates humans. Yet in around 1200 quick-drying, liquid material was far
and for years to come, this was the best- BC, the Mycenaeans made floors in easier than trying to build the same
connected empire the world had ever seen. concrete. Independently, Bedouins in features in brick or stone. It was far
Straight, paved roads improved communi- north Africa also created their own cheaper and quicker than building a
cation, trade and the movement of armies. concrete before the Roman era. large structure from solid marble too.
However, they were also expensive to build However, it was the Romans who It was also the Romans who devel-
and maintain. Only 20 per cent of Roman were to use concrete – made from oped the idea of making a framework
roads were paved in stone, meaning that 80 a mixture of water, quicklime, sand in concrete, before cladding it with
per cent were either dirt tracks or covered and volcanic ash – extensively and stone. The Colosseum in Rome is an
only in gravel, which degraded over the consistently from around 300 BC example of a large, mainly concrete,
winter months. Even the stone roads weren’t right up to the fall of Rome in the fifth Roman structure.
always all that great. In the Vindolanda century AD. Indeed our word Emperor Augustus famously said:
Tablets – a series of ‘postcards’ written on ‘concrete’ comes from the Latin “I found Rome a city of bricks and left
slivers of wood and discarded at a Roman concretus, meaning ‘compact’. it a city of marble.” While this may be
a great line that underscores his
Somewhat confusingly, the Romans
fort on Hadrian’s Wall – it is interesting to
AKG IMAGES read complaints about the state of the roads themselves didn’t use the Latin word achievements as emperor, he missed
that the soldiers travelled on, demonstrating
out the most important Roman
concretus; they called it opus
building material of all – concrete.
caementicium.
that maintenance wasn’t always a priority.
The Story of Science & Technology 21