How Did Roman Roads Impact Society

The fourth factor was the amazing engineers, inventors, and architects in the Empire. By 200 AD the Romans had built 53,000 miles of roads throughout the Empire. The very first was built in 312 BC. They also invented sewers, central heating systems, and the first types of concrete. (Mahoney, 2001)

     In addition, to the Roman government, the modern world has been influenced by Roman architecture as well. In every country and every state these days you will find roads or some type of paved road system. This derived from early Roman architectures. The Romans were the first to set up a highly advanced concrete road system that would aide in traveling. Although not as sophisticated as today's roads, the concrete used was not much different from what is used today. In fact the Roman constructed roads are still intact today. Along with road

Both Rome and Han China equivalently constructed similar roads, bridges, and water development systems all to strengthen their economy. Verifications of this can be seen when Rome fully realized the potential of arches and bridges in their road systems that spanned more than 400,000 km of roads that were used for trade. Correspondingly, they also built aqueducts as a form of water engineering to constantly bring in a flow of water to the cities and towns. Similarly, Han China built massive fortified roadways for trade and walls for fortification comparable to the Great Wall of China as a means of defense. Also in comparison to Roman aqueducts, Han China built water canals as means to direct water as they pleased. These similarities defined their engineering skills as these inventions and constructions were used to help strengthen their economies. Rome built and constructed roads to aid their trade systems and make easier routes of travel. Furthermore, they used aqueducts to get water into the city saving money and the need for human labor. Similarly, Han China used their fortified roads to trade much easier and as a means of safer travel. This went hand in hand with China’s water canals that also aided their economy by directing water where needed saving much money and limiting the need for human labor as well.

Roman aqueducts were very important to the ancient Romans and heavily influenced their daily life. The aqueducts brought wealth, power, and luxury to the people of Rome in more ways than imaginable and more than just for the obvious purpose of delivering water. When the wells and rainwater were no longer sufficient for the population of Rome, they had to develop a new method of bringing water into the city. Thus creating the invention of aqueducts.

Because Augustus encouraged trade, many roads and highways were built for convenient traveling. Trading made easier increased trade, which boosted Roman economy even more.

They built great roads that were all connected and some are even still being walked on. All

These technological achievements credited to the Romans were rather only improvements made by the Romans to inventions previously discovered by earlier societies. Concrete is the only invention that can solely be credited to the Romans. As stated earlier the remains of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius were discovered by Romans, as well as the idea of mixing these remains with water. Aside from concrete, all technological achievements credited to the Romans were only improvements on ideas borrowed from others (Boatwright). Roads can be dated back to Mesopotamia. The earliest roads served the sole purpose of allowing wagons and chariots to easily pass through cities. Some were built from brick and asphalt or limestone slabs, but it is not until the Roman improvement to make roads deeper and more durable that roads received national recognition. Although early societies in Mesopotamia had created roads long before the Romans, the Romans borrowed this technology and improved it to increase the productivity of their own expansion (Roads). India is known to have some of the

To continue, the Roman empire allowed the advancement of technology because of how most of the documents concerning the Roman empire talked about how Government officials spoke positively about the advancements in technology. In Document #6 the high official, Plutarch, talk about how the Roman political leader Gaius Gracchus put a lot of time into the advancement of the roads in the empire. Plutarch talked about how Gaius made constant improvements to the roads like placing pillars of stone at certain points along the road as a distant marker to help travelers and merchants to judge distances. As well as creating stepping stones to help horse-back riders mount their horses. This all relates to the Advancements of technology as the distance pillars show the creation of easier distance tracking and mapping of the area as engineers had to have made the pillars and placed them in certain places that accurately represents the distance. Not only this but the stepping stones are a sign of advancements uses for the pillar as they are used for the creation for distance pillars,

The Romans engaged in various forms of public works, whether constructing amphitheaters or aqueducts, the Romans funded infrastructure all across the Empire. Aqueducts greatly improved water supplies, roads made trade and travel easier, amphitheaters spread Roman culture, and military fortresses protect Rome and its people. The Romans contribution to local infrastructure all but insured their

For example, It made it easy to get to cities from where they were. In document E it states that, they started off at Marakanda and they were arriving at Antioch and through Iran and Iraq. It was a faster route to get to those places and to transport the goods that that town needed. This was not a single road, it was a main road that broke off into different roads which made this the first superhighway.

In document 8, the “flowing aqueducts” of the Roman Empire greatly increased the ability for people to live in very condensed areas, and therefore making the empire more efficient by allowing more people to live in smaller areas. The elected officials in each respected empire noted that, because of the technological advances, the empress benefited. Thus showing that the ideas of man to invent and reinvent are not always broken causes. Document 6 states that, the romans had very advanced roads built, roads built to last thousands of years. “For the roads were built to carry straight through the country without wavering and were paved with quarried stone and made solid by tightly packed sand.” This quote shows that, because of how technologically advanced the Romans were, they were able to build these roads, roads that still last

Both civilizations had very strong central governments which allowed for powerful and expanding kingdoms. Both empires had to develop road systems for their expanding military. The Roman army men were experienced and privileged and held high ranks in their class system and played an important role,

Romans found new societal and technological innovations which led their empire to be a sustainable society. These innovations helped the Roman Empire to be successful and peaceful. They aided in making everyone content, including the conquered and prevented wars from breaking out within the empire. Technological innovations helped the citizens live a comfortable and healthy life. New innovations included new beneficial laws.

The aqueducts also gave birth to another landmark in building of early mega-structures: the arches. Through use of arches, aqueducts could be made taller and longer without using a lot of building materials. The aqueducts enabled expansion of Rome and helped keep the city clean. Through aqueducts the common Roman citizen had access to running water, a quantum leap in the civic amenities as per many experts.

These roads were so well built that some of them are still in use by modern travelers. Romans knew that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and built their roads incredibly straight, stretching for miles without a single turn. The use of stone in building roads enabled people to travel during inclement weather while dirt roads may remain too muddy to travel upon for many days after a hard rain. The Ancient Romans also knew of a road building technique that escapes the builders of modern roads in states such as Florida. This technique is known as crowning, this involves making the center of the roads higher than the sides, with a gradual slope to allow water to run off the sides instead of collecting in the middle. By the time the great Roman Empire fell, the Roman Army had built roads connecting all of their empire to Rome.