Rome Essay

The Roman Empire was the most advanced civilization in architecture and the fine arts. For instance, the Colosseum was the largest arena for gladiatorial games, and was one of the largest arenas with a stage in the center. Each and every person had a perfect view of the battles between gladiators and animals. The gladiatorial games were the highlight of the average roman's day. Theese bloody battles were sometimes tests of the convenience of new and unusual weapons. If the gladiator performed well and the emperor approved, the gladiator would live. If not, he would be sentenced to death.

This all has to happen with water of course, they couldn't survive with out the 1 cubic meter of water per household that they live off of. This gargantuan amount of water is transported via aqueduct. An aqueduct is a metal and concrete tube about six feet in diameter that is supported on arches or built through mountains. Arches are the most advanced structure for supporting anything. The fact that they utilized this structure is highly advanced. These tubes are easily repairable because of the access passages leading to the tubes for maintenance on the tubes or for cleaning. The aqueducts are also founded on the principle that if a tube at a given point needs to get to a place lower than the original point, it does not matter what the tube does, the water will keep flowing. There are above-ground wells that store the water and send it to the entire roman city through the sewage system. This water also helps contribute to the first "flushing" toilets and the roman baths.

Another exquisite form of support is the column, which is also used in the church. The column can have three types of artwork on it which grant them the names: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric style of column is just a flat topped column, plain and simple. The Ionic style of column is an upside down scroll on a Doric style column. The Corinthian style is the most elaborate, it is a column decorated with leaves and other herbaceous looking designs.

The only real standing building with elaborate Corinthian columns is the Catholic Church. Our house has Ionic columns along the center room in our Roman villa. Our family was once wealthy because of my ancestors participation in the Roman army all these years, but the recent disease and economic downfall have us in a very unhealthy situation. The barbarians are now controlling Rome in the west but the Roman land far away from the center has crumbled upon itself.

The Romans had conquered lots of land at the peak of their existence. To conquer all of this land they needed the most powerful army in the world. The Romans had a series of war strategies. The most popular was they would have very long spears that would take out cavalry and some infantry. The normal sized spears that the romans would throw would bend on impact to prevent reuse. The archers would sling flaming and regular tipped arrows behind most of the action. Way back in the family line, one of my grandfathers fought against Spartacus in 71 A.D. Spartacus was captured in a war and sold as a slave. He got together a group of 70 and they rebelled against Rome. Spartacus wanted to get out of Italia but his men wanted to invade Rome. They lost to my grandfather and his men. The Punic wars were some of the most intense wars in all of Rome's existence so far. The Punic wars were between Rome and Carthage. There were a total of three Punic wars. The first Occurred in 264 BC and lasted until 241 BC. This war was mostly focused in Sicily until Rome crushed the Carthaginian navy. To put an end to the violence, Carthage and Rome signed a treaty in which Carthage had to give up Sicily. The second Punic war was started in 218 BC and ended in 202 BC. One of the reasons this war was caused is because Rome tried to take the islands of Sardinia. Hannibal took control of the new Carthage. The reason of the second Punic war is mostly because Hannibal just didn't like Rome. Hannibal took his amazingly large army and slowly invaded Rome. He conquered all of northern Italia except for two cities. This victory attracted roughly 50,000 Gauls. The Romans new generals lost to the Carthaginian army that was at least half their size. Greece eventually allied with Hannibal and started attacking Rome also. Rome then conquered Spain and Carthage.