The Roman Empire

After the formation of the Roman Republic in 509 B C., the Romans expanded the borders of their realm through near-continuous warfare. At its greatest extent, in the early second century A.D, the Roman Empire reached from the Euphrates River in southwest Asia to Scotland in the West. The vast territory ringed the Mediterranean Sea-mare nostrum, or “our sea,” the Romans called it. As the Romans absorbed the peoples they conquered, they imposed on them a legal, administrative, and cultural structure that endured for some five centuries-in the eastern Mediterranean until the fifteenth century AD-and left a lasting mark on the civilizations that emerged in Europe.

Conquering and maintaining a vast empire required not only inspired leadership and tactics but also careful planning, massive logistical support, and great administrative skill. Some of Rome’s most enduring contributions to Western civilization-its system of law, its governmental and administrative structures, and its sophisticated civil engineering and architecture-reflect these qualities.

To facilitate the development and administration of the empire, as well as to make city life comfortable and attractive to its citizens, the Roman government undertook building programs of unprecedented scale and complexity, mandating the construction of central administrative and legal centers (forums and basilicas), recreational facilities (racetracks and stadiums), theaters, public baths, roads, bridges, aqueducts (bridge-like structures for carrying fresh water from the mountains), middle-class housing, and even new towns. To accomplish these tasks without sacrificing beauty, efficiency, and human well-being, Roman builders and architects developed rational plans using easily worked but durable materials and highly sophisticated engineering methods. The architect Vitruvius described these accomplishments in his Ten Books of Architecture.

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