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The word science is derived from the Latin word scientia
which means 'knowledge'. For the Romans, science was a
collection of observations, the source of which they
credited to the work of the gods. The Romans were
largely contented to accumulate the knowledge of others
in books and writings and to give it practical
application to benefit human life. We call this applied
science. The Romans would be the builders, the city
planners and the engineers. Their accomplishments would
leave an enduring mark on the horizons of Rome and most
of the world. Monuments to the Roman builders can be seen throughout
the city of Rome. The Ponte Milvo, a bridge that once
rang to the clang of Roman legions on the march 2,400
years ago, now carries joggers, strollers and bikers
across the Tiber river. Just down the street stands the
Colosseum, an amphitheatre built late in the first
century AD as an arena for Roman games. The Pantheon,
the Roman temple to the gods and still the widest dome
in the world, is an awesome sight to visitors. Across
the valleys and over the hills of Rome, there is a trail
of broken arches. They are the remains of an aqueduct
that carried fresh spring water to the residents of
Rome.
What was the secret of the Roman engineers' monumental
achievements? One answer was their recognition of the
possibilities of the arch. The arch may appear to be
simply a beautiful, elegant decoration. But the arch
also has the kind of strength needed to span long
distances and enclose larger areas. The arch was
conceived by the Egyptians and Greeks. They discovered
that wedge-shaped stones formed into an arch exerted two
opposing forces that cancelled out each other. Thus, the
stones supported each other. The Romans also discovered
a way to make a very strong concrete, a material
invented by the Egyptians. Concrete is a mixture of
powdered lime and water to which sand and stone are
added. They found a large deposit of sandlike volcanic
ash that, when added to lime paste, formed a concrete as
hard as natural rock.
Now the Roman builders had a design and a strong
material that would enable them to become master bridge
builders. A series of arches built in a riverbed formed
the foundation of a bridge. The arches were held up by
large, square, upright supports or piers built into the
river bed. The engineers found that too many large piers
obstructed the flow of the water. The Romans used larger
arches and therefore fewer piers to solve the problem.
Many Roman bridges constructed over main rivers still
stand today.
Aqueducts are concrete-walled channels supported by tall
arches. They carried water from the streams in the
Apennine Mountains 15 miles east of the city. A system
very much like the water distribution system used today,
transported the water from the aqueducts to various
parts of the city. Surging in from the mountains, the
water flowed into the holding tanks, where sand and
rocks were allowed to settle before being piped to
different parts of the city.
The excellent Roman highway system was built mainly to
enable the army to move quickly. Roman roads are
sometimes called 'walls lying on their sides' because
they
are so well-built. The roads, made of four or five
layers of sand, gravel, cement and stone are four times
as thick as our modern roads and anywhere from 6 to 20
feet wide. Roman builders also changed the horizon of many cities,
filling the edges that met the sky with soaring domes
and graceful arches. |
