Roman Empire’s Engineering Feats
1) Underground Sewer System or Cloaca Maxima: Rome founder by two brothers Romulus and Remus on Tiber River. Romulus killed his brother to rule as first King of Rome. Rome is named after him. To boost the population, the city was opened to all sorts of immigrants ranging from brigands, pirates. The Romans heavily borrowed technology from the Etruscans for making walls, running water systems, roads etc. The underground sewer system called Cloaca Maxima is one of the structures built in this period.
2) Strong Concrete: Use of Pozzolan- volcanic ash to make lime-mortar stronger resulting in massive structures which could be built underwater (aiding in bridge design).
3) Idea of Forum: Downtown with library, courts.
4) Road Network: Roman Empire spanned from 27 BC–AD 476 post Julius Caesar with Augustus as First Emperor of Roman Empire. Augustus (Octavius) is known for building public road system . Roman roads generally went straight up and at sharp corners. Designed to allow run off of water. Augustus is known for turning Rome from city of bricks to city of marble.
- Augustus and his family were murdered in revenge for ordering death of Caligula.
5) The Aqueducts (use of Arch and Keystone):: Claudius extended his empire to Britannica; he had a stutter and a limp. He hid to save himself from bloody massacre that killed Augustus; and bribed guards to declare him as emperor. He in his old age married his own niece his nephew Caligula’s sister Agrippina; who in turn made sure that her son was previous marriage Nero was declared heir than Claudius’s own biological son; Later Agrippina poisoned Claudius. Claudius is well known for finishing and perfecting the aqueduct system for water distribution. Aqueducts had a typical Arch architecture which saved building materials and provided support and strength to the structure. Keystone in middle of Arch distributed the forces to both sides of semicircle.
6) Vaulted Ceiling and Man Made Lake: Nero killed his own mother who wanted to share power with her son. He also burned half of Rome to make space for his palace: Golden Palace with man made lake and parks. The palace used vaulted ceilings.
7) Colosseum: Vespasian (a General and first emperor not from caesar’s bloodline) was a anti-nero and buried Nero’s Golden Palace to built modern day stadium. He funded the structure using money from relics he stole during war from a jewish temple in Jerusalem. 12000 Jewish POWs from that war were used to built the structure in 8 years. It is tallest roman structure till date; it had retractable ceiling (with natural conditioning), drinking fountains, restrooms. Nero’s tunnels for man made lake were retained to create a plumbing system for flooding and draining arena to create naval battle scenes. The plumbing system in place for 10 years, was then buried to build Hypogeum: trap door system with wood elevators to bring gladiators and animals to surface for theatrical and bloody performances.
8) Trajan’s Forum and Market: Trajan (first non Italian emperor of Rome; was Emperor Nerva’s adopted Spanish son) realized that he needed to build structures to appease Roman society’s collective cultural ego; if he wanted to succeed. For this he needed money that he made by conquering Dacia (modern hungry and Romania). He hired foreigner Greek Architect – Apollodorus of Damascus for designing forum in middle of dense Rome city. Lack of real estate force Apollodorus to cut into a hill. Trajan’s Forum, a marble based structure, had a famous Trajan Column is 100ft high- height of a cut hill- and still stands today. On the other side of forum was a brick based ancient shopping mall called Trajan’s market with 150 stores.
9) Hadrian’s Wall and Parthenon: Hadrian (adopted son of Trajan) to keep his soldiers busy and disciplined; and to protect the vast roman empire against northern barbarians built Hadrian wall on Northwest border of Britannica.. Its 73 mile defensive wall long having 9 feet ditch and 120 ft Vallum.It had at every mile a watch tower. Hadrian was himself interested in Architecture. It is speculated that he designed his next structure>> The Parthenon. Another candidate who could have designed Pantheon is Appllodorus of Damascus; though he was known to publicly make fun of Hadrian and his “pumpkin” domes and as result was ordered to death by the emperor. Parthenon is a Rotund Dome with 150 ft dome ceiling and was the largest unsupported structure for 1700 years. The roman engineers came with idea for providing more support (more concrete) at the foundations and walls and increasingly using less material towards dome to prevent ceiling from collapsing under its own concrete weight. For this they used two techniques. First use of light Coffers (recessed panels) that also provided aesthetic purpose. Second was use of Oculus – a wide hole in the center of dome. The pantheon has a 30 ft wide oculus that gives image of Sun and lets light in as well as provides on concrete material at dome’s weakest point. There however mysterious flaw in the Parthenon. The front Portico (collanated gateway to interior) does not connect to the dome as it uses 40ft columns than 50ft columns making it 10ft short of the dome.
10) Romn Bath Complex: Caracalla (about 100 years after Hadrian was one of the last famous emperor of Roman empire) built massive Bath Complex with libraries, shops, restaurant, playfields, brothels etc.
