Agriculture and Technology - Ancient History: Rome

The Acta Senatus was a Roman newspaper which documented the actions and decisions of the Roman Senate. It was initially only available to patricians and politicians, but was made available to the common people by Julius Caesar as part of his populist reform program.

The Romans invented concrete in the latter years of the Roman Republic. The Romans developed concrete from volcanic ash and slaked lime; an innovating that allowed the Romans to construct monumental buildings that have stood the test of time.

A codex is a stack of pages bound together to form a rudimentary book. The invention of the codex encouraged literacy in the Roman Empire by making information more accessible and easier to disseminate.

The Julian Calendar was created by Julius Caesar, and his scientific advisors, in 46 BCE. The Julian Calendar was incredibly reliable and was in continuous use for another 1,600 years before it was replaced by the slightly more accurate Gregorian Calendar.

These great stone aqueducts marked much of Rome's territory. While some of these other options may have been used within Roman cities, the aqueduct efficiently transported water from outside sources to the cities by using gravity.

Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Egyptian scholar and scientist who lived in Alexandria, in Roman Egypt, during the second century CE. He was an accomplished mathematician and scientist and wrote extensively on geography, astronomy, and astrology.

The population of the city of Rome (and other notable imperial cities) grew dramatically in the early years of the Roman Empire. So much so that it became impossible to feed the population based on what could be grown locally. As a result, much of the grain in cities like Rome, Syracuse, and Constantinople was shipped from more fertile lands. Most of the grain that arrived in Rome came from Roman occupied Egypt, which is sometimes referred to as “the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.”

Aqueducts were vital for conveying water to cities in the Roman Empire. Aqueducts were a notable accomplishment of Roman engineering, because they required precise measurements and intricate detail. Some historians contend that the Roman use of lead in their aqueducts caused widespread poisoning in the Roman Empire, which might have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire, but this argument is heavily disputed.

Hadrian’s Wall is a defensive fortification that was built in northern England. It marked the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire, in the British Isles, at the time of Hadrian’s rule around 120 CE. It was constructed to deter the barbarian Picts (who lived in modern-day northern England and Scotland) from attacking the Roman Empire.

The Denarius was a silver coin, a unit of currency, first used in the Roman Republic and then used in the Roman Empire. It was the most common unit of currency in the Roman Empire.

Augustus Caesar is responsible for creating a professional standing army and is known for making countless reforms of the Roman military to try and improve its fighting capacity. It, therefore, seems logical to speculate that he would also be responsible for creating a professional corps of army medics, and this is indeed the case. The Romans made numerous notable innovations in battlefield surgery including arterial surgical tools to prevent death from loss of blood. Due to the skills of these army medics, Roman soldiers could expect to live as long or even longer than Roman civilians.