The ancient Romans were great builders. They built things to last!   Roman Buildings: The Colosseum was built of concrete, faced with stone, as were most amphitheaters.  The Romans also used concrete (an ancient Roman invention!) to build the dome of the Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the Roman gods, which even today is still one of the largest single-span domes in the world.  They used concrete to build the underwater port facilities at Caesarea in Israel (fantastic technology, still analyzed by modern engineers.)  This site quickly explains how the Romans made concrete.  Roman Roads:  The Romans built thousands of miles of wonderful roads, to connect every part of the empire back to Rome.  Up until about a hundred years ago, people were still using these roads, as roads! In recent years, instead of building new roads, modern engineers simply covered many of the old Roman roads with a coat of asphalt. The Romans did a wonderful job building roads!   Roads, Milestones: To help people find their way, while traveling these roads, the Romans more or less invented the milestone which grew increasingly wordy, and increasingly tall, to be easily readable from a vehicle. Some are 6 feet tall. The milestone usually gave the mileage to the nearest large city, sometimes to an intermediate place as well; and the date and perhaps who paid for the road. Roads, Traffic Codes & Robbers: There seems to have been no formal traffic code, including what side of the road to drive on; but there were various laws about what you could and could not do on a given type and location of road, and when you could do it. Roads were considerably less crowded, and much less travel than today. The real danger on a road was ambush by highway robbers, which shows that a traveling vehicle could be alone on any given stretch of road. Roman Aqueducts: As cities grew, the ancient Romans needed more fresh water. To solve this problem, they built aqueducts. These were massive construction projects. An aqueduct, properly speaking, is the entire conduit - from fresh water spring to town.  (CONDUIT—A natural or artificial channel through which fluids may be conveyed). Where aqueducts had to cross valleys, some were built above ground, on arches. Most of the time, they were underground conduits, and sometimes conduits lying right on the ground. These conduits could be made of clay or wood, covered or encrusted with stone. The pipes inside the conduits, that carried the water, were made of lead, which in turn required vast mining enterprises and then transportation to get all this pipe out into the field all over the empire, although most of the lead was mined in Spain. What is extraordinary about the aqueducts is the planning that must have gone into their construction. Since the ancient Romans didn't use pumps, aqueducts had to be positioned at a relatively constant gradient for dozens of miles. You try building something that drops by only 100 feet in 40 miles....and you'll begin to understand why scholars refer to the ancient Romans as such great builders! Roman Inscriptions: You may have heard that the ancient Romans could not read or write. Actually, the ancient Romans wrote quite a bit. Much of their pottery was signed. Very often, the bricks used to make buildings were stamped with their makers names. Lead pipes leading to these buildings, by law, were stamped. Scholars have found 200,000 Latin inscriptions and, incredibly, several thousands are still being found every year! From a stash of letters written by just plain enlisted men, preserved by being waterlogged from being dumped in a well in Scotland, it would appear that some of the Roman army could read and write. Scholarly estimates are at around 30% of all adult men in Imperial times had the ability to read and write. Technology Construct an Aqueduct The Ancient Romans Knew Where to Build  and Where Not to Build (and why!)  The Great Builders Roman Building The Colosseum Ancient Rome - Construction Principles  Ancient Roman Architecture - Free Powerpoints  Explore Ancient Rome Free Powerpoints  Free Games Free Video Clips  Free Clip Art Return to Ancient Rome for Kids Main Menu  All Rights Reserved    Clip Art Credit: Phillip Martin Have a great year!