Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of an already inadequate tax base, decreasing funds for bureaucracy and defense.” [58] The-
ories spin on. But the net result is in the plaintive elegy of Edgar Allen Poe: “To the glory
that was Greece / and the grandeur that was Rome.” [59]
THE WISE TRAVELER IN ROME
Everyone, soon or late, comes round by Rome
— Robert Browning, “The Ring and the Book” [60]
While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls—the world.
— Lord Byron, “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” [61]
The modern city of Rome sits in, on, and around the streets and buildings of ancient Rome.
Today's city has a diameter of almost six miles, with as many as three million inhabitants.
But for the traveler, the first—or hundredth—sight of the Colosseum or the Pantheon al-
ways delivers a moment of wonder: how did they do it? The answer is simple. They did it
with muscle power and mass labor. They did it by using the skills of craftsmen from all over
the Roman world. They did it by borrowing the ideas and plans of people they conquered.
They did it with their own gift for practical invention. And they did it using the manpower
of the Roman legions.
Each of the Roman legions consisted of 5,000 to 6,000 men. And every legion con-
tained a cadre of engineers (like today's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers). Foot soldiers car-
ried, in addition to their weapons, spades that were put to use in building the roads that
enabled the legions to move quickly through their assigned territory.
The Roman engineer who erected public buildings, bridges or roads was titled an
architectus …. [Ideally] he had to be …a man of letters, …draftsman, mathem-
atician…familiar with Stars, astronomy, calculations… The architectus had attached to
his staff a surveyor…and a leveller. [62]
One of Rome's great contributions to architecture was the arch; they borrowed the
idea from the tholos (beehive-shaped Etruscan tomb, influenced by the Greek) to build up
monuments with levels. The interiors of Greek buildings were limited in size (and space)
by the weight that a lintel could carry between pillars. Extended too far, a long stone will
break under its own weight. But an arch pushes the weight of its stones and bricks down-
ward and outward to the supporting walls. The Romans improved the arch by joining two
arches (a vault) at right angles and by supporting each vault on massive pillars. Using the
 
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