L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE ELIZABETH SALTHOUSE T hroughout history, civi- lizations have come and gone from the Italian peninsula, each one leaving its mark. From the Etruscans' stonework to Greek architecture, Arabic cuisine to French rule, all made an impact. And none more so than the Ancient Romans. Their inventions and innovations gave shape to early Italian life and changed the course of civi- lization as we know it today. So if you've ever wondered what the Romans did for us, here are just nine of the many creations and technologies that inspired modern life. Ask any British school kid what the invading Romans did and you can almost guarantee the first answer is that they built straight roads. The Romans were famous for their love of a direct street and many still criss- cross the landscape of Europe. That's because the Romans had lots of troops to move around quickly and knew that the short- est distance between two points is a straight line. Now clearly roads had been around for thousands of years in Asia and Mesopotamia, not to mention pre-Roman Europe so they weren't invented by the empire. But Romans did intro- duce new construction methods and built over 80,000 kilometers (50,000 miles) of paved roads. They even added small white pebbles in between the large stones to help catch the moon- light at night and help travellers to follow the road – look out for them on the streets of Pompeii next time you visit. Along with their love of straight highways, the Romans were keen on town planning, too, introducing orderly grid sys- tems to their military forts and administrative conurbations that wouldn't look out of place in New York, Chicago or Philadelphia today. Major cities in Pakistan, Mexico and ancient Greece had been laid out in grid systems before the Romans did it. But again they went to the next level, spreading the arche- typal grid system across large swathes of Europe via tenacious military expansion. And Roman town planning was strictly standardized. The dimensions and layouts were exactly the same, whether the fort was in Gaul (France) or Galicia (Spain) so wherever sol- diers were stationed, they would know where to find the barrack block or baths, north or south. It was both a stamp of dominant imperial authority and an inge- niously efficient way to aid the expansion and extension of their realm. The Romans knew how to build, too, inventing a new tech- nology that would change the course of ancient construction. The name comes from the Latin "concretus" meaning to grow together, which is a perfect description of the chemical process behind concrete. It mixed volcanic ash with lime and tufa rock fragments to pro- duce a mouldable liquid that would fuse and harden to a rigid, light and durable structure, even underwater. And once they real- ized that they were no longer restricted by heavy bricks or stone the Romans went on a building spree producing con- crete bridges, industrious sea- ports and enormous arenas that would seat 50,000 spectators. They even built apartment blocks, or "insulae" (literally islands), to house ordinary lower and middle class urban citizens. Many rose to 5 or 6 stories and had both running water and sew- ers. But perhaps the most spec- tacular concrete structure built was the Pantheon in Rome which has a massive 42-meter- diameter dome made of poured concrete and is still the 5 th largest free-standing dome in the world, 1900 years after it was built. Phenomenal. With the empire growing at pace, access to clean drinkable water was essential. So the Romans did what they did best bringing Assyrians from the east- ern Mediterranean to install aqueduct technology and then improving on the idea to take it to new heights of engineering. The city of Rome got its first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, in 312 BC delivering 73,000 cubic metres of water over 16 kilome- ters from the Sabine Hills every day. It flowed underground and overground feeding 20 public reservoirs with fresh water so cit- izens no longer had to drink the Tiber River water. The Aqua Appia used gravity to keep the water flowing into town but dropped only 10 meters in the entire length of its water- course; an achievement that we'd find difficult to replicate even today. The Romans would build another 10 aqueducts into their capital to feed the lavish water- extravagant lifestyle of over one million citizens. And they exported their skills to the rest of the empire too. With an empire encompassing over 56.8 million people by 25 BC there was another, more pun- gent problem to deal with; how to dispose of human waste. But the Romans had that covered too using water left over from the fountains and public baths to flush out stone gutters and sew- ers to aid sanitation. Sewerage wasn't the only problem caused by such a large, diverse population, the rule of law also had to be maintained. The Romans certainly had the military might to exert control over their empire but they backed up with a well-organized justice system. And the Romans had some very fixed ideas on right and wrong. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty, for example, that today is enshrined in American, Italian and international law, was a prin- ciple established by the Romans. Written into the sixth century Justinian Code, the Romans put the burden of proof onto the one who accuses, not the accused and it's a rule that has persisted down through the centuries. Many invention were also developed to save Roman lives on the field of battle. These were not military weapons though, they were medical tools and tech- niques. During the first century Emperor Augustus introduced a medical corps of physicians to tend to injured soldiers. They invented scalpels, bone drills and methods to curb blood loss but they're also attributed with pio- neering one key technique - the earliest antiseptic operations - as they dipped their instruments in hot water before using them to make sure they were clean. And finally, one invention that may surprise you; Romans invented the newspaper. Known as Acta Diurna, literally daily news, the first Acta appeared around 130 BC announcing judgments from tri- als and legal proceedings. They were carved on metal or stone tablets and posted on message boards in public places including the forum of Rome and later would be used for political news, battle updates, notice of execu- tions and even scandals. It was the Romans' own daily gazette and arguably a very early fore- runner of mass-circulation news- papers. So, to paraphrase Monty Python, apart from sanitation, medicine, public order, roads, apartment blocks, a fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? Some would argue it's not actually a bad legacy to leave but in truth we've only scratched the surface. Sadly Roman wine, edu- cation, central heating, roman numerals, the welfare system, our calendar and all the other inventions will just have to wait for another time. We may not think about it often, but the inheritance of the Romans is still very much visible in our daily lives What did the Romans do for us? And that the people of Italy and Europe -including Great Britain - still tra- vel on their roads? Did you know they created concrete? ... and condos?

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