Romans biography

Reconstruction shows how part of the Great Ancient Rome looked like. Terms, that is, the baths of the Karakalla, once consisting of huge halls, including gymnastic and massage, porticoes, fountains, gardens, libraries. There were pools with cool, warm and hot water. A section of an ancient city road that has survived to the present day. The road leads to the Titus arch. It is enough to look at the map or the globe to understand - the place is unique.

It’s quite easy to swim around the Mediterranean Sea: its shores are very winding, it has many islands, especially in the eastern part, and they are located near each other. And the ships plowed the Mediterranean Sea in those days when the speed of the course depended on the amount of bread and beer eaten and drunk with rowers, and the sail was considered a fashionable novelty.

The inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast recognized each other early. Enterprising merchants and pirates usually were the same people to introduce the surrounding barbarians to the cunning inventions of the Egyptians and Babylonians. These are complex rites of veneration of the mysterious gods, and the technique of manufacturing metal weapons and beautiful clay dishes, and an amazing art to record human speech.

Two and a half thousand years ago, the most developed people in the Mediterranean were the Greeks. They knew how to do very beautiful things, their merchants traded around the coast, and the warriors were considered almost invincible. From Spain to Arabia, many people spoke “General” in the Greek dialect. It was written by poems, plays and scientists of treatises, letters to friends and reports to the kings.

The townspeople went to gymnasiums among the most diverse peoples, watched theatrical performances in Greek, and the Greek samples arranged competitions in running and struggle, and the palaces and temples of even minor kings and gods decorated Greek statues. But the Greeks did not create the empire. They did not seek to create it, as, for example, ants do not seek to connect their cozy dwellings into one super -mile.

The Greeks are used to living in small communities - policies.

They felt like one people, but first of all remained the Athenians, Spartans, Ephesians, Focyes, etc. The aliens could live in a foreign policy for several generations, but did not become its citizens. Another thing is Rome. The Romans were excellent organizers. They fought courageously, were not lost in case of failures and also knew how to negotiate. Initially, people from different tribes settled on Roman hills, nevertheless, they quickly found a common language and turned into respected patricians.

With later settlers - plebeians - patricians did not want to share power for a long time, but in the end they agreed with them. By the time Rome began a large -scale conquests, patricians and plebeians had already merged into a single Roman people. Gradually, its neighbors - Italika, were drawn into the composition of this people. However, foreign slaves served the largest source of replenishment of the Roman nation.

In Greece, slaves were released into the will only in exceptional cases; In Rome, it was rather a rule. Having received freedom, the former slave became a release - a free man, although not independent, dependent on the former owner. The power over free people, from the point of view of the Roman, was much more honorable than power over slaves. Later, this view was inherited by the peoples who settled on the ruins of the Roman Empire.

It was also beneficial to letting the slaves into the wild: for the liberation, the master could appoint such a ransom that he bought several slaves for the money received. In addition, Roman senators, who did not allow us to earn money with “low” classes, through the relegers bought trade ships and shares in companies. As for the former slaves, their grandchildren did not bear the seal of slave origin and were equalized with freezes.

What is the lesson from here? Only a large people can prove himself. Due to the fact that the Romans did not shout at the aliens and did not shout “all sorts of people came here”, the Roman people for several centuries remained numerous enough to not only subjugate huge densely populated territories, but also to keep them in obedience. If the Romans were prone to discharge, like the Greeks, no Roman empire would be out of sight.

So, there would be no such Europe that we see today, and in general the whole story would go differently. Nevertheless, any medal has two sides. New citizens learned Roman customs. But they themselves influenced the indigenous Romans, who gradually dissolved among numerous strangers. The descendants of the slaves released to the will no longer wanted to risk their lives, protecting the Roman Empire.

This eventually led her to death. True, this happened after several centuries. By that time, the Romans left such a bright mark in history that it was already impossible to erase it. Eastern, called Byzantium, lasted another thousand years. The numbers and facts - the population of ancient Rome at the peak of its power was a million people.Europe reached the same level only after years: at the beginning of the twentieth century, only some European cities totaled a million inhabitants.

For comparison: at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the territory of the entire Russian Empire, they were near them water went to fountains, pools, public baths and toilets, and even in separate houses of wealthy citizens. It was a real water supply. In Europe, such structures appeared more than years. Of these, only 14 thousand kilometers ran through Italy itself, and the rest in the provinces.

Except for dirt roads, 90 thousand kilometers were real highways - with solid coating, tunnels and bridges. Its dimensions were so large that workers could move through the underground sewer channels by boat. Details for the curious road of the Roman Empire, a huge powerful Roman Empire in its territory today, are 36 states, could not exist without roads. The ancient Romans were famous for the ability to build first -class roads, and they made them for centuries.

It’s hard to believe, but part of the road network built by them years ago in Europe was used for its intended purpose until the beginning of the twentieth century! The Roman road is a complex engineering structure. First, they dug a trench with a depth of 1 m and scored oak piles into the bottom, especially if the soil was raw. The edges of the trench were strengthened with stone slabs and inside it created a “puff pie” of large stone, smaller stone, sand, again stone, lime, tiled powder.

On top of such a road pillow, the actual road surface was placed - stone slabs. Do not forget: everything was done manually! On the edges of the Roman roads stood stone miles milestone pillars. There were even road signs - high stone columns with the designation of the distance to the nearest settlement and to Rome. And in Rome itself, a zero kilometer with a memorable sign was laid.

The postal system operated on all highways. The delivery speed of urgent messages was km per day! Along the roads, sowing is a Chernobyl so that the travelers can put its leaves in sandals if their legs are rubbed. For the Romans, nothing was impossible. They built roads on mountain passes and in the desert. In Northern Germany, ancient builders managed to lay the bass roads of three -meter width even through swamps.

Until now, tens of kilometers of Roman roads have been preserved there, along which a truck can pass without risk. And in the time of the empire, these were military roads, withstanding heavy military equipment - siege tools. Read at any time.