Skip to Content (press Enter/Return)
Essays
Topics
preview

Roman Architecture

Better Essays
Open Document
The White House, The Capitol Building, The Lincoln Memorial, all these things have been affected by ancient Roman architecture. This ancient Roman architecture came to be around the time period of the Pax Romana in the Roman Empire. It was a time of great wealth and prosperity for the empire which brought it into a time of a sort of golden age for architecture. This type of architecture was influenced by the ancient Greeks, but it took their ideas and transformed them to better advantage their own empire. These ideas and works are still being used today in our society in some of the most influential buildings of our time. The Romans were a very creative society that worked to build greater and more magnificent things than had ever been built before. The ancient Roman’s ideas on architecture gave us advancements like the arch, the dome, and magnificent road works while also creating great buildings the like the Aqueducts, the Colosseum, and the Pantheon.

The Romans created many things when they were building the structures of their time period. One of the most important things they created was the arch. The arch was a sort of curvature structure that allowed for the weight of an object above it to be dispersed evenly throughout it. The arch was able to be built because of the discovery of the keystone. The keystone was the piece that was put at the very top of the arch and supported all of the weight that was put on it by the arch. This dispersion allowed for much heavier and complex structures than had ever been built before in the history of humanity. They used it in building one of the largest building ever dedicated to the gods, the Pantheon. The usage of the arch led into the creation of the dome, which is basically a se...

... middle of paper ...

...to precursor it. The Pantheon allowed for a new way to define how a civilization worshipped its gods and attempt to get closer to them. In all, ancient Roman architecture will be known as having one of the most striking impacts on the society that we live in today.

Works Cited
Parker, Freda. "The Pantheon â Rome â 126 AD | Monolithic." Monolithic. Monolithic, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2013. .
"Roman Aqueducts." Roman Aqueducts. UNRV, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013. .
"Roman Architecture." Roman Architecture. ARTH, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013. .
"Roman Road Networkds." Encyclopedia Britanicca. Editors, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013.
Get Access
Related
Get Access