Roman Technology

Roman Technology

Introduction

Roman Technology is considered to be the practice of engineering supporting the civilization of Rome. The Roman military as well as the Roman commerce was expanded mainly due to the advancements in the Roman technology. The technology of Rome was known to be one of the most advanced of its time. Most of this technology was lost in the Middle Ages and the era of late antiquity.

Discussion

There are various technological advancements achieved by the ancient Roman Empire. One of these included the “corvus”. This was considered to be a mobile bridge which was fixed at one particular end of a ship and at the other end; it could be targeted and dropped on to the enemy ship. This enabled the Romans to lock other nations' ship and engage them in a hand to hand combat. This technology was too advanced of its time. It was first used against the Carthaginians in 260 BC. Up to the current time period, the Carthaginians had absolute dominance on the Mediterranean between Italy, Spain and Africa. The Romans were more experienced in hand to hand combat and lacked the naval expertise. This technology allowed them to gain the upper hand on the Carthaginians and forced them to engage in hand to hand combat with the Romans (Gilliver, K., 2007). This was shocking achievement by the Romans because up till this period, the Romans had no experience at all in naval combat. In fact, even their ship was a copy model of one of the Carthaginian ships, which the Romans found shipwrecked.

The technology above was utilized in the Roman military; however, there are various other technological advancements which were put to common use as well by the Romans. These included “Cloaca Maxima” (Plumbing., 2011). This was known to be the great sewage system of ...