Stronger Than the Sea
Drop a block of modern concrete into the ocean. Within a few decades, salt water finds its cracks and the block crumbles away. Now find a Roman harbor wall poured into that same sea more than 2,000 years ago. It is still standing. In fact it has grown stronger — the seawater crept inside and grew tiny crystals that knit the stone tighter, long after the men who mixed it were gone.
Key Terms
- Opus Caementicium
- Roman concrete made from lime, volcanic ash, and hot quicklime that could set even underwater and take almost any shape.
- Pozzolana
- A volcanic ash mixed with lime and quicklime to make Roman concrete strong enough to set underwater.
- The Pantheon
- A temple in Rome rebuilt under Hadrian around AD 125, topped by an unreinforced concrete dome 142 feet across.
- Oculus
- The 26-foot-wide opening at the peak of the Pantheon’s dome, the room’s only window.
- Vomitoria
- Wide corridors and stairways inside the Colosseum built to pour 50,000 spectators in and out in minutes.
- Chorobates
- A long wooden leveling bench with a water channel on top, used to measure the gentle downhill slope an aqueduct needed.
- Euergetism
- The custom of wealthy Roman citizens spending their own fortunes on public buildings, water systems, or games in exchange for lasting honor.
- Herodes Atticus
- Born in AD 101 and consul by AD 143, this tutor to a future emperor was one of the richest men alive and funded a roofed hall in Athens after his wife’s death.
- Regilla
- The wife of a wealthy Athenian whose death in AD 160 led him to build a covered hall on the slope of the Acropolis in her memory.
- Odeon of Athens
- A roofed hall on the slope of the Acropolis, finished in AD 161, with 33 rows of marble seating for 5,000 people under a single cedar roof span with no supporting column.
- The Colosseum
- A four-story amphitheater of brick-faced concrete with 80 ground-level arches, opened by Titus in AD 80 with 100 days of public games.
- Domus Aurea
- Nero’s private palace, which seized about 100 acres of the city’s heart and included its own lake and a colossal statue of the emperor.
- Frontinus
- The water commissioner who counted 39 monumental fountains and 591 public basins fed by Rome’s aqueducts.
- Trajan’s Market
- A vaulted, multi-level complex climbing the Quirinal Hill that doubled as a giant retaining wall holding back the hillside.
- Roman Aqueducts
- Channels that carried about 264 million US gallons of water into Rome every day using gravity alone, feeding public fountains and basins instead of private taps.
- Pax Romana
- The long stretch of peace from 27 BC to AD 180 when the empire’s borders mostly held and Rome turned its energy toward building.
- Pompeii
- A medium-sized Roman town frozen under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, preserving its paved streets and about 100 food counters.
- Thermopolia
- Street-front counters in Roman towns that sold hot, ready-to-eat food, similar to a modern fast-casual bowl restaurant.
- Vespasian
- The emperor who drained a seized private lake in the heart of Rome and began building a giant public arena on top of it.
- Roman Road Network
- A system of paved roads running roughly 186,000 miles across the empire, built to one shared plan so travelers always knew what to expect.