The+Rise+of+the+Roman+Empire+Essay

The legacy of the Roman Empire - The lacking contributions
By Sam Tyler

The Romans may have built a mighty empire, but they made very few lasting contributions. Their economy was based on slavery, and they contributed little or nothing to furthering an understanding of the world. If the Romans have taught us anything it is not to repeat their mistakes. Despite being such a vast nation, we cannot learn much from the Rise of the Roman Empire.

Dispite the fact that Rome had a Senate and a justice system, in reality it was only a select few who had power and rights. The economy of the Roman Empire relied on the slave labour of conquered people. The Roman’s skill as conquerors fed their economy with a huge quantity of slaves. [|Romans used the slaves captured from the battles to do there farming, mining and other resource gathering for free.] Harvests of conquered lands were shipped back to Rome and sold or distributed for free to Roman citizens. This type of exploitation worked 2000 years ago, but has little to teach us today. It would be impossible to base today’s economy on these unjust principles.

Unlike the Greeks who held science and mathematics in the highest esteem and used geometry to discover much about the world, the Romans valued conquering and pillaging more then anything else. As the conquerors of the Greeks, the Romans became responsible for the Greeks vast body of knowledge. Although they used some of that knowledge to solve many technical and engineering problems, such as developing sewer systems and water pipes, the Romans ignored, lost or destroyed much of what the Greeks had discovered. In his book Euclid’s Window, Leonard Mlodinow writes "In the 1,100 years of their recorded existence... history does not mention one Roman theorem proved, nor even one Roman mathematician." (//Euclid's Window//, p45). We cannot learn much from the Romans simply because there is not much to learn. The Romans sometimes improved the ideas of others but created almost no new ideas themselves.

The one thing that we can learn from the Romans is not to repeat their horrible behaviour. The Romans were one of the most Barbaric civilizations of all time. This is clearly shown during The Cantabrian War, when the Romans refused to take prisoners, and [|slaughtered tens of thousands of young Cantabri men]. Back in Rome, these battles we hailed in great victories because when a battle was won, the government would give away presents to there citizens, and set up gladiator fights as entertainment. Gladiator fights were when trained slaves would be given swords and fought to the death, and are just another example of barbaric Roman behavior.

During its rise, The Roman Empire conquered almost all of Europe and built many great buildings, yet failed to leave almost any lasting contributions. Romans pillaged villages for slaves to work on their farms and destroyed valuable Greek scrolls and books, yet failed to come up with a single new mathematical idea in over 1000 years. If the Romans have taught us anything, it’s to not let us sink back into another murderous, uninventive dark age. Unless good values involve raping and pillaging, we can almost nothing from the Roman Empire.

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