Rome's Impact On Modern Life

Indeed, Rome’s impact upon modern life seems self-evident. However, there is a difference in what seems to be the case, and what the case is. Perhaps the impact of Rome on modern life is self-evident to someone who is well aware of the history of Rome, and is able to make the connections between the aspects of life in Rome and life in modern civilizations. Unfortunately, we can ill afford the luxury of assuming that everyone has this knowledge of Rome, and is therefore capable of making these connections.

I will err on the side of caution in my construction of this paper, and not assume that the reader will have this previous knowledge of Rome. I will reveal, within my allotted constraints, how Roman government, law, architecture, and language

In fact, the Romans created a form of government called a Republic, upon which the U.S. government is structured. In this republic government that the Romans created, the people elected officials to represent their interests and make decisions on their behalf. This government was divided into three branches: a legislative branch, an executive branch, and a judicial branch. The legislative branch was the Roman Senate which was made up of members of the wealthy patrician class. The executive branch consisted of two magistrates (consuls), both of whom had equivalent powers and could veto the other’s rulings or decisions. The judicial branch consisted of “praetors (magistrates who administered justice)” that were chosen by the people, and “jurisconsults (experts in the law)” (Fiero 143). The U.S. government today has this identical structure with the three

More than that, the Romans constructed aqueducts, baths, amphitheaters, and meeting halls amongst a host of other structures. It is impossible to ignore the architectural influence that Rome has on modern life considering that our cities are built almost entirely using the architectural methodology of the Romans. Perhaps the most significant contribution that the Romans made to architecture, in their time and ours, is their use of the arch. According to Dr. Leon Fisher of the University of Central Oklahoma, the arch was the Roman secret weapon in architecture. While the Romans’ knowledge of the arch was inherited from the Etruscans according to Fiero, the Romans took that knowledge of arch construction to create greater architectural structures. “They [Romans] placed arches back to back to form a barrel vault, at right angles to each other to form a cross or groined vault, and around a central point to form a dome” (Fiero 152). These same Roman architectural inventions can be observed on any given day in any city in the U.S.A. as well as many other Western countries. Particularly, many of the state and federal buildings in the U.S.A. today resemble Roman building styles. Even more than the building styles, we owe to the Romans the very material that many of these buildings are constructed with: concrete. The Romans adapted concrete from the Hittites, but