What are 5 inventions that the Romans made?

Answer 1

The Romans did not make many inventions. They adopted many technologies from the Greeks, but being great engineers, they greatly improved on them.

The most important Roman inventions were concrete, the stone-paved roads (see below) and the hypocaust (burning underneath) which was a system of underfloor heating which was used to heat public baths, public buildings and the houses of the rich.

The Romans adopted the cranes of the Greeks and massively improved on them. The simplest one was the trispastos, which had triangular frame held up by two ropes fixed to the ground, a winch, a rope, and a block with three pulleys. It had had a mechanical advantage of 3:1, and single man could raise 150 kg. The pentaspastos had five pulleys. The polyspastos had a set of three by five pulleys with two, three or four masts depending on the maximum load they could lift. It was worked by four men at both sides of the winch and could lift 3,000 kg. The winch could be replaced by a treadwheel. This doubled the load to 6,000 kg with only half the crew, because the treadwheel had a much larger diameter and thus a much bigger mechanical advantage.

The Romans improved on the ballista which was a Greek crossbow-like catapult which launched a large projectile at a distant target with precision using torsion springs. The springs consisted of several loops of twisted ropes. The Romans developed a number of versions. The Carroballista was a cart-mounted version. The Manuballista was a handheld version and was similar to a crossbow. The ancient sources said that the Romans developed the polybolos, a 'repeating' ballista which shot 11 shots a minute. This was at least four times the rate of an ordinary ballista. However, none has been found by archaeologists.

The Romans also adopted the siege towers and the groma from the Greeks. The latter was a surveying instrument. It was a wooden vertical staff with two horizontal bars mounted at the top at right-angles with a bracket. Plumb lines hung from the two ends of each bar. It allowed to survey straight lines and right-angles, to calculate squares or rectangles.

Historian use the term Roman architectural revolution or concrete revolution ofr the Romans' extensive use of concrete, the barrel arch and the vaulted arch.

Although the Romans were not the first in history to use concrete, they developed a type of concrete (opus caementicium) which was as resistant as modern concrete and which also set underwater (and therefore could be used to build docks for ports, dams, aqueducts and bridges). It was less fluid than modern concrete and had to be layered by hand. It was made by mixing a volcanic rock called pozzolana (which is named after Pozzuoli, a suburb of Naples) with lime and adding rubble from stones, bricks or pottery shreds as aggregates which added body to it. Concrete had technical and practical advantages. It was exceptionally strong and could span great distances when shaped into arches, vaults and domes as it could be moulded. It was layered into a formwork and it took the shape of its container. It did not require skilled labour and therefore was cheaper. It was much faster for construction than laborious masonry walls. It was safer because concrete-vaulted roofing was fireproof, unlike the wooden-beamed roofs of traditional construction methods.

With this revolution the potential of the previously little used arch, vault, and dome was fully exploited for the first time. The Etruscans are said to have invented the simple (barrel) arch. The oldest example of the vaulted arch has been found in the Greek city of Pergamon (in western Turkey). The vaulted arch came into two forms: the groin arch was formed with two to four intersecting barrel arches and the rib arch, where the intersecting barrels were not of the same diameter. The Romans were first to fully appreciate the advantages of the arch and the vault. The arch has a strong load- bearing capacity. The vault has an even greater load bearing capacity and its structure is suited to support large roofs. Their construction in concrete made them easier to build and even stronger. This led to the use larger and monumental arches and vaults on a grand scale. However, the Romans did not abandon masonry arches and vaults.

Concrete and the arch and the vault were the three elements which enabled the Romans to go beyond the use of Greek methods of enclosing space by the use of cut-stone and post-and-beam or post-and-lintel structures. They became essential for large buildings and roofs. They were used to build large buildings, such as basilicas (public buildings) amphitheatres (arenas), theatres, baths, circuses (racing tracks) domes, forts and fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, and dams. They also made it possible to build bridges which were much longer than before and could cross much wider rivers and valleys.

Concrete was also used to assist the construction of the stone-paved roads. A ditch was ploughed down to the firmest layer of ground that was found. The ditch was filled with rubble from local materials or sand (when it could be found) up to one metre from the surface level. A flat floor of compacted gravel was made. Then a surface was made by embedding the stones in concrete to create the paving. The concrete was laid in two thin layers. The bottom one had coarse concrete and the top one had fine concrete.