How did the Romans learn to build roads and how did they learn about written languages?

Answer 1

Roads were built long before the Romans. In the early days the Romans had dirt roads like everyone else. Then these developed into levelled earth roads (via terrenae), a type of road which was not unique to the Romans. It was not difficult to learn how to do that. The Romans also developed roads with a hard-packed gravelled surface held within a stone curbing (viae glareatae). This probably grew from having learnt how to use gravel for a variety of purposes, including building construction.

The Romans' greatest innovation was the stone-paved road (via munita). The basis of that must have been the fact that they had learned how to cut stones into slabs, which was originally done for building construction, and their invention of concrete. The Romans discovered that a volcanic rock (pozzolana), when combined with lime, would create a strong binding agent. If you added an aggregate to this (pottery shreds, broken bricks or crushed stone) you would obtain concrete. Roman concrete was as strong as modern concrete and also set underwater. It was less fluid and had to be layered by hand.

The stone-paved roads were invented for military purposes. The Romans were fighting the Second Samnite war in Campania (to the south of Rome) against the Samnites. They began to build the first stone-paved road (the Appian Way) in 312 B.C. Roads were important to facilitate the movement of troops to the front and make the transport of supplies to the garrisons where the troops were stationed easier and quicker. Prior to the construction of the Appian Way, the Romans used the via Latina, which provided an inland route. They needed another road which would go to the coast. However, this had to cross the Pomptine marshes, whose terrain was either bog land or sand dunes. Such soil was not firm enough to support an ordinary road and heavy traffic. Therefore, they built a road which was embedded in concrete. This provided a strong enough foundation for it, so that the soil of the marches would no longer be a problem. The road was paved with stone slabs. The hardiness and durability of the stone -paved road led the Romans to build their next military roads the same way.

Regarding learning about written language, the Romans, like the other Italic peoples, learnt this from the Greeks. The Greeks founded colonies (settlements) in southern Italy and Sicily from the 9th to the 7th century B.C. as they were a more advanced civilisation, the Greeks had an impact of the Italic peoples they came into contact with. The Romans and other Italic peoples adopted and adapted the western Greek Alphabet.