Roman Architecture

Rome is most famous for it's architecture. To their architecture the Romans brought forth many new and different things. Three of those things are the arch, the baked brick, and the use of cement and concrete.(source)

The first Romans to be architectures were priests. They wanted a place to say " Whatever happens here is a sign from the gods". They wanted a place for rituals and the gods. During this part of Rome, they were taught to build with solid and stable materials.(source)

"Ancient Greek architects strove for the precision and excellence of workmanship that are the hallmarks of Greek art in general. The formulas they invented as early as the sixth century B.C. have influenced the architecture of the past two millennia. The two principal orders in Archaic and Classical Greek architecture are the Doric and the Ionic. In the first, the Doric order, the columns are fluted and have no base. The capitals are composed of two parts consisting of a flat slab, the abacus, and a cushion-like slab known as the echinus. On the capital rests the entablature, which is made up of three parts: the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The architrave is typically undecorated except for a narrow band to which are attached pegs, known as guttae. On the frieze are alternating series of triglyphs (three bars) and metopes, stone slabs frequently decorated with relief sculpture. The pediment, the triangular space enclosed by the gables at either end of the building, was often adorned with sculpture, early on in relief and later in the round. Among the best-preserved examples of Archaic Doric architecture are the temple of Apollo at Corinth, built in the second quarter of the sixth century B.C., and the temple of Aphaia at Aegina, built around 500–480 B.C. To the latter belong at least three different groups of pedimental sculpture exemplary of stylistic development between the end of the sixth century and beginning of the fifth century B.C. in Attica."(source)

In the 5th century A.D. Roman architects were beginning to be influenced by the Etruscans and the Greeks. One of the many features of Roman architecture was their the way they used arches. "Although at first tentatively employed in the spaces between the classical columns, the arch eventually came to be the chief structural element. Flanking columns, usually engaged and superimposed (partly embedded into a wall and laid over it), served merely as buttresses or for decoration."(source1, source2)

In early Rome, one of the main uses for the arch was for aquducts. The arches were made in different sizes so that they could be stacked one on top of the other in rows called arcades. Normally the aquaduct was made with three levels with arcades of different sizes. At the bottom was the larger and wider arches, they were the support. In the middle was the smaller and less wide arches. And at the top was a trough of lead called the sluice. The sluice was a "U" shaped spout that water would flow out of. Do to this, many people in Rome were supplied with crisp cool mountaim water. It is believed that the Roman Empire eventually killed itself do to lead poisoning from the sluices. In places like Spain and France, the Roman aquaducts are still being used today.(source1, source2)

Book 1
Book 2