Take a look around and you might find it tricky to name even one thing connecting you to the ancient Romans. It might surprise you then to learn that we can list 28 amazing Roman inventions and innovations that we bet you've benefitted from. Some of them are in your home right now (yes, really).
Click through the gallery to discover brilliant Roman creations (including public toilets, dentistry, fast food and newspapers)...
They may not be glamorous, but we've all been thankful for their existence at one point or other. While wealthier Romans would have had private latrines at home, they built public loos – or foricae – so their togas wouldn't trail in plebeian excrement when they ventured into town. Made up of several keyhole-shaped cut outs spaced along a stone bench, the toilets had a gutter below to carry away the waste. Toilets built in public bath houses – such as this one in Dougga, Tunisia – recycled the used bathwater to do the job. Another central gutter, with (hopefully) cleaner water, was used to dip the communal tersorium – a sea sponge on a stick used for cleaning oneself.
While the Romans can't claim to have invented the aqueduct – the ancient Egyptians and Indians got there first – they did perfect them. The incredible structures – such as the Pont du Gard near Nimes, France – carried fresh water to towns and cities for drinking, bathing, agriculture, industry and simply for watering the garden. The Romans built a complex network of aqueducts across their empire and the remains have been found as far afield as Britain and North Africa. Rome itself received fresh water from 11 different aqueducts, delivering it from as far as 57 miles (92km) away.
Poking up from beneath the floor of a ruined Roman building in Kourion, Cyprus are the remains of a hypocaust – the Roman equivalent to underfloor heating. These brick columns would have held up the floor, creating a hollow space below, through which air could circulate. The air was heated by a furnace, which warmed the floor above and kept Roman toes toasty. The warm and hot rooms in public baths were heated this way, as were almost all the private homes in the northern provinces of the empire (including Britain, Germany and France).
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Anyone who has toured Italy in the height of summer may have wondered how the ancient Romans kept their cool before the invention of electric fans or air conditioning. Well, as we can see from the reconstructed Roman Villa Borg in Germany, the more upmarket homes were built around a courtyard, with a roofed colonnade that would circulate the breeze and keep windows and doors in the shade. Of course, the wealthy could simply relocate to their country villas to escape the heat. Less fortunate members of the public could cool down by a fountain or visit the cold pool – or frigidarium – at the local bath house.
Of course, the Romans didn't invent the road – their early roads would have been nothing fancier than paths made from packed earth. But as the centuries marched on, the network of Roman roads grew and the engineering became more sophisticated. This allowed messengers and officials to travel swiftly across the Empire. Patches of these ancient roads still exist today, including the most famous one – the Appian Way, which was started in 312 BC and stretched 360 miles (579km) from Rome to Brindisi, in the heel of Italy.
Roman concrete is considered by engineers to be the most durable building material in human history. They included volcanic ash in their cement mix, which enabled it to set in wet conditions – and even underwater. From 22 to 10 BC, Romans used this amazing material to build concrete foundations for the harbour at Caesarea, Israel and they're still intact today. When modern concrete is exposed to seawater, it starts to crumble within decades. Now, scientists believe Roman concrete could even help in our battle against rising sea levels.
As incredible as it might seem, Romans had their very own fast-food street stalls. This remarkable example is one of 80 found amazingly well preserved beneath the ashes of Pompeii. The counter – known as a thermopolium – would have served hot food and drink to citizens as they went about their day. The paintings are believed to show some of what was on offer at the stall and traces of pork, fish, snails and beef were found in the terracotta serving jars. However, if you didn't fancy hot snails to eat on the go, they may have offered a tastier – and more familiar – alternative...
The Romans left us a cookbook called the Apicius, which was compiled by many different people. In it they detail lots of popular recipes, including one for something called an 'isicia omentata', which looks remarkably like one of our modern fast food staples – the beloved burger. Made from minced pork meat flavoured with wine, pepper and fish sauce, these delicacies would have been served as part of a feast.
While we mostly use Hindu-Arabic numerals when writing numbers today, Roman numerals still pop up all over the place – from our watch faces to book chapters and even to denote the Super Bowl title year. This marble inscription on the Roman tombstone of Publius Valerius Laetus states: 'Soldier on leave, 80 years old. Here he lies. May the earth be light to you.'
The Etruscans, the civilisation that preceded the Romans, invented some impressive dental devices such as crowns, bridges and dentures, like this one from around 700 BC, and the Romans developed them. They were often made from bone, human or animal teeth or ivory and gold. The Laws of the Twelve Tables, which was the basis for Roman law, was set down in 449 BC and mentions teeth 'fastened with gold', indicating it was by then a fairly common practice (if only for the wealthy).
In 2020, archaeologists working in Pompeii uncovered evidence showing that – before their city was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius – locals piled up their rubbish outside the city walls so it could be sorted to be resold and reused back inside the city. Some buildings were made up of pieces of tile, broken pots and lumps of mortar and plaster, for example. It didn't just happen in Pompeii either. This structure in Caesarea, Israel was made of mortar mixed with shards of pottery.
The Romans built cisterns to collect rainwater. Some would have been small, serving just one house, while others were so large they could provide water for an entire city. The famous Basilica Cistern (pictured) in modern day Istanbul, Turkey, is one of the latter. Featuring 336 columns, it was built under emperor Justinian I in AD 532 and can hold 80,000 tonnes of water. Today, visitors can walk through the extraordinary space on bridges and walkways built above the water.
Under the Roman Empire, from around 59 BC, official business, matters of public interest, human-interest stories and even ads were recorded in daily bulletins for the public to read. Called the Acta Diurna, it's considered a prototype of our modern newspapers. It's believed they were written on stone, metal or papyrus and posted in public areas. While no fully intact original examples have survived, they were widely written about by contemporary authors.
Rome's first public park was completed in 55 BC. Known as the Portico of Pompey, it was built by General Pompey and funded by the spoils of wars he fought in the east. Attached to a theatre, the park was made up of colonnades surrounding a charming grove. It was reportedly so popular that subsequent parks took a similar form and the practice of the elite giving part of their wealth to the public in this way continued. Emperor Augustus built a similar public garden, the Portico of Livia, dedicated to his wife. According to Pliny the Younger, public porticoes like these provided space for Romans to stroll, meet friends and even have secret trysts – much like today.
In dense urban areas, Romans often lived in apartment blocks – or insulae – that were built from brick, concrete and wood. They often reached as many as seven stories high or more. Much like today, the ground floor would have been taken up by shops and workshops, while residents accessed the dwellings above via a shared staircase. This photo shows the remains of an insula in Ostia Antica, Rome's port city. Unfortunately, as can still be the case, cheap construction meant these buildings were vulnerable to collapse. The use of stoves, torches and oil lamps inside the homes also meant they regularly caught fire.
The ancient Greek Hippocrates is known as the father of medicine and doctors still take the Hippocratic oath today. As with most things, Romans took what they learned from the Greeks and built upon it. Military doctors and those who patched up wounded gladiators stood at the top of the medical hierarchy, but knowledge spread thanks to medical literature. Superficial yet relatively sophisticated surgery such as cataract removal was carried out thanks to tools developed by the Romans, including scalpels, probes, tweezers, forceps and bone saws. These modern replicas give us a good idea of what Roman tools would have looked like.
Thanks to the sheer number of people drawn to large cities like Rome and Ostia, sewers quickly became a necessity. At first they were simply open channels, later lined with stone and finally enclosed altogether with a stone barrel vault, creating the sewers familiar to us today. The most famous of the Roman drains is the Cloaca Maxima, which still exists and is shown here in the 19th century emptying into the river Tiber. It was initially used to divert stormwater from the Roman Forum, but later carried away waste from public baths and latrines.
Far from the slides and diving boards on offer at our modern public pools, Roman baths (thermae) were beautiful spaces built from stone and marble and adorned with mosaics and sculptures, like this one in Bath, Somerset. After undressing, the bather would have been anointed in oil before doing vigorous exercise. He would then visit the hot room or calidarium, followed by a steam, a trip to the warm room and finally a dunk in the chilly frigidarium. A trip to the bath house was a social occasion and in many respects it was a lot like a visit to a modern day spa.
The modern Western justice system is sprinkled with Latin, which gives us a hint at where many of our laws and law proceedings stem from. Like us, Romans had preliminary hearings, eminent citizens would try the accused, and witnesses and evidence would be presented by both sides. Even the word 'civil' emblazoned here on the downtown court of St Louis, Missouri comes from the Latin word 'civilis', which referred to society and public life.
The arch was a staple of Roman architecture, used in the construction of bridges, baths, aqueducts, temples, triumphal arches, homes and amphitheatres like the Colosseum in Rome. The Romans developed the arch as well as the vault, which is a 3D arched structure first seen in Ancient Egypt. Although a straight beam is easier to build, an arch can carry much more weight. Building on the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, the Romans discovered that arches didn't have to be exact semi-circles and could have shallower bends. This enabled them to build much longer structures than ever before.
The Romans inherited the papyrus scroll from the Egyptians, but it was difficult to read. Papyrus also didn't hold up as well in the cooler soggier corners of the Empire as it did in hot, dry Egypt. In Rome, wooden writing tablets covered in wax were popular for making notes or sending messages. However, at some point in the first century AD, the codex appeared in Rome. Made up from leaves of parchment made from animal skin bound between a leather or wooden cover, the codex is the first clear link to the modern books we read today.
While poorer Romans would have used any patch of soil they could get their hands on to grow food, wealthier citizens would have as many as three different gardens in their homes. Much like today, open spaces – and how they were utilised – became symbols of wealth and culture. The most elaborate of these collections would consist of an atrium, which was a small space usually containing a swimming pool, the peristyle, a parterre surrounded by columns like this one in Pompeii, and the garden proper, which would have flower beds, vines and trees.
The oldest surviving example of written Latin dates all the way back to the 7th century BC. At its height, there were three forms of Latin – written Latin, oratorical Latin and the ordinary everyday Latin spoken by the average person on the street. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Latin rapidly fell out of favour and gradually evolved into the Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, French, etc). Not only did it shape many of our modern languages, but it continued to be the language of religion and scholarship well into the medieval period. Today, it's still widely used in the fields of science and law.
Roman politician Gaius Gracchus is largely credited with implementing an early form of welfare system. In 123 BC, he introduced a law allowing Roman citizens to buy grain at a reasonable price. For a short period from 58 BC, citizens were even entitled to a set amount of free grain before the handout was curbed by means testing. Around 300 years later, Emperor Aurelian extended the dole so that even pork, olive oil and salt were regularly distributed for free. From around AD 97, support payments known as alimenta were also given to impoverished children living in Italian cities. While this may have been introduced by Emperor Nerva, his successor Trajan expanded the scheme.
For around seven centuries, the Romans used a lunar calendar until Julius Caesar upgraded it in 46 BC. While Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the calendar in 1582 to reflect a slightly more accurate year length, the Julian calendar gave each month the same number of days it has now. It made the year 365 days long, and also introduced the leap year.
The Roman stadium was developed from long U-shaped structures built by the ancient Greeks – in fact, the word stadium comes from 'stade', which was the distance of a Greek foot race. The Romans developed the stade into the circus, where chariot racing was held, and the amphitheatre, which hosted gladiatorial games. We can see from this aerial view of the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Nimes, France, how similar in design it is to the sporting stadia of today.
Check out these abandoned sports venues from around the world
The Romans took a leaf out of the Persians' book when it came to sending messages and parcels across a vast empire and elevated it to new heights of efficiency. Post was passed from courier to courier travelling on horseback and later in fast carriages along a highly organised road system known as the cursus publicus. It's considered to be the most highly developed postal system of the ancient world, with couriers able to cover distances of over 170 miles (270km) in 24 hours.
Firm fans of rules and standardisation, the Romans devised a city planning network known as the centuriation system. It divided an area into grids made up of straight roads and equal-sized parcels of land, as shown here in Pompeii. The result was a simple and orderly street pattern that was quick and easy to navigate. It was also highly adaptable, meaning new streets and blocks could be added as populations grew.
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