Viewing
Guide to Engineering Empire Part I. You will
have to listen closely to hear some of the information. Read the questions here before viewing each part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5obOUDyQ5s&t=2428s
(total run time approximately 100 minutes). Put this handout in the culture section of
your binder.
Rome’s beginnings in the 800s-700s
BCE were very modest. It was a small
village on the swampy banks of the Tiber River near the center of the Italian
peninsula and its west coast. The town was a collection of mud and stick huts,
surrounded by much more powerful and ancient peoples (tribes) up and down the
peninsula. What was the secret to Rome’s
success? How did it come to conquer so much territory and become first the most
powerful force on the Italian peninsula and then the ruler of an empire that
spanned the entire Mediterranean Sea?
The documentary, Engineering Empire, emphasizes the
role of science and engineering as key to Rome’s expansion.
Major Points
of Engineering Empire part 1
·
The story begins with a feat accomplished by one
of Rome’s most outstanding generals, Julius Caesar. With his armies Caesar more
than doubled the size of Rome’s conquered territories. Caesar built two bridges
across the Rhine River, during the Gallic War in 55 BC and 53 BC. Strategically successful, they are also considered
masterpieces of military engineering. These bridges demonstrated that Roman
power could easily and at will cross the Rhine (the borderline between Gaul and
Germania) and henceforth for several centuries significant Germanic incursions
across the Rhine were halted. Further, his feat served him in establishing his
fame at home. Gaul corresponds roughly to what is today France and Germania
roughly to Germany and some of the Netherlands.
·
Roman legend says the city was founded in 753
b.c. by two brothers, Romulus and Remus
·
The Etruscans
were a powerful and well developed civilization near where Rome was founded.
They were experts in metallurgy (work with metals) and hydraulics (harnessing
water in inventive ways).
·
The city of Rome was a small swampy village
before the Romans figured out how to drain the land. They used knowledge gained
from Etruscans to do it.
·
The narrators says: During the age of Augustus, concrete
solidified Rome's chokehold on Western Europe, allowing roman builders to
dominate the landscape with massive manmade monoliths. A monolith is a
very large structure, like a colosseum.
Julius Caesar
1. Against whom was Julius Caesar leading a military
campaign in 55 BCE – 53 BCE.
2. The Rhine river separated provinces controlled by Rome
from northern areas that were not. What
was the effect of the bridge on the tribes who watched its construction?
3. How long did it take Julius Caesar’s army to build the
bridge?
4. What did Caesar do after it was built?
5) Why do you think he tore it down so quickly?
6) Why was Julius Caesar assassinated in 44 BCE?
The Creation of Rome
- For whom was the city
Rome named?
- How was the population
of Rome developed (where did the population come from)? What does it mean
that early Rome was an “asylum”?
- How did this contribute
to the engineering of Rome? What was the Roman attitude toward the
scientific knowledge of other civilizations?
Infrastructure of Rome
- The construction of the
Cloaca Maxima is the key event in transforming Rome from a series of
tribes living on disparate hills around a swampy marsh into a kind of
centralized, unified culture. What
was the Cloaca Maxima?
- What was the Via
Appia?
- To build its roads
straight and level, the Romans relied on the tool, which was a vertical
pole that stood in the ground with a cross on the top. It was called a…
a. pozzolana
b. groma c. speculum
d. fossa
- What was unique about
Roman concrete? (hint:
this is why it could be used to build bridges)
- How much water did the aqueducts carry to the city
of Rome daily?
- What engineering feat
was key to the construction of the aqueducts? WHY?
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