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			<h1>Concrete and arches</h1>
			<p>Written in <span title="Greek and Roman Civilization">HIST 1421</span> of <a href="http://www.uopeople.edu/">University of the People</a>, finalised on 2017-05-24</p>
		</header>
<p>
	The ancient Romans are well-known for their great architecture.
	Much of it was so sturdy and structurally sound that it still exists, in part or in whole, today.
	As the Romans spread out and conquered new lands, they brought their building strategies with them.
	Evidence of Roman architecture can be found throughout northern Africa and the areas surrounding and including Italy.
</p>
<h2>Concrete</h2>
<p>
	The Roman version of concrete (as opposed to the concrete we use in our own modern societies) was made from pozzolana, a dark type of volcanic dirt.
	This dirt was originally discovered in Puteoli, but was later found to exist in volume around Rome as well.
	To make concrete from this special dirt, lime was mixed with it, along with some sort of larger, hard material.
	This material could be chunks of rock, as we frequently use today, or something else, such as broken bricks.
	Concrete allowed the construction of very large, permanent structures, especially with the development of companion technologies.
</p>
<p>
	At first, concrete could be used to fill walls.
	This removed the need for a wall&apos;s outer layer to be neat and uniform.
	The ends of the walls still needed to be capped with well-placed bricks, but the sides of the walls could use whatever rocks were available.
	This construction method was known as opus incertum.
	Use of irregular rocks was nice, but Rome could do better.
	The first companion to concrete that they used for building walls was rocks shaped like square pyramids.
	These would be shoved into the wet concrete, pointy-end first, leaving only the square surface of the pyramid visible.
	They called this wall-building method opus reticulatum.
	Still later, they exchanged the pyramidal rocks for triangular, baked bricks.
	This type of wall construction was called opus testaceum.
</p>
<p>
	With pointy materials making the basis of a wall&apos;s outer skeleton, curved walls became possible.
	When using rectangular bricks, attempts to curve a wall result in the inner corners coming closer together until they touch, forcing the outer corners apart.
	This doesn&apos;t happen when the outer bricks/rocks have a point on the inside though.
	There&apos;s space for the inner corners to come together without touching, so the outer corners are never forced apart (unless your wall curves are ridiculously tight).
	Using this capacity for building curved walls, great domes such as that of the Pantheon were constructed.
	The domes constructed by the Romans were used to create and enhance the inner space of a building.
	Besides domes, other curved walls were employed as well.
	Great theatres were constructed in a semicircular shape.
</p>
<p>
	Concrete was also a useful tool for constructing an empire.
	Roads needed to be built between cities, and cities needed to be fortified for protection.
	Concrete was a great building material for walls, and city walls were no different.
	Bridges made using concrete allowed roads to pass through areas not normally accommodating to road-building, such as across rivers (Kamm, n.d.).
</p>
<h2>Arches</h2>
<p>
	It wasn&apos;t the Romans that invented the arch.
	Instead, the arch was one of many things they discovered by assimilating so many other cultures.
</p>
<p>
	Bridges were made using concrete, but they were also built using arch technology.
	This allowed them to remain structurally sound while allowing air and water to pass beneath them.
	To this day, many of these bridges still stand.
	Additionally, aqueducts were constructed from arches.
	An aqueduct is essentially just a thin bridge topped with a water-carrying channel, so most concepts of building bridges apply to building aqueducts as well.
	Aqueducts carried water from the mountains and across the plains to the city, where it&apos;d be transported to its destination via underground pipes.
	It was estimated that over a million litres of water entered the city on a daily basis via the aqueducts.
</p>
<p>
	Arches have a fantastic weight-distribution property that allows wider spaces to be crossed without intermittent support pillars than otherwise possible.
	Larger gaps still required the use of support pillars, but when each pillar marked the end of one arch and the beginning of another, less support pillars were needed, and thus, less building materials were necessary (Kamm, n.d.).
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>
	Of all the technology employed by the ancient Romans, two of the most important examples are that of concrete and that of arches.
	Without these two things, Rome could never have become as great as it did.
	Concrete and arches united Rome via roads and bridges.
	They brought water to the cities via aqueducts.
	And concrete defended the cities by way of walls.
	Arches and concrete were also employed for less vital functions, such as commemorations and the building of places of warship.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Kamm, A. (n.d.). The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 6.5 Architecture of public buildings. Retrieved from <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/public_architecture.htm"><code>https://the-romans.co.uk/public_architecture.htm</code></a>
	</p>
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