There was a topic or two along these lines during the past year or two; the Romans still excelled at civil engineering, able to cherry-pick the best ideas from a large number of conquered peoples. There’s another current article (I’m not going to post it, at least not this week, and something like it may have already appeared) about water engineering in Roman Palmyra.
One area that the Romans were never exactly great at was navigating the seas. They weren’t bad, in time — they turned the seven seas into pirate-free lakes for centuries — but the Roman army just didn’t like the idea of sea battles. During and after Augustus Rome got serious about standing navies and built five major naval bases, including one on the North Sea and one on the Black Sea.
Seagoing trade in Roman times was enormous, and spread out in all directions, including India (no doubt about it) and other areas outside the Empire, including Ireland, China, and the Baltic. But that was not due to some kind of official merchant marine, it was the free market at work.
Roman engineering resulted in some of, if not *the*, largest wooden seagoing vessels ever made. Those Egyptian obelisks in Rome were moved — each in one piece — from Egypt during the Roman Empire, and those weigh 200+ tons, some perhaps 300 tons. The columns for some of the temples on the forum were quarried — each in one piece — in Egypt and transported by sea to Rome.
OTOH, the British Isles have been inhabited for many thousands of years, and the big break with the continent was a long time ago. Since then, no one has gotten there by walking overland. :’)
Awesome!! Thanks for the all the info and the link. You make Wikipedia look like a children’s book.
And what seven seas would those be?