Posted on 10/30/2005 1:05:06 AM PDT by nickcarraway
It's funny that you mention this, that's the impression I get as well - and it makes me Thank the Lord for the rise of Christianity. I shudder when I think what the modern world would be like without the teachings of Christ.
For every Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius, you get a Commodus or Nero.
I'll keep our flawed Repulic for a little while longer.
Just about every professional military force today can trace their structure, training, discipline, organization, symbols, values, etc., to the Roman legions.
I think the spread of Christianity was unintentional and much of Rome's technology came from the ancient Greeks.
I have a better question. Other than write a bunch of worthless tripe about how Mary Beard hates Western culture and thought, what has she given us?
Yes, a little longer. I'm not ready to anoint a dictator yet. :)
"What have the Romans ever done for us? Name one good thing Roman rule has brought us?"
A small voice in the back says:
"The aqueducts"
Then other voices start adding
"Roman roads, rule of law, modern medicine, schools etc".
"Yeah, well outside the aqueducts, the roads, rule of law, schools, modern medicine, civilization, what have the Romans ever done for us"?
Rome's Technology came from the Greeks? I would grant that the basic mathematics, algebra, and calculus may have come from the Greeks, but it was the Roman Engineers that applied them to real world problems and tamed the natural world. I never heard of any 60 mile GREEK aqueducts.
I recently learned from a documentary though that the Romans didn't have the calculus skills to survey bends in their roads, so they went straight as an arrow and then turned 90 degrees, and still do on the old Roman Roads in England and elsewhere.
"Beulah, peel me a dormouse"
LOL! Well done. I'm glad I checked before I posted the same thing. Freepers are always quick with Monty Python bits.
I myself count the spreading of foie gras production from the Egyptians and Greeks as a very important Roman contribution to our world also. ;-)
The question is not, what have the Romans done for us, but what can we do for the Romans? Or even better, what will our children´s children say about what we will have done for them?
One thing I read in Durant's books is he thought Rome declined because technological advancements were eventually suppressed in order to preserve jobs.
learning from their mistakes. They had open borders, got lazy used cheap labor to do work and eventually collapsed on it's own accord.
But their problem weren´t cheap workers from the south, who legally or illegally entered the Empire. Their problem were uneducated, rough fighters from the cold North, entering and destroying their cities. You better watch out America, Canada might be more dangerous than you imagine. :-)
I thought she was indicating the brush with which film and television producers seek to paint conservative U.S. administrations. Of course Nixon wasn't a conservative. He in fact scorned, in private, the conservative branch of the Republican party.
We as a nation have enemies from everywhere. Our elected officials are foolish thinking we do not have to protect our borders.
Radiant floor heat......
As you see, the Romans didn't spend much time in Gaul.
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