Maths.

[Minimalist]

i suspect that they often used Greek slaves as their architects and engineers. Perhaps some Romans just used the Greek methods, but i can't seem to find a site that explains how the Greeks went about doing their math problems.

The question is timing, Dan. The Romans came into direct contact with the Greeks in 280 BC when their expansion reached the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the south (Tarentum....Krotona....). The Tarentines called in Pyrrhus of Epirus to help them resist the Romans. By 280 though the Via Appia existed and the first aqueducts had been built to Rome. The Great Sewer had been draining the Forum for a century longer than that. The Romans were a mystery to the urbane Greeks. At this point in their history the Romans were country bumpkins with a highly adaptable military. By the middle of the second century BC it is true that Greek slaves were all over Italy but Roman engineering had advanced quite far without them by then.

[dannan14]

i think i have to disagree that direct contact happened so late. The Greeks founded Syracuse and other colonies 4 or 5 centuries before that. So maybe i am wrong about slaves doing the engineering work, but maybe the Roman penchant for copying began very early?

[Minimalist]

Anything's possible..... but then it comes down to a question of evidence.

There was a small Greek trading post at Neapolis ( Naples ) fairly early on in the 8th or maybe 9th century BC when the Etruscans were totally dominant in Central Italy. Still, Neapolis never seems to have expanded much into the Campanian countryside.

My gut instinct is that the Romans learned most of their early engineering skill from the Etruscans but, of course, there is not a lot of direct evidence for that, either.

[dannan14]

Have many Etruscan structures survived? Most of what i remember reading about them revolves around tombs.

[Minimalist]

Not much.

http://www.archeopg.arti.beniculturali. ... 34/orvieto


The Romans did have that effect on other cultures.


Practically speaking the Romans could have been Etruscans themselves. What would the "city" of Rome have been in the 6th century BC? A palace for the king and some storehouses? A temple or two and probably not very grandiose at that. Most of the population were yeoman farmers. Even Roman traditional histories admit that the were ruled by the Tarquins until the revolt of Brutus set up the Republic c 509 BC. That would be enough time to learn the basics I should think.