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The world of ancient Romans abounded in a number of amazing curiosities and information. The source of knowledge about the life of the Romans are mainly works left to us by ancient writers or discoveries. The Romans left behind a lot of strange information and facts that are sometimes hard to believe.
Trajan’s Halls (Mercatus Traiani) is probably the first shopping mall as we understand it today. They were created on the command of Emperor Trajan in the 2nd century CE (probably in the years 100-110 CE) by his architect Apollodor of Damascus. There were about 150 shops on several levels.
By the end of the 2nd century CE (for over 5 centuries), Roman engineers built about 48,500 Roman miles (71,700 km) paved roads. Less than 100 years later, the inventory of Emperor Diocletian showed the existence of 372 roads in the area of the empire with a total length of 53,000 Roman miles (over 78.3 thousand km).
The Pantheon is the only completely preserved building of Ancient Rome. It is one of the most important and impressive buildings in Rome.
Colosseum is considered proof of the power and engineering genius of the ancient Romans. On the other hand, thousands of animals and people died in the arena of this monstrous building. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the amphitheatre stone was used as building blocks for other structures in the city.
Ancient rotunda in Thessaloniki, Greece, built in 306 CE by order of the Emperor Galerius, who was Caesar in the East, reigned by Diocletian. His domain was especially the Balkans.
In 1884, the first skyscraper was built in Chicago, USA. It was 42 meters high. Shortly afterwards, the New York World Building exceeded a hundred meters. In both cases, however, it was only an imitation of the ancient Romans. The first skyscrapers grew in ancient Rome. They were insulae, including the most famous of them, the real miracle and singularity of the city – Insula Felicles.
The Romans left behind many wonderful buildings, many of them have survived to this day in a better or worse condition. Amphitheatres, where crowds of people gathered to see gladiatorial battles, enjoyed great popularity among the Romans. Unfortunately, one of them resulted in a huge tragedy as a result of miserliness, which resulted in a number of deaths compared to the losses of Roman legions in the battle of the Teutoburg Forest 9 CE.
Nowadays, we associate stays in thermal baths with biological regeneration and that’s basically the end. And how was it in antiquity?
