The Legacies Left Behind from Ancient Rome

From ancient times, Rome’s legacies are still the greatest known to man today. Throughout the western world the influence of Roman power is still manifest. The impact of Rome has furthered our society into an effective and successful modern world. Without the advanced structure of buildings and a thorough law process, who knows how different our lives and world would be. The great arches, the high statues and buildings, all come from Roman background. The law process we use to this day is based on the Ancient Roman law format. Although some of the legacies carried on from the Romans weren’t all great i. e. lavery, the good outweighed the bad. Architecture was crucial to the success of Rome, from temples to bridges to aqueducts, every building got more advanced (Suny Oneonta, 2012). As the Roman power grew over an immense area, the Romans built aqueducts to carry adequate amounts of water to all its cities. This has now been implemented underground all over the world and is called plumbing. Many cities around the world still contain amphitheatres. In Ancient Rome amphitheatres acted as arena’s in which spectacles were staged for entertainment. The grandest amphitheatre, most famously called the Colosseum is still standing today.

Triumphant arches like the Arch of Titus or the Arch of Trajan, were to signify great military triumphs and now the structure of the arch is used worldwide. The tradition of Roman architecture has had a very important effect on America. For example, the U. S Supreme Court building in Washington is directly based on the Roman temple type. This particular building related to the Romans all the way down to the white marble, which signifies Roman authority. In Rome there was a building called the ‘Basilica’, this building was the town hall but was commonly used as a courthouse.

Like courthouses today there was an apse where the magistrate sits to control the courthouse and dispense the law (Wikipedia, 2012). Not only have we kept alive the building structure of the Ancient Roman courthouse (Wikipedia, 2012), we have kept the law process too. Although the Roman law is no longer applied in legal practice, the basis of our laws today derive from the Roman traditions (UNRV, 2012). Modifications have been made to suit society as it grows, a coherent system was put in place and laws are written in the national language. Today’s legal system has a Roman eritage and knowledge of Roman law is indispensable to understand the legal systems of today. In Ancient Rome slavery played a big part, whether the Romans owned a slave or whether they were one themselves. Slaves were people captured in battles, which were then sold and forced to work for whoever owned them. Abandoned children were also bought up as slaves. Slaves weren’t all the same prices depending on the age or skill, some were more expensive than others, but all could be bought at the same market place. In Rome a slave is a slave for life.

However a slave could acquire freedom from their owner or if they bought it themselves. A rich man could have as many as 500 slaves and an emperor usually had more than 20,000. Even after Rome passed its days of greatness, it was thought that at least 25% of the population of all people in Rome were slaves (History Learning Site, 2012). This is one of those legacies society could have gone without, although slavery was abolished around 100 years ago, equality is a very big part of today’s contemporary world and this was a very big part of the world 100 years ago (Wikipedia, 2012).

All in all, if you weigh the good and the bad legacies left behind from Rome, there has been a much greater positive impact on today’s contemporary world than a negative one. Although slavery is something the world should be ashamed of, the buildings, the structure, the law process and the language are only some of the great legacies that have shaped our modern world. It doesn’t make up for the long history of equality, but without the majority of the legacies from Rome our world wouldn’t be as successful and effective as it is today.

Without Rome and its legacies, the contemporary world wouldn’t be the same. We would know no different, but imagining the world without these significant details is so challenging because we all live our lives with some basis of Rome. Whether it is the plumbing in a house. Whether it is the arches on a front porch. Whether it is the federal courthouse or the legal system and law process. Rome and its power never really faded because it still affects humanity today, the legacies Rome left behind affect all of us in some way. Bibliography

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