The best craftsmen are exempt from manoeuvres. ibid.
As well as women’s shoes the team has also found babies’ booties within the rampart’s enclosure. ibid.
A village had even grafted on to the gates of the garrison. ibid.
Vindolanda’s fort is similar to those of Germania’s borders. ibid.
Vindolanda is at the heart of this defence system ... Every kilometre and a half a small stronghold shelters a handful of infantry men and a few cavalry men. But the protection of the empire comes at a cost. ibid.
Some thirty legions barely manage to protect the integrity of its borders. ibid.
We can learn a lot from the city [Rome] about the ancient Roman way of life. In antiquity the imposing monuments, seats of power and architecture that reached into the heavens always attracted the admiration of foreigners. The Roman Empire: Timgad
In the year 146 B.C. the legions of Scipio ... capture Carthage after bitter fighting. Refusing to surrender to the sworn enemy the inhabitants throw themselves into the flames of a huge pyre ... Rome’s victory throws open the gates of Africa. ibid.
The Roman empire now comprises eighty million people of various cultures. ibid.
The presence of the city [Timgad] is a mystery. On what kind of wealth were its founders relying on? ibid.
The city of Timgad is a showcase of Romanity. It looks like all of its sister cities found in and around the Mediterranean. All of them connected by ninety thousand kilometres of cobbled roads. ibid.
There is more than a sewage system in Timgad. In fact the city has been conceived as a huge reservoir where every drop of water has been recovered. ibid.
At Malaga it supplies the water for the hugest hydraulic reservoir of the Roman world. Systems containing sixty thousand cubic metres of liquid. The solid masonry of the stone arches has so well resisted time’s wear that some of the aqueduct’s sections still irrigate the Tunisian lowlands. ibid.
Many of those who ruled over the empire were not born in Rome itself. They were a consequence of a culture mixing started by Rome’s policy of conquest. ibid.
It’s the summer of 79 A.D. Several earth tremors have already rocked the town of Pompeii and the surrounding area ... At noon on August 24th a pillar of molten rock seventeen kilometres high rises into the sky. The Roman Empire: Grandeur and Decadence
At 9 p.m. Pompeii has almost been buried under four metres of ash. ibid.
Until the discovery of Pompeii no antique frescoes had been so well preserved. ibid.
Pompeiians would write anywhere. ibid.
They also show that the games acquired a paramount position in the Roman social life. ibid.
This is a far cry from a civilised image of Roman society. Such bloody brawls mirror a waning world while the Empire is at its peak. A social crisis is brewing. The egalitarian ideal of the Republic is over. The gap between social classes is widening. ibid.
It was the empire of all empires. The greatest power the world had ever known. The Romans dominated for nearly a thousand years laying the foundations of western civilisation. Our language, our law and our landscape all bear the mark of Rome. How did the Romans do it? Rome: The Model Empire, Channel 4 2009
The Romans were the first to develop a formula for imperial rule. ibid.
Vindolanda ... These ancient writing tablets reveal every aspect of life in the Roman army. ibid.
Soft imperialism: the psychological, cultural and political tricks an empire plays not to win power but to keep it. ibid.
Augustus found a way to channel that energy ... All collective pride would be focused on the man at the top. ibid.
Under Augustus Rome’s imperial model was being perfected. ibid.
2,000 years ago one civilisation dominated the entire western world: from northern Europe to Africa and the Middle East it imposed laws, culture, and a single language ... Rome: the power and the glory. Rome: Power and Glory s1e1: The Rise, Discovery 2010
At the heart of the empire was Rome and at the heart of Rome the Colosseum. ibid.
The Romans developed the science of urban planning. They invented cement, built gigantic public storehouses, and installed city-wide sewage systems. But their greatest achievement was the water supply. ibid.
Napoleon was obsessed with the Roman empire. ibid.
Rome was found by Romulus and Remus, twins who were cast into the wilderness to die. The boys were said to have been saved by a she-wolf. ibid.
They were the most successful warriors in history. They conquered vast territories across three continents. It was the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Rome: Power and Glory s1e2: Legions of Conquest s1e2
The Roman army is preparing to face the first true threat to its survival – the ancient empire called Carthage. ibid.
The Roman empire was vast. It stretched from Scotland to the Sahara. Her army controlled three continents. And fifty million people lived under Roman law. Rome: Power and Glory s1e3: Seduction of Power
Insecurity plagued Augustus’ successors. Their paranoid delusions would be the undoing of his dynasty. ibid.
Once new lands had been conquered, Rome’s next challenge was to win its subjects’ allegiance and loyalty. Rome: Power and Glory s1e4: The Grasp of Empire
Over a million people lived in Rome itself. ibid.
Romans enjoyed a technology boom unprecedented in Roman times. ibid.
Every master feared his slaves. ibid.
The slave army soon grew into a 70,000 strong force. ibid.
Romans were methodical and organised. They planned their cities like they planned their lives in a meticulous and orderly fashion. Rome: Power and Glory s1e5: The Cult of Order
There were as many cults in Rome as there were provinces in the Empire. ibid.
Many began questioning the benefits of Roman rule. ibid.
Rome’s glory shone for over a thousand years. But the empire wasn’t eternal. In the third century A.D. it was engulfed by civil war. Chaos and corruption undermined it from within, and from every direction its enemies amassed. Terrified Romans prophesied the Apocalypse. Rome: Power and Glory s1e6: The Fall
The Roman empire reached its zenith under Emperor Trajan in the early second century A.D. Through conquest and assimilation it now controlled western Europe and the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. ibid.
There had been many eccentric emperors. ibid.
Constantine abandoned the traditional trappings of a Roman emperor ... His vanity knew no bounds. ibid.
That dark side of Rome was ruthlessly exploited by the fascist dictator Mussolini who openly styled his regime as a new Roman empire and himself as a new Emperor Augustus. ibid.
Now Judas had heard of the Romans, that they were mighty and valiant men, and such as would lovingly accept all that joined themselves unto them, and make a league of amity with all that came unto them;
And that they were men of great valour. It was told him also of their wars and noble acts which they had done among the Galatians, and how they had conquered them, and brought them under tribute;
And what they had done in the country of Spain, for the winning of the mines of the silver and gold which is there;
And that by their policy and patience they had conquered all the place, though it were very far from them; and the kings also that came against them from the uttermost part of the earth, till they had discomfited them, and given them a great overthrow, so that the rest did give them tribute every year:
Moreover how they had made for themselves a senate house, wherein three hundred and twenty men sat in council daily, consulting alway for the people, to the end they might be well ordered:
And that they committed their government to one man every year, who ruled over all their country, and that all were obedient to that one, and that there was neither envy nor emulation among them. I Maccabees 8:1-4&15&16