Rome
Roma: Rome, the capital of Italy, is an extensive cosmopolitan city that has a view of almost 3,000 years of art, architecture and culture of world influence. Ancient ruins such as those of the Forum and the Colosseum evoke the power of the ancient Roman Empire. The Vatican City, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, has the St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums, which house masterpieces such as the frescoes of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
History:The history of Rome is the history of the city as an urban entity and the history of the states and institutions of which it has been the capital or seat over time. It can be divided into prehistory, Ancient Rome, Medieval Rome, Modern and Contemporary Rome; or in Ancient Rome, Pontifical Rome and contemporary Italian Rome.
The most fruitful period in the history of Rome in political, economic, social and cultural terms was its development in antiquity. It was the head of a great imperial state and seat of a nation established on three continents. In its moment of greatest development the empire created by Rome reached 3.5 million square kilometers and about 70 million inhabitants, between citizens and non-citizens.
Culture:
The first manifestations of Roman art are born under the influence of Etruscan art, contacted group of Greek art, which they met in the colonies of Magna Grecia in southern Italy, which Rome conquered in the process of territorial unification of the peninsula, during the centuries IV and III a. C. The Greek influence increases when, in the second century BC. C., Rome occupies Macedonia and Greece. In many respects, the writers of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire chose to avoid innovation in favor of imitation of the great Greek authors. Virgil's Aeneid emulated Homer's epic, Plauto followed in the footsteps of Aristophanes, Tacitus emulated Thucydides, Ovid explored Greek myths. Of course, the Romans printed their own character to the civilization they inherited from the Greeks. Only satire is the only literary genre that the Romans already identified as specifically theirs. Prose was used for political oratory, philosophy or history, but there were some examples of fictional literary prose, such as Apuleyo's golden ass. Science did not know an important development in Rome in the field of theory or pure research, limiting the Roman authors to collect previous knowledge, especially the Greeks; Pliny the Elder (23–79) compiled Greek Science in his Naturalis Historia.
Highlight the Romans in applied technology, especially in agriculture, public works and military technology: hydraulic mills, central heating system and humidity insulation of homes; catapults, crossbows, assault towers installed on wheels; lighthouses in the ports and, above all, a road construction system, with amalgamated stone firmness with mortar, curbs and drainage ditches, which have allowed much of the Roman road layout to be preserved.
