What engineering methods and materials did the Romans use to full effect?

[kemiolayera]

What engineering methods and materials did the Romans use to full effect?
How did they use these to create public works and monumental and memorial buildings? Give specific examples.
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[hkyson]

The biggest achievement of the Romans was mastering the use of the compression strength of stone in erecting both buildings with colonades and aqueducts. One of them in France, today known as the Pont du Garde, is almost completely intact.

In warfare, the Romans were also quite clever in developing siege machinery, including battering rams and machines for throwing stones at the walls of cities. These and other similar inventions made them very effective in their conquest of cities.

It is unfortunate, however, that they did not extend the idea of minting coins to the point of developing printing presses.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

[Paul B]

They loved the arch!

Aqueducts, The Flavian Amphitheatre (AKA the Coliseum), many of their temples used arches. They are good for support and look great. Pop the keystone in and they are really strong! They built literally thousands of kilometres of aqueducts.

[Bill P]

Stone, concrete, the arch. The arch was ther greatest accomplishment. Number two were their roads which were the best in Europe until after WW1.

[janniel]

They invented concrete and they used a lot of brick and rubble walling which could then be faced with stone. They used pulleys, levers and early forms of cranes. They were capable of very precise measurements, and had a good understanding of stress and load bearing qualities of the materials used in constuction and necessary in drawing up architectural plans, even if it was accumulated by centuries of trial and error rather than the sophisticated means we have today. Their heating and plumbing systems were extraordinarily sophisticated and well-engineered by any standards and were not equalled, let alone surpassed, for centuries.