Civilisation

The Ancient Greeks were excellent and talented builders around 2,500 years ago when they began rebuilding Athens after its ruination by the Persians.

The Greeks built open air theatres and wonderful temples, most notably the Parthenon to honour their goddess of wisdom and war.

The temple took eleven years to build and, curiously, they deliberately made the columns bulge slightly and the base curve by 5cms so that the Parthenon "looked" straight!

Building an arch:

The Romans put an arch-shaped frame made from wood on top of two stone pillars or walls.

In the simplest arch, flat stones were tightly packed together around the frame.

Sometimes, a central wedge shaped keystone held other stones in place.

When the builders took away the frame, all the stones stayed in the finished arch shape.

Some 500 years later, the city of Rome was at the heart of a vast empire. The Romans built

houses, temples, roads and bridges throughout the lands they dominated, and their builders also learned how to use curved shapes such as arches and domes.

The Romans built huge amphitheatres, such as the famous Colosseum, where gladiators fought each other, Christians or wild animals.

The Colosseum in Rome had room for 50,000 people and could even be flooded so that ships could fight each other in mock sea battles.

What's more, there were about 80 entrances and tickets were issued with the right entrance number stamped on them.

The first Millennium Domes

The Romans found a mixture that became very hard, like concrete, when it dried and they used it to build domes. They also built extraordinary bridges called aqueducts, lined with lead, to carry water to their cities. One of them, at Nimes in France, was 50km long.

Wealthy Romans had large villas with courtyards and in Winter, warm air from fires swirled under the floors, the first central heating. While poor families lived in city blocks of 'flats' made of bricks and wood and built in narrow streets.

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