Rome 1

Rome

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It is written in history that it takes a lot of effort and bravery for one nation or an empire

to make a great name in the world. There has been a lot of times in the world where great people

have lived in the world and left a legacy for the rest of the people to follow. Such peoples have

built empires and run them and have also see them fall. The rise and fall of an empire leaves a lot

of messages and lessons for the world that exists today and shows that the things that were

relevant in the past are still relevant today. In this context, the Roman republic and Roman

empire are of great significance, because have seen itself to rise to power by the power of its

people and cultural elements, and have also seen a fall when different cultural barriers hindered

their way of progress. Despite being on the face of the earth for more than thousand years, the

Roman Empire did fell due to various reasons, but it did secured a place for itself as one of the

greatest empires of the world that had ever existed. Both, the roman republic and Roman Empire

were great civilization because of cultural diversity, vastness and bravery. Temples and

gymnasia became the reason to let Rome rise to the position of influence and power, while other

factors allowed to become a place that couldn’t be controlled anymore.

The Romans were famous for their architecture. They were very intelligent to understand

that they couldn’t grow economically until they focused on their infrastructure and construction

of roads. Soon came the time when the entire city was connected by road and people would use it

for military as well as trade purposes. It enabled the place to grow economically and soon the

people started to walk on the path to become great one day. Another cultural feature that helped

Rome to grow as a great civilization was their establishment of educational institutions. It cannot

be ignored that many great people have mentioned the importance of education in their

philosophies such as Plato and Aristotle (Sage, 2013). It is also true that no civilization has

grown without gaining adequate knowledge and basics of sciences that enabled them to expand
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their empire. Soon after the establishment of their educational institutions, the children were

taught music, art and physical education and it became one of the most thriving essence of their

culture. It rose to prominence that many other cultures started to follow its footsteps, such as

Greeks. The educated and well-observant people of the Rome use their potential and power to

have their influence on the rest of the world.

In addition to it, the people of the Rome had devoted themselves to preach their gods.

Most of the people would come together as community that allowed them to express themselves

and bind together as one. Religion has been with man as long as one can remember, and it has

shaped lives of many people as continues to do so. The temples and gymnasia became one of the

most profound places of worship for the people of Rome which gave them a sense of belonging

to one another and saved them from going on the evil path. Religion’s function is to keep people

together and during the time when Rome was becoming a great nation, it had grasped the rope of

religion very strongly and it resulted in good terms.

The things that made the Roman Empire one of the greatest, there existed some other

cultural elements that took everything from the people and it had to witness a fall. In the words

of philosophers, people rise to power they get corrupt and get at a distance from the values which

helped them achieve success in the first place. The same happened with the empire. Slowly when

there wasn’t enough tribes or empires that could match the might of the empire, the rulers started

to think of themselves as unbeatable and they could live their lives for whatever pleases them.

This mentality started to grow among the masses and the society started to break from the inside

before people could find any way to reconcile or to be organized as a nation once again (Lomas,

2018). The political instability and the dictatorship ruled changed the lives of the people for good

and not everyone was happy with the changes. The rulers that were once concerned of the well-
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being of their people, found themselves busy in making fortunes and living a luxurious life

which most of the people couldn’t afford. Soon the empire got weak and its enemies got the

chance to put the empire to the ground.

Among the factors that led to the fall of Rome was that they grew ignorant of their

culture and tradition. As mentioned above, people of Rome were great architects and they would

find peace in art. But soon there came a time when the people of authority in Rome started to

invest in an architecture that was solely made to establish a might in-front of the world and to tell

them that there didn’t exist any other mighty civilization. Forum and Basilica were built in

100BC and 50BC respectively. Both of these buildings were very detailed and expensive to

maintain. Most of the people did come to these buildings for business and other purposes, but it

wasn’t easy for a private citizen to pay for its maintenance.

It goes without any doubt that both of these buildings were beautiful but they were

impractical in the same way. There weren’t many people who would utilize these places for

some solid reason as by Augustus’s time, both of the buildings got over-populated and there

wasn’t much reason behind to keep investing in an architecture that could ruin a civilization to

the ground. The civilization had distanced it from the world and the cultures which became a

basis of its greatness in the first place. The temples as well which were once a place where

people would go to worship their gods weren’t seen as same before. Most of the people would

ignore going to their worship places and got delusional in the power (Knutsen & Hall, 2021).

Slowly these things ruined the civilization from the inside and the people didn’t know much that

what should they do to sustain it. It is evident from the fact that civilizations rise when people are

united and under the same influence as their counterparts. Soon as a civilization rises to power, it
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may forget its roots and cultural elements that made it one in the first place. So Rome failed

because it had left its culture way behind.

To put all in a nutshell, Rome is still known to be as a mighty civilization, but it had left a

lot of lessons for the world today. It teaches that people can rise to power if they follow their

culture and make a room for everyone around, and it falls when it thinks of itself as unbeatable.

There is nothing something as permanent, and everything has to see its end at some time in life.

So, it is better to leave a memorable legacy behind for the people till there comes an end to

everything.
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References

Knutsen, T. L., & Hall, M. (2021). Rome: Republic, monarchy and empire Routledge Handbook
of Historical International Relations (pp. 398-407): Routledge.
Lomas, K. (2018). The rise of Rome: from the Iron Age to the Punic Wars: Harvard University
Press.
Sage, M. (2013). The rise of Rome.