Starting from the time of its creation in the first century B.C., the Roman Empire was constantly expanding and conquering new territory spanning from the Italian peninsula to the Mediterranean world and into Europe. This meant that the Romans had to constantly adjust to all sorts of new factors, including climate, crops, and wildlife. Another key aspect that the Romans had to keep in mind when adding territory to their empire was geography. Many geographical features like deserts, forests and bodies of water could impact how people lived. Ability to adapt to geography could make or break an empire’s success and was one of the many strengths of the Roman Empire. The Romans adjusted to their changing geography by developing organized maritime trade routes that they supported with advanced technology as well as land …show more content…
Similar to the sea routes, the Romans built roads that reached all throughout the empire, helping to easily access key locations and major cities (Doc 3). So that these roads could be as efficient as possible, the Romans used devices called Gromas that lined the streets up with the horizon. This ensured straight roads that provided the quickest form of land transportation (Doc 4A). It would be very impracticle to have poorly constructed roads that needed to be rebuilt often and the Romans knew this. As a result, they added important details to the roads to keep them long lasting. Each road was constructed with multiple layers of different types of stone that would hold up under the demand of many people using them. The roads were also designed to remain passable through rain. The roads were equipped with drainage systems that included small ditches throughout the roads and curved surfaces of the roads called cambers that helped the water flow into the ditches and keep the surfaces from flooding (Doc