Some would call the United States of America the mightiest empire the world has ever known. Yet over the past half-century or so, it has shown a strange inability to build domestic infrastructure, at least at the efficiency or on the scale seen elsewhere in the world. (This will not come as news to American enthusiasts of high-speed rail.) Here on Open Culture, we’ve previously featured history YouTuber Garrett Ryan’s take on the question of whether the U.S. is now declining like the ancient Roman Empire. On a more recent video for his channel Told in Stone, he’s highlighted the megaprojects that even the Romans — who managed the Pantheon, the Colosseum, and the Pont du Gard, to say nothing of their uniquely long-lasting concrete itself — couldn’t pull off.
The Tiber may seem like a tame river today, but it wasn’t always so placid. In antiquity, rains caused it to flood every year. Senator-historian Cassius Dio recorded an incident in 54 BC when the suddenly rising waters caused not just houses but whole neighborhoods to collapse. The Tiber’s flooding worsened over time, inspiring Julius Caesar to propose re-routing it either around Rome or into a tunnel running beneath the city. Unfortunately, the Ides of March came before work could get underway. Augustus opted to dredge the river channel, and Tiberius championed diverting its tributaries. Only the construction of modern embankments in the nineteenth century brought the regular fluvial disasters under control, ensuring peace for strollers in search of their own dolce vita.
Roman ships sailing to Greece had to make their way around the Peloponnese, the south of the Greek peninsula. The dangers of that stretch were many, and did their part to sink the ship carrying the Antikythera Mechanism. The Isthmus of Corinth held out the promise of safer passage, at least for those willing to drag their laden ships over a bit of land. Digging a canal was, in some sense, the obvious solution, considered by both Julius Caesar and Caligula, but “only Nero was megalomaniacal enough to actually begin the project.” A decent amount of progress had been made before another instance of regicide (or perhaps, in this particular case, tyrannicide) put a stop to the work. Rather than being resumed by a later emperor, the canal “became a byword for hubris” — at least until the job was finally done in the uncommonly ambitious nineteenth century.
In central Germany, near where the village of Waldgirmes is today, Romans founded a city with many features of an imperial settlement, such as a classic street grid, pipes running from a central aqueduct, and a forum, at the center of which a gilded statue of Augustus on horseback once stood. Dating to the year 4 BC, the city was intended as a new capital for what the Romans called Germania, though it ended up abandoned after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest only about a decade after its founding. “The buildings were burned,” Ryan says. “The head of Augustus’ equestrian statue was thrown down a well,” only to be discovered nineteen centuries later. That image could inspire a meditation on what may be the way of all empires — or serve as a warning to any American leader considering immortalizing himself and his horse in gold.
Related Content:
Ten Lost Roman Wonders: The World’s Longest Tunnel, Tallest Dam, Widest-Spanning Bridge & More
The Genius Engineering of Roman Aqueducts
How the Ancient Romans Built Their Roads, the Lifelines of Their Vast Empire
The Advanced Technology of Ancient Rome: Automatic Doors, Water Clocks, Vending Machines & More
The Mystery Finally Solved: Why Has Roman Concrete Been So Durable?
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.