The most commonly seen pattern is the grid, used for thousands of years in China, independently invented by Alexander the Great's city-planner Dinocrates of Rhodes and favoured by the Romans, while almost a rule in parts of pre-Columbian America.

The Romans also invented the superposed order.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that books on magic were invented by the Persians, with the 1st century CE writer Pliny the Elder stating that magic had been first discovered by the ancient philosopher Zoroaster around the year 6347 BC, but that it was only written down in the 5th century BC by the magician Osthanes — his claims are not however supported by modern historians.

The Romans invented numerous surgical instruments, including the first instruments unique to women, as well as the surgical uses of forceps, scalpels, cautery, cross-bladed scissors, the surgical needle, the sound, and speculas.

The Romans invented the concept of classics and many works from Ancient Greece were preserved.

Thirdly, he has invented siege-engines for use against the Romans and the Archimedean screw to raise water ( b. c. 287 BC )

Thirdly, he has invented siege-engines for use against the Romans and the Archimedean screw to raise water ( b. c. 287 BC )

After the fall of Rome ( in roughly 476 ), many of the literary approaches and styles invented by the Greeks and Romans fell out of favor in Europe.

The Greeks invented the two main components of watermills, the waterwheel and toothed gearing, and were, along with the Romans, the first to operate undershot, overshot and breastshot waterwheel mills.

Two further, specifically Roman orders of architecture have their characteristic capitals, the sturdy and primitive Tuscan capitals, typically used in military buildings, similar to Greek Doric, but with fewer small moldings in its profile, and the invented Composite capitals not even mentioned by Vitruvius, which combined Ionic volutes and Corinthian acanthus capitals, in an order that was otherwise quite similar in proportions to the Corinthian, itself an order that Romans employed much more often than Greeks.

It is believed that either Romans or the Celts before them, invented a simple mechanical reaper that cut the ears without the straw and was pushed by oxen ( Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia XVIII, 296 ).

Thought to have been invented by the Romans, the triumphal arch was used to commemorate victorious generals or significant public events such as the founding of new colonies, the construction of a road or bridge, the death of a member of the imperial family or the accession of a new emperor.

Venus Verticordia was invented in 220 BC, during the last tears of Rome's Punic Wars, in response to advice from a Sibylline oracle, when a series of prodigies was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans of every category and class, including several men and three Vestal Virgins.

Perhaps the most famous of the Hellenistic-era warships, because of its extensive use by the Carthaginians and Romans, the quinquereme (;, pentērēs ) was invented by Dionysius I of Syracuse ( r. 405 – 367 BC ) in 399 BC as part of a major naval armament program directed against the Carthaginians.

The Zealots held the fortress even after the Romans invented new types of siege engines.

Though concrete had been invented a thousand years earlier in the Near East, the Romans extended its use from fortifications to their most impressive buildings and monuments, capitalizing on the material ’ s strength and low cost.

It is believed that either Romans or the Celts before them, invented the mechanical reaper that cut the ears without the straw and was pushed by oxen.

Widely used by the ancient Romans the formula for making it was lost and a new one only invented in the 18th century.

Leading Romans built magnificent seaside villas at Antium.

The emperor Hadrian had a villa at Tibur ( Tivoli ), in an area that was popular with Romans of rank.

Even Scipio Africanus, who refused to reply to the charge, saying only, " Romans, this is the day on which I conquered Hannibal ," and was absolved by acclamation, found it necessary to retire, self-banished, to his villa at Liternum.

The Romans left the ruins from a Roman villa rustica as a legacy.

There is evidence that the Romans were based in Mumbles in a villa on the site of the present All Saints Church in Oystermouth.

Whitton may have originated at the time the Romans crossed the Humber northward in 71 AD ; first as a military camp and then later as a Roman villa, overlooking the river, with its temple a few yards to the east, where the Church now stands.

The wealthiest Romans built extensive villa gardens with water features, topiary and cultivated roses and shaded arcades.

The Romans otherwise ignored Nailsea from 40 – 400 AD, but left a small villa near Jacklands Bridge.

Under the empire it was combined with the mysterious Laurentum, where many wealthy Romans maintained a winter villa, to become Laurolavinium.

A reconstructed Roman villa was opened to the public on 19 February 2011 to give visitors an insight into Roman building techniques and how the Romans lived.

In rural settings a wealthy Roman could surround a villa with terraced gardens ; within the city Romans created their gardens inside the domus.

The Romans occupied Calleva Atrebatum and built a walled city known today as Silchester, and Bramley is on the Chichester to Silchester Way Roman road and has remains of a Romano-British villa nearby.

Later we hear from the poet Claudian that Marcomer was arrested by Romans and banned to a villa in Tuscany.

Later, Romans live in Chomérac ( tegulae, villa and Roman road were found in the village ).

The Romans had a fortress and a civilian settlement in the area ( remains of a Roman villa were famously found here by Hayman Rooke in the 1780s ).

In the 3rd century AD, the Romans constructed a villa called La Torecilla, whose ruins are still visible on the banks of the Manzanares River.

The Romans are known to have settled here in the 1st century AD: a substantial villa has been excavated in Sandlands Road, and is believed to have been inhabited until around 400 AD.

The Quarries were worked extensively in Romans times and the villa and bathhouse could well have belonged to the quarry owner.

It may relate either to a now-lost Roman villa in the area, or alternatively to sea defences or a causeway built by the Romans.

It eventually included a Palladian bridge ( 1738 ); a Temple of Venus ( 1731 ), in the form of a Palladian villa ; A Temple of Ancient Virtues ( 1737 ), with statues of famous Greeks and Romans ; a Temple of British Worthies ( 1734 – 1735 ), with statues of British heroes ; and a Temple of Modern Virtues, which was deliberately left in ruins, which contained a headless statue of Robert Walpole, Cobham's political rival.

The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16.

The meter-high circumvallation wall that the Romans built around Masada can be seen, together with eleven barracks for the Roman soldiers just outside this wall.

It is believed to have fallen due to a peace party opening a small door in the wall to negotiate a peace, but the Romans charged through the door and took the city, killing Archimedes in the process.

Moreover, the road was blocked by a trench, and, towards the forest, an earthen wall had been built along the roadside, permitting the Germanic tribesmen to attack the Romans from cover.

The Romans made a desperate attempt to storm the wall, but failed, and the highest-ranking officer next to Varus, Legatus Numonius Vala, abandoned the troops by riding off with the cavalry ; however, he too was overtaken by the Germanic cavalry and killed, according to Velleius Paterculus.

In the late 3rd century, to defend against attack from barbarians, the Romans built around the city an earth bank and a wall with seven gates, which enclosed an area of.

Shopping lists are known to be used by Romans as one was discovered by Hadrian's wall dated back to 75 – 125 AD and written for a soldier.

The Carthaginians created a wall and began destroying the entrapped Romans.

Edward Hyams of Oxted Viticultural Research Station was alerted to a strange vine growing against a cottage wall in Wrotham in Kent, which local lore said was descended from vines brought over by the Romans.

Some time between 190 and 225, the Romans built the London Wall, a defensive wall around the landward side of the city.

In the spring of 146 BC the Romans broke through the city wall but they were hard – pressed to take the city.

Water Rails have been eaten by humans for thousands of years ; they were eaten by the Romans, and depicted in wall paintings at Pompeii, and consumption continued through the Middle Ages to modern times.

London Wall was the defensive wall first built by the Romans around Londinium, their strategically important port town on the River Thames in what is now the United Kingdom, and subsequently maintained until the 18th century.

The Romans began by attacking the weakest spot: the third wall.

It was later the capital of the Achaean League from 281 BC until the annexation with the Roman Empire in 146 BC, after the fall of Greece, the Romans removed the wall of the city and Aigio lost its importance.

The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16.

It is conjectured that there was no effective wall around the larger city prior to the siege because Rome's earlier Etruscan rulers may have forced the Romans to dismantle significant defences.

The Romans have been credited with the first two attempts at building a sea wall.

Silchester is most notable for the archaeological site and Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which was first occupied by the Romans in about AD 45 and includes what is considered the best-preserved Roman wall in Great Britain.

The old harbour wall, built by the Romans is largely intact.

Roman artillery was very efficient at that time, and during a siege the Romans would attack the weakest area of their enemy ’ s defenses and attempt to breach the wall ( s ) there.

The citizens of Exeter had been able to withstand William's siege thanks to the city wall, which had been first built by the Romans and extensively repaired in around 928 by King Athelstan.

* In " Caesarion ", an episode of the television series Rome ( 2005 – 07 ), in which Pothinus is portrayed by actor Tony Guilfoyle, he is beheaded by the Romans and his head is placed on a spike on the outer wall of the palace