The legacy of the Roman Empire refers to the set of cultural values, religious beliefs, as well as technological and other achievements of Ancient Rome which were passed on after the demise of the empire itself and continued to shape other civilizations, a process which continues to this day.

Language
Main article: Romance languages

Romance languages in the world:
Blue – French; Green – Spanish; Orange – Portuguese; Yellow – Italian; Red – RomanianLatin was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire, while particularly in the east indigenous languages such as Greek and Aramaic language continued to be in use. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of the Middle Ages, not in the least because it became the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. In Western Europe, Latin retained its elevated status as main method of communication for the learnt classes throughout the medieval period well into the Renaissance and the Baroque; it was finally supplanted by the rise of the vulgar languages in the 17th and 18th century[citation needed], which in many cases were derived from classical Latin (see History of Latin). Works which made a revolutionary impact on science, such as Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) were composed in Latin. The modern international Binomial nomenclature holds to this day that the scientific name of each species is classified by a Latin name.

Today, the Romance languages, which comprise all languages that descended from Latin, is spoken by more than 600 million[citation needed] native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Additionally, the vocabulary of Germanic languages like German or English contains a large percentage of Latin words. In case of the latter, the proportion of words with a Latin origin is estimated to be around 30%.[1]


[edit] Script
Main article: Latin Alphabet

Latin alphabet world distributionToday, the Latin Alphabet, the script spread by the Roman Empire to most of Europe, and created from the ancient Greek alphabet, is the most far-spread and commonly used script in the world. Spread by various colonies, trade routes, and political powers, the alphabet has continued to grow in strength, although used variantly.


[edit] Administrative system

[edit] Religion
Main article: Roman Catholicism
Since emperor Theodosius (378-392 AD), the official state religion of the Roman Empire was Roman Catholicism. Spread to areas that were previously dominated by other schools of Christianity, it became the prominent religion in Europe. From there, it spread throughout the world, and maintained its strength in Latin Europe and Latin America, today being the largest Christian Church, and whose adherents cover one sixth of the world's population.


[edit] Roman law

[edit] Inventions
The Romans were masters of adaptive innovation and took the concepts, developments and inventions of others to new levels of use and functionality.

Many Roman innovations therefore, were improved versions of other peoples inventions and ranged from Military organisation, weapon improvements, armour, siege technology, naval innovation, architecture, medical instruments, irrigation, civil planning, construction, agriculture and many more areas of civic, governmental, military and engineering development.

That said, the Romans also developed a huge array of new technologies and innovations. Many came from common themes but were vastly superior to what had come before, whilst others were totally new inventions developed by and for the needs of Empire and the Roman way of life.

Some of the more famous examples are the Roman Aqueducts (some of which are still in use today), Roman roads, Water Powered Milling Machines, Thermal Heating Systems (as employed in Roman Baths) Sewage and Pipe systems and the invention and widespread use of Concrete.

Metallurgy and Glass Work (including the first widespread use of Glass Windows) and a wealth of architectural innovations including High Rise buildings, Dome construction, Bridgeworks and Floor construction (seen in the functionality of the Colosseum's arena and the underlying rooms/areas beneath it) are other examples of Roman innovation and genius.

Military inventiveness was widespread and ranged from tactical/strategic innovations, new methodologies in training, discipline and field medicine as well as inventions in all aspects of weaponry, from armor and shielding to siege engines and missile technology, to name but a few.

This combination of new methodologies, technical innovation and creative invention in the Military gave Rome the edge against its adversaries for half a Millennium and with it, the ability to create an Empire the likes of which the World had never seen before and in the succeeding centuries, many armies of many nations emulated, used or took over many of the innovations Rome developed in the military field.

The full gamut of Roman Invention and Innovation cannot possibly be fully described here and the above is just a modest sample of just a few of the very many things that Rome developed during its time of hegemony in the Ancient World and which remain part of its extraordinary legacy which still affects us to this day.


[edit] Architecture
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Roman Architecture has influenced the way buildings are constructed even today. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court building is based on a Roman temple using similar proportions and style.

The use of an arch has influenced the way space was conceived.

The influence of modern stadiums can also be traced back to the Romans with the Colosseum. The Colosseum could accommodate up to fifty thousand spectators and was designed to filter people in and out in record time. The use of ticket numbers that corresponded to a number to a gate was also used.


[edit] Imperial idea
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See also: Translatio imperii

Coat of arms of the last imperial dynasty of the Eastern Roman Empire.The Roman line continued uninterrupted to rule the Eastern Roman Empire. In a slow process, the Roman state internally transformed to the Byzantine Empire, whose main characteristics were Roman concept of state, Greek culture and language and Christian faith. The Byzantines themselves never ceased to refer to themselves as Romans (Rhomaioi) and to their state as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans (in Greek Βασιλεία των Ῥωμαίων, Basileía ton Rhōmaíōn) or Romania (Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía). Likewise, they were called Rûm (Rome) by their eastern enemies to the point that competing neighbours even acquired its name, such as the Sultanate of Rûm.

The designation of the Empire as "Byzantine" is a retrospective idea: it began only in 1557, a century after the fall of Constantinople, when German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ By­zantinæ, a collection of Byzantine sources. The term did not come in general use in the Western world before the 19th century[citation needed] , when modern Greece was born. The end of the continuous tradition of the Roman Empire is open to debate: the final point was the capture of Constantinople in 1453 CE, while some[citation needed] place it at the reforms of Heraclius in 610 CE, or the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204.

In Western Europe, the Roman concept of state was continued for almost a millennium by the Holy Roman Empire whose emperors, mostly of German tongue, viewed themselves as the legitimate successors to the ancient imperial tradition (King of the Romans) and Rome as the capital of its empire. The Holy Roman empire was dissolved in 1806 due to pressure by Napoleon I.

In Eastern Europe, the Russian czars Czar (derived from Caesar) adopted the idea of Moscow and Russia being a Third Rome. Sentiments[citation needed] of being the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire began during the reign of Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow who had married Sophia Paleologue, the niece of Constantine XI, the last Eastern Roman Emperor. Being the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought[who?] of in Russia as succeeding the Byzantine Emperor as the rightful rulers of the (Christian) world. There were also competing Bulgarian and Ottoman claims for legal succession of the Roman Empire.

In a modern context, the idea of the continuity of Rome is still vigorous: the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the European Union and first international organisation to be based on supranationalism, was deliberately[citation needed] signed in Rome just as the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe almost 50 years later (2004).