From the roads we travel to the languages we speak, the influence of Ancient Rome remains deeply embedded in modern society.
More than 1,500 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its legacy continues to shape how we communicate, build and understand the world.
On Beyond Education, host Greg Campitelli explores the enduring influence of the Roman Empire with Stephen Campitelli, a linguistics expert from the University of Melbourne and passionate student of Roman history.
While Ancient Rome is often remembered for its gladiators, military conquests and extraordinary architecture, its contributions extend far beyond the battlefield. Roman engineering, infrastructure and language have helped lay the foundations for many aspects of modern civilisation.
Roman roads, for example, were built to connect territories across an enormous empire, with many routes influencing the development of modern European transport networks.
Its engineering achievements also included sophisticated aqueducts, monumental structures such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon, and heating systems that demonstrated remarkable technical understanding.
Greg and Stephen Campitelli at the Ticker Studio
The empire’s influence is equally evident in the languages spoken today.
French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian are all Romance languages, descended from Latin.
Even English retains countless Latin expressions and words, from agenda and caveat to familiar academic abbreviations such as e.g. and i.e.
The discussion also explores how language evolves over time, examining the original meanings of words such as sinister, decimate and dictator, and how their modern interpretations differ from their Roman origins.
Even the name Julius Caesar carries a linguistic legacy, with its original Latin pronunciation influencing titles such as Kaiser and Tsar.
For educators, the story of Rome offers more than an opportunity to revisit ancient history.
It provides a fascinating example of how knowledge, language, engineering and cultural ideas can survive across generations and continue influencing the modern world.
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