title: Black or White

text: "Black or White" reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 on December 7, 1991, making it the fastest US chart topper since the Beatles' "Get Back". It stayed there for a total of seven weeks. Jackson became the first artist to have number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s with the song. It is certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Around the world, "Black or White" hit number one in 20 countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the Eurochart Hot 100. It was the best-selling single worldwide of 1992.


title: Black or White

text: The music video for "Black or White" premiered on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox, which gave them their highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time, as well as the BBC's "Top of the Pops" in the UK on November 14, 1991. The video was directed by John Landis, who previously directed "Thriller". It was co-choreographed by Jackson and Vincent Paterson. It premiered simultaneously in 27 countries, with an audience of 500 million viewers, the most ever for a music video.


title: Black or White

text: "Black or White" was honored with the first "Billboard" No. 1 World Single. The music video of the song appears on the video albums: "" (long version), "Video Greatest Hits – HIStory" (long version, without graffiti on VHS version but with graffiti on DVD version), "Number Ones" (short version), and "Michael Jackson's Vision" (long version without graffiti). In 2003, "Q" magazine ranked "Black or White" at number 84 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever".


title: Black or White

text: "Black or White" was written and recorded over 18 months starting in early 1989. Michael Jackson hired producer Bill Bottrell to help him craft a new sound, one that would shift his style away from his earlier work with Quincy Jones. Bottrell had already worked with Jackson on "Victory" (1984) and "Bad" (1987), the latter collaboration performed at Hayvenhurst, Jackson's estate in Encino, California. Jackson invited Bottrell to join him producing and composing songs at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles in late 1988, but none of the material from several weeks of sessions there made it to the album. In early 1989, the project was moved to Westlake Audio in West Hollywood, and one of the first things Jackson did was to hum the main riff of "Black or White" to Bottrell, who interpreted the tune on guitar, using a Kramer American Series electric guitar plugged into a Mesa Boogie amplifier, miked with a Beyerdynamic M 160. Jackson also suggested the song's rhythm with his voice, and Bottrell programmed this rhythm into an E-mu Systems drum machine. Bottrell augmented the pattern with samples from an Emulator III. His Atari computer ran a MIDI editing program by Hybrid Arts; Bottrell and Brad Buxer used the program to tweak the percussion timings to give more of a swing feel. Jackson recorded his main and backing vocals into a Neumann U47 microphone. Bottrell said that throughout the next 18 months of changes to the song, Jackson's initial scratch vocal was left in place, and it appears on the final version.


title: Black or White

text: After two days of work, the song had vocals, drum sounds and electric guitar. Bottrell added an acoustic guitar part using a Gibson LG-2 built in the 1940s; a robust model with a big country sound reminiscent of Gene Vincent's classic rockabilly style. Jackson became busy working on other projects, and "Black or White" languished for a few months. The song was picked up again when Bottrell's part of the album project moved to Record One in Sherman Oaks. Bottrell and Jackson felt that the song had two big gaps in the middle, and they determined to fill them. Jackson wanted a heavy metal guitar to fill one of the gaps, so he sang the part he wanted, including chord arpeggiations, to session player Tim Pierce who performed it on a Les Paul instrument plugged into a Marshall stack. Michael Boddicker added the sound of a high-speed guitar by using a Roland sequencer, assisted by Kevin Gilbert. Bottrell blended two different bass sounds, primarily Bryan Loren playing a Moog keyboard bass, augmented by Terry Jackson playing an electric bass guitar. (Terry Jackson was unrelated to Michael Jackson. Terry was discovered by Thomas Dolby, and played bass in 1988 on "Aliens Ate My Buick", co-produced by Bottrell.) Bottrell replaced some of the E-mu default rhythm samples with live drum samples taken from an Akai machine.


title: Black or White

text: For most of the recording process, Michael Jackson left Bottrell alone to work on various ideas. Bottrell wanted a section of rapping to fill the remaining gap, and he suggested LL Cool J or Heavy D, but these proposals did not work out. Bottrell said he had been trying to get someone to write a rap verse for eight months when he was suddenly inspired to write it himself. He recorded Loren performing the rap, but Loren was not at ease in the role. Bottrell recorded it himself several times, editing one of these takes to use as a demonstration for Jackson. Upon hearing the take, Jackson wanted it for the final version. Bottrell pleaded again that they should get a "real rapper", but Jackson insisted on Bottrell's take.


title: Black or White

text: The final polishing of the song involved Bottrell filling a keyboard with various sampled electric guitar notes, and bringing his friend Jasun Martz to play it, taking advantage of Martz's fresh ears and rock sensibility. For the final mix, Bottrell was frustrated by the Solid State Logic (SSL) mixer at Larrabee Sound Studios, which sounded good on the heavy metal guitar, but made the classic guitars seem "too cold and clinical". He ended up using the Neve mixer at Record One to mix the majority of the song, and the SSL for the rap and heavy metal sections. Original tracks were recorded on two Studer 24-track 2-inch analog tape machines, and a compilation of these was laid down on a Mitsubishi ProDigi 32-track digital audio tape deck.


title: Black or White

text: The song has elements of dance, hip hop and hard rock music such as Bill Bottrell's guitars and Jackson's vocal style. This song is played in the key of E major, and towards the end is modulated to F major and again to A major, with Jackson's vocal spanning from E to E. Its tempo is measured at 115 BPM.


title: Black or White

text: The song's main riff, played by Bill Bottrell, is often incorrectly attributed to Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Slash's guitar playing is actually heard in the skit that precedes the album version of the song and he did play the main riff during "live" performances of the song.


title: Black or White

text: "Black or White" was picked as the first single from the album "Dangerous". An alternate version was first heard by Sony executives on a plane trip to Neverland, as the third track of the promotional CD acetate. It began to be promoted on radio stations the first week of November 1991 in New York and Los Angeles. "Black or White" was officially released one week later, on November 5, 1991.


title: Black or White

text: To prepare the audience for the special occasion of the televised premiere of the "Black or White" video, Epic records released the song (without the accompanying images) to radio stations just two days in advance. In a period of 24 hours, "Black or White", described by the record company as "a rock 'n' roll dance song about racial harmony", had been added to the playlists of 96 percent of 237 of the United States' Top 40 radio stations.


title: Black or White

text: "Black or White" entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 35. A week later it shot up to number three and in its third week, December 7, 1991, it ascended to number one, making it the fastest chart topper since the Beatles' "Get Back", which also won the Hot 100 in just three weeks in 1969 and also his twelfth number-one entry. It closed the year at number one, and remained at the top of the singles chart into 1992 for a total of seven weeks, making Michael Jackson the first artist to have number one popular hits in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In the UK, the single became the first single by an American to go into the singles chart at number one since 1960, when "It's Now or Never" by Elvis Presley did in the same manner. Around the world, "Black or White" hit number one in 20 countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the Eurochart Hot 100, number two in Germany and Austria and number three in the Netherlands. Previously, "Billie Jean" and "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" had each been number one in 9 countries. The single was certified platinum in the US, selling over one million copies and became the second-best-selling single of the year. As of August 2018 the song further certified two-time platinum for the digital sales.


title: Black or White

text: Reviews of the song were generally favorable. Chris Lacy from Albumism stated that it "merges classic rock with soulful crooning in a call for racial unity." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic highlighted the song. Larry Flick from "Billboard" described it as a "surprisingly sparse, but instantly gratifying pop/rocker that reveals his grittiest and most affecting performance in years." He noted further that the guitar appearance by Slash and rap cameo by Bill Bottrell is "purely incidental". Randy Clark and Bryan DeVaney from "Cashbox" stated, "The unmistakeable voice and style are street-hip and slick, with a catchy melody and some untraditional acoustic guitar work. There is just a hint of both George Michael and Prince in the production." David Browne from "Entertainment Weekly" praised the song, adding, "He still knows how to fashion a hook that will take up permanent residence in your brain (away from its video, "Black or White" is spare and effortless)" Alan Jones from "Music Week" commented, "A bit of patchwork quilt, and something of a disappointment on first hearing, but ultimately it reveals itself as a killer, adding up to far more than sum of its parts. This will go all the way." A reviewer from "People" magazine stated that "the simple, spry rock riffs" that power the song is "surprisingly effective". "Rolling Stone"s Alan Light in his "Dangerous" review, compared the song unfavourably to "Beat It": "Neither this slow-burn solo nor the Stones-derived riff on 'Black or White' offers the catharsis of Eddie Van Halen's blazing break on 'Beat It'". The Pazz & Jop critics' poll ranked "Black or White" at number 19. In 1992, Larry Flick commented on the remixes of the song, "Thanks to deft postproduction by David Cole and Robert Clivillés, the cut kicks a potent groove that nicely complements the original tune's kinetic pop/rock nature."


title: Black or White

text: The Clivillés & Cole remixes for "Black or White", released as a promotional single in 1992, also charted on many European countries. In the UK, it reached number 14, and in Ireland, number 11. The promotional single also surprisingly peaked at number 18 in Australia. Despite the favourable European response to this remix, it was never included on a Michael Jackson album or compilation, except on the third disc of the French & UK versions of Jackson's greatest hits album "King of Pop".


title: Black or White

text: The music video for "Black or White" was directed by John Landis, who previously directed the "Thriller" music video (1983). It was filmed from late September to early October 1991. It was choreographed by Jackson and Vincent Paterson. It contains a Dolby Surround sound mix.


title: Black or White

text: Along with Jackson, the video features Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, and George Wendt pictured as a family unit in the opening scene, which the "Los Angeles Times" criticized as "almost exactly a replay" of the 1984 Twisted Sister video for "We're Not Gonna Take It". The dance scene with the Native Americans shown in the video was filmed at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park in Agua Dulce, California. The Native American dancers were organized by Jackson's schoolfriend Joanelle Romero, founder of the Red Nation International Film Festival, featuring her daughter Sage as child dancer. The Native American dancers used their own traditional wardrobe and became the first Native Americans in a non-Native American music video. The production enabled Romero to become an established producer. The scene where Michael Jackson and a dancer appear on the freeway was filmed at 11779 Sheldon Street in Sun Valley, Los Angeles. This morphing effect had previously been used only in films such as "Willow" and "". The morphing visual effects were created by Pacific Data Images.


title: Black or White

text: The video premiered simultaneously in 27 countries, with an audience of 500 million viewers, the most ever for a music video. It premiered on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time) as well as the BBC's "Top of the Pops" in the UK on November 14, 1991.


title: Black or White

text: The video begins with a boy (Macaulay Culkin) dancing to rock music in his bedroom. His father (George Wendt) yells at him to stop. The boy retaliates by playing an electric guitar loudly enough to fire his father into space, to finally landing in Africa.


title: Black or White

text: Jackson performs "Black or White" with dancers from different cultures, including African Zulu hunters, traditional Thai dancers, Plains Native Americans, a Sri Lankan Tamil Odissi dancer and Hopak dancers. Jackson walks defiantly through visual collages of fire (declaring "I ain't scared of no sheets; I ain't scared of nobody"), referring to KKK torch ceremonies. Culkin and other children (including Michael's niece Brandi; Wade Robson; and Mark Pugh and David Shelton of Another Bad Creation) perform the rap sequence. The group states, "I'm not gonna spend my life being a color." Jackson performs atop the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by other world landmarks. At the end of the video, people of different ethnicities and nationalities dance and morph into one another. A young Tyra Banks can be seen in this sequence.


title: Black or White

text: In the extended version of the music video, after the song, a black panther walks out of the studio into an urban street and transforms into Jackson, who dances furiously and destroys a glass beer bottle, a building window, and a parked car. He tears off his shirt and screams with grand drama as the hotel neon sign falls. After his damage and rampage, he re-emerges as a panther. Finally, Bart Simpson from "The Simpsons" jams to the song while watching it on the TV. Homer yells at him to "Turn off that noise!" Bart replies, "Chill out, Homeboy." Then, Homer angrily turns the TV off. The static then cuts to a close-up of Jackson with the tagline "prejudice is ignorance".


title: Black or White

text: Controversy was generated concerning the last four minutes of the original music video. A black panther walks out of the studio and then morphs into Jackson. Then he walks outside to perform some of his most physically slick dance moves, in a similar way to "Billie Jean". This part contained sexually suggestive scenes when Jackson starts to grab his crotch, and then zips his pants up. In the original version, Jackson is seen smashing windows, destroying a car with his arm and a crowbar, destroying windows with a steering wheel and a trash can, and causing an inn (called the "Royal Arms Hotel") to explode.


title: Black or White

text: Jackson was sharply criticized for the final scene, especially by "Entertainment Weekly" which ran a featured article titled "Michael Jackson's Video Nightmare". Jackson asked his fans for forgiveness, saying that the violent and suggestive behavior had been a dance-style interpretation of the animalistic instincts of a panther. Jackson ordered the removal of the video's final scenes from subsequent broadcast. In 2001, Jackson re-issued the video with the final scenes restored in a digitally altered form: the glass windows smashed are now marred with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti displaying epithets like "Nigger" (styled as NI66eR 6O HOMe) and "Wetbacks", as well as a message reading "Hitler Lives" and a storefront door spray-painted with "KKK Rules", referring to the Ku Klux Klan. These alterations gave a new reasoning to Jackson's destruction of property.


title: Black or White

text: In 1991, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Black or White" titled "Snack All Night", which was never released. Although Jackson was a long-time supporter of Yankovic's work and had approved past parodies, he told Yankovic that he was reluctant to approve a parody of "Black or White" because of the message of the song. Yankovic believes that Jackson's rejection of the parody was ultimately for the best, because he was unsatisfied with the quality of the song and its scrapping left room on his next album for "Smells Like Nirvana", one of his biggest hits. As with other rejected parodies, Yankovic has performed "Snack All Night" during his concerts.


title: Black or White

text: The music video, particularly the panther segment, have been referenced or parodied by television shows and artists, notably by "Saturday Night Live" and "In Living Color". Comedian Chris Rock joked that he was angry because Jackson had smashed his car. In 1991, English rock band Genesis parodied the "Black or White" video in the ending of their video for "I Can't Dance", in which member Phil Collins imitates Michael Jackson's "panther" fit in front of a stark white background. In 2012, the television show "Glee" covered the song in the episode "Michael", it features primary voices from Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Amber Riley and Naya Rivera, and backing vocals from the rest of the cast. Jenna Ushkowitz and Darren Criss are not featured in the song or the performance. This cover debuted and peaked at number 64 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, number 42 at Billboard Digital Songs, and number 69 at Billboard Canadian Hot 100 chart at the week of February 18, 2012.


title: Catapult

text: A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload. Most convert tension or torsion energy that was more slowly and manually built up within the device before release, via springs, bows, twisted rope, elastic, or any of numerous other materials and mechanisms.


title: Catapult

text: In use since ancient times, the catapult has proven to be one of the most persistently effective mechanisms in warfare. In modern times the term can apply to devices ranging from a simple hand-held implement (also called a "slingshot") to a mechanism for launching aircraft from a ship.


title: Catapult

text: The earliest catapults date to at least the 7th century BC, with King Uzziah, of Judah, recorded as equipping the walls of Jerusalem with machines that shot "great stones". Catapults are mentioned in Yajurveda under the name "Jyah" in chapter 30, verse 7. In the 5th century BC the mangonel appeared in ancient China, a type of traction trebuchet and catapult. Early uses were also attributed to Ajatashatru of Magadha in his, 5th century BC, war against the Licchavis. Greek catapults were invented in the early 4th century BC, being attested by Diodorus Siculus as part of the equipment of a Greek army in 399 BC, and subsequently used at the siege of Motya in 397 BC.


title: Catapult

text: The word 'catapult' comes from the Latin 'catapulta', which in turn comes from the Greek ("katapeltēs"), itself from κατά ("kata"), "downwards" and πάλλω ("pallō"), "to toss, to hurl". Catapults were invented by the ancient Greeks and in ancient India where they were used by the Magadhan Emperor Ajatashatru around the early to mid 5th century BC.


title: Catapult

text: The catapult and crossbow in Greece are closely intertwined. Primitive catapults were essentially "the product of relatively straightforward attempts to increase the range and penetrating power of missiles by strengthening the bow which propelled them". The historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), described the invention of a mechanical arrow-firing catapult ("katapeltikon") by a Greek task force in 399 BC. The weapon was soon after employed against Motya (397 BC), a key Carthaginian stronghold in Sicily. Diodorus is assumed to have drawn his description from the highly rated history of Philistus, a contemporary of the events then. The introduction of crossbows however, can be dated further back: according to the inventor Hero of Alexandria (fl. 1st century AD), who referred to the now lost works of the 3rd-century BC engineer Ctesibius, this weapon was inspired by an earlier foot-held crossbow, called the "gastraphetes", which could store more energy than the Greek bows. A detailed description of the "gastraphetes", or the "belly-bow", along with a watercolor drawing, is found in Heron's technical treatise "Belopoeica".


title: Catapult

text: A third Greek author, Biton (fl. 2nd century BC), whose reliability has been positively reevaluated by recent scholarship, described two advanced forms of the "gastraphetes", which he credits to Zopyros, an engineer from southern Italy. Zopyrus has been plausibly equated with a Pythagorean of that name who seems to have flourished in the late 5th century BC. He probably designed his bow-machines on the occasion of the sieges of Cumae and Milet between 421 BC and 401 BC. The bows of these machines already featured a winched pull back system and could apparently throw two missiles at once.


title: Catapult

text: Philo of Byzantium provides probably the most detailed account on the establishment of a theory of belopoietics ("belos" = "projectile"; "poietike" = "(art) of making") circa 200 BC. The central principle to this theory was that "all parts of a catapult, including the weight or length of the projectile, were proportional to the size of the torsion springs". This kind of innovation is indicative of the increasing rate at which geometry and physics were being assimilated into military enterprises.


title: Catapult

text: From the mid-4th century BC onwards, evidence of the Greek use of arrow-shooting machines becomes more dense and varied: arrow firing machines ("katapaltai") are briefly mentioned by Aeneas Tacticus in his treatise on siegecraft written around 350 BC. An extant inscription from the Athenian arsenal, dated between 338 and 326 BC, lists a number of stored catapults with shooting bolts of varying size and springs of sinews. The later entry is particularly noteworthy as it constitutes the first clear evidence for the switch to torsion catapults, which are more powerful than the more-flexible crossbows and which came to dominate Greek and Roman artillery design thereafter. This move to torsion springs was likely spurred by the engineers of Philip II of Macedonia. Another Athenian inventory from 330 to 329 BC includes catapult bolts with heads and flights. As the use of catapults became more commonplace, so did the training required to operate them. Many Greek children were instructed in catapult usage, as evidenced by "a 3rd Century B.C. inscription from the island of Ceos in the Cyclades [regulating] catapult shooting competitions for the young". Arrow firing machines in action are reported from Philip II's siege of Perinth (Thrace) in 340 BC. At the same time, Greek fortifications began to feature high towers with shuttered windows in the top, which could have been used to house anti-personnel arrow shooters, as in Aigosthena. Projectiles included both arrows and (later) stones that were sometimes lit on fire. Onomarchus of Phocis first used catapults on the battlefield against Philip II of Macedon. Philip's son, Alexander the Great, was the next commander in recorded history to make such use of catapults on the battlefield as well as to use them during sieges.


title: Catapult

text: The Romans started to use catapults as arms for their wars against Syracuse, Macedon, Sparta and Aetolia (3rd and 2nd centuries BC). The Roman machine known as an arcuballista was similar to a large crossbow. Later the Romans used ballista catapults on their warships.


title: Catapult

text: Castles and fortified walled cities were common during this period and catapults were used as siege weapons against them. As well as their use in attempts to breach walls, incendiary missiles, or diseased carcasses or garbage could be catapulted over the walls.


title: Catapult

text: Defensive techniques in the Middle Ages progressed to a point that rendered catapults largely ineffective. The Viking siege of Paris (885–6 A.D.) "saw the employment by both sides of virtually every instrument of siege craft known to the classical world, including a variety of catapults", to little effect, resulting in failure.


title: Catapult

text: The last large scale military use of catapults was during the trench warfare of World War I. During the early stages of the war, catapults were used to throw hand grenades across no man's land into enemy trenches. They were eventually replaced by small mortars.


title: Catapult

text: In the 1840s the invention of vulcanized rubber allowed the making of small hand-held catapults, either improvised from Y-shaped sticks or manufactured for sale; both were popular with children and teenagers. These devices were also known as slingshots in the USA.


title: Catapult

text: Special variants called aircraft catapults are used to launch planes from land bases and sea carriers when the takeoff runway is too short for a powered takeoff or simply impractical to extend. Ships also use them to launch torpedoes and deploy bombs against submarines. Small catapults, referred to as "traps", are still widely used to launch clay targets into the air in the sport of clay pigeon shooting.


title: Catapult

text: In the 1990s and into the early 2000s, a powerful catapult, a trebuchet, was used by thrill-seekers first on private property and in 2001–2002 at Middlemoor Water Park, Somerset, England, to experience being catapulted through the air for . The practice has been discontinued due to a fatality at the Water Park. There had been an injury when the trebuchet was in use on private property. Injury and death occurred when those two participants failed to land onto the safety net. The operators of the trebuchet were tried, but found not guilty of manslaughter, though the jury noted that the fatality might have been avoided had the operators "imposed stricter safety measures." Human cannonball circus acts use a catapult launch mechanism, rather than gunpowder, and are risky ventures for the human cannonballs.


title: Catapult

text: Early launched roller coasters used a catapult system powered by a diesel engine or a dropped weight to acquire their momentum, such as Shuttle Loop installations between 1977 and 1978. The catapult system for roller coasters has been replaced by flywheels and later linear motors.


title: Catapult

text: "Pumpkin chunking" is another widely popularized use, in which people compete to see who can launch a pumpkin the farthest by mechanical means (although the world record is held by a pneumatic air cannon).


title: Catapult

text: In January 2011, a homemade catapult was discovered that was used to smuggle cannabis into the United States from Mexico. The machine was found 20 feet from the border fence with bales of cannabis ready to launch.


title: Security hacker

text: A security hacker is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge, recreation, or evaluation of a system weaknesses to assist in formulating defenses against potential hackers. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the "computer underground".


title: Security hacker

text: Longstanding controversy surrounds the meaning of the term "hacker." In this controversy, computer programmers reclaim the term "hacker", arguing that it refers simply to someone with an advanced understanding of computers and computer networks and that cracker is the more appropriate term for those who break into computers, whether computer criminals (black hats) or computer security experts (white hats). A 2014 article noted that "the black-hat meaning still prevails among the general public".


title: Security hacker

text: The subculture around such hackers is termed network hacker subculture, hacker scene, or computer underground. It initially developed in the context of phreaking during the 1960s and the microcomputer BBS scene of the 1980s. It is implicated with "" and the "alt.2600" newsgroup.


title: Security hacker

text: In 1980, an article in the August issue of "Psychology Today" (with commentary by Philip Zimbardo) used the term "hacker" in its title: "The Hacker Papers." It was an excerpt from a Stanford Bulletin Board discussion on the addictive nature of computer use. In the 1982 film "Tron", Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) describes his intentions to break into ENCOM's computer system, saying "I've been doing a little hacking here." CLU is the software he uses for this. By 1983, hacking in the sense of breaking computer security had already been in use as computer jargon, but there was no public awareness about such activities. However, the release of the film "WarGames" that year, featuring a computer intrusion into NORAD, raised the public belief that computer security hackers (especially teenagers) could be a threat to national security. This concern became real when, in the same year, a gang of teenage hackers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, known as The 414s, broke into computer systems throughout the United States and Canada, including those of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Security Pacific Bank. The case quickly grew media attention, and 17-year-old Neal Patrick emerged as the spokesman for the gang, including a cover story in "Newsweek" entitled "Beware: Hackers at play", with Patrick's photograph on the cover. The "Newsweek" article appears to be the first use of the word "hacker" by the mainstream media in the pejorative sense.


title: Security hacker

text: Pressured by media coverage, congressman Dan Glickman called for an investigation and began work on new laws against computer hacking.


title: Security hacker

text: Neal Patrick testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on September 26, 1983, about the dangers of computer hacking, and six bills concerning computer crime were introduced in the House that year. As a result of these laws against computer criminality, white hat, grey hat and black hat hackers try to distinguish themselves from each other, depending on the legality of their activities. These moral conflicts are expressed in The Mentor's "The Hacker Manifesto", published 1986 in "Phrack".


title: Security hacker

text: Use of the term hacker meaning computer criminal was also advanced by the title "Stalking the Wily Hacker", an article by Clifford Stoll in the May 1988 issue of the "Communications of the ACM". Later that year, the release by Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. of the so-called Morris worm provoked the popular media to spread this usage. The popularity of Stoll's book "The Cuckoo's Egg", published one year later, further entrenched the term in the public's consciousness.


title: Security hacker

text: In computer security, a hacker is someone who focuses on the security mechanisms of computer and network systems. Hackers can include someone who endeavors to strengthen security mechanisms by exploring their weaknesses and also those who seek to access secure, unauthorized information despite security measures. Nevertheless, parts of the subculture see their aim in correcting security problems and use the word in a positive sense. White hat is the name given to ethical computer hackers, who utilize hacking in a helpful way. White hats are becoming a necessary part of the information security field. They operate under a code, which acknowledges that breaking into other people's computers is bad, but that discovering and exploiting security mechanisms and breaking into computers is still an interesting activity that can be done ethically and legally. Accordingly, the term bears strong connotations that are favorable or pejorative, depending on the context.


title: Security hacker

text: Subgroups of the computer underground with different attitudes and motives use different terms to demarcate themselves from each other. These classifications are also used to exclude specific groups with whom they do not agree.


title: Security hacker

text: Eric S. Raymond, author of "The New Hacker's Dictionary", advocates that members of the computer underground should be called crackers. Yet, those people see themselves as hackers and even try to include the views of Raymond in what they see as a wider hacker culture, a view that Raymond has harshly rejected. Instead of a hacker/cracker dichotomy, they emphasize a spectrum of different categories, such as white hat, grey hat, black hat and script kiddie. In contrast to Raymond, they usually reserve the term "cracker" for more malicious activity.


title: Security hacker

text: According to Ralph D. Clifford, a "cracker" or "cracking" is to "gain unauthorized access to a computer in order to commit another crime such as destroying information contained in that system." These subgroups may also be defined by the legal status of their activities.


title: Security hacker

text: A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, either to test their own security system, perform penetration tests or vulnerability assessments for a client, or while working for a security company that makes security software. The term is generally synonymous with ethical hacker, and the EC-Council, among others, have developed certifications, courseware, classes, and online training covering the diverse arena of ethical hacking.


title: Security hacker

text: A black hat hacker is a hacker who "violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain" (Moore, 2005). The term was coined by Richard Stallman, to contrast the maliciousness of a criminal hacker versus the spirit of playfulness and exploration in hacker culture, or the ethos of the white hat hacker who performs hacking duties to identify places to repair or as a means of legitimate employment. Black hat hackers form the stereotypical, illegal hacking groups often portrayed in popular culture, and are "the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal".


title: Security hacker

text: A grey hat hacker lies between a black hat and a white hat hacker, hacking for ideological reasons. A grey hat hacker may surf the Internet and hack into a computer system for the sole purpose of notifying the administrator that their system has a security defect, for example. They may then offer to correct the defect for a fee. Grey hat hackers sometimes find the defect in a system and publish the facts to the world instead of a group of people. Even though grey hat hackers may not necessarily perform hacking for their personal gain, unauthorized access to a system can be considered illegal and unethical.


title: Security hacker

text: A social status among hackers, "elite" is used to describe the most skilled. Newly discovered exploits circulate among these hackers. Elite groups such as Masters of Deception conferred a kind of credibility on their members.


title: Security hacker

text: A script kiddie (also known as a "skid" or "skiddie") is an unskilled hacker who breaks into computer systems by using automated tools written by others (usually by other black hat hackers), hence the term script (i.e. a computer script that automates the hacking) kiddie (i.e. kid, child an individual lacking knowledge and experience, immature), usually with little understanding of the underlying concept.


title: Security hacker

text: A neophyte ("newbie", or "noob") is someone who is new to hacking or phreaking and has almost no knowledge or experience of the workings of technology and hacking.


title: Security hacker

text: A blue hat hacker is someone outside computer security consulting firms who is used to bug-test a system prior to its launch, looking for exploits so they can be closed. Microsoft also uses the term "BlueHat" to represent a series of security briefing events.


title: Security hacker

text: A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to publicize a social, ideological, religious or political message.


title: Security hacker

text: Groups of hackers that carry out organized criminal activities for profit. Modern-day computer hackers have been compared to the privateers of by-gone days. These criminals hold computer systems hostage, demanding large payments from victims to restore access to their own computer systems and data. Furthermore, recent ransomware attacks on industries, including energy, food, and transportation, have been blamed on criminal organizations based in or near a state actor – possibly with the country’s knowledge and approval. Cyber theft and ransomware attacks are now the fastest-growing crimes in the United States. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies facilitate the extortion of huge ransoms from large companies, hospitals and city governments with little or no chance of being caught.


title: Security hacker

text: Hackers can usually be sorted into two types of attacks: mass attacks and targeted attacks. They are sorted into the groups in terms of how they choose their victims and how they act on the attacks.


title: Security hacker

text: In order to do so, there are several recurring tools of the trade and techniques used by computer criminals and security experts.


title: Security hacker

text: A security exploit is a prepared application that takes advantage of a known weakness. Common examples of security exploits are SQL injection, cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery which abuse security holes that may result from substandard programming practice. Other exploits would be able to be used through File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), PHP, SSH, Telnet and some Web pages. These are very common in Web site and Web domain hacking.


title: Security hacker

text: The computer underground has produced its own specialized slang, such as 1337speak. Writing software and performing other activities to support these views is referred to as hacktivism. Some consider illegal cracking ethically justified for these goals; a common form is website defacement. The computer underground is frequently compared to the Wild West. It is common for hackers to use aliases to conceal their identities.


title: Security hacker

text: The computer underground is supported by regular real-world gatherings called hacker conventions or "hacker cons". These events include SummerCon (Summer), DEF CON, HoHoCon (Christmas), ShmooCon (February), BlackHat, Chaos Communication Congress, AthCon, Hacker Halted, and HOPE. Local Hackfest groups organize and compete to develop their skills to send a team to a prominent convention to compete in group pentesting, exploit and forensics on a larger scale. Hacker groups became popular in the early 1980s, providing access to hacking information and resources and a place to learn from other members. Computer bulletin board systems (BBSs), such as the Utopias, provided platforms for information-sharing via dial-up modem. Hackers could also gain credibility by being affiliated with elite groups.


title: Security hacker

text: , more commonly known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, prohibits unauthorized access or damage of "protected computers". "Protected computers" are defined in as:


title: Security hacker

text: The maximum imprisonment or fine for violations of the "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" depends on the severity of the violation and the offender's history of violations under the "Act".


title: Security hacker

text: The FBI has demonstrated its ability to recover ransoms paid in cryptocurrency by victims of cybertheft.


title: Security hacker

text: The most notable hacker-oriented print publications are "Phrack", "Hakin9" and "". While the information contained in hacker magazines and ezines was often outdated by the time they were published, they enhanced their contributors' reputations by documenting their successes.


title: Security hacker

text: Hackers often show an interest in fictional cyberpunk and cyberculture literature and movies. The adoption of fictional pseudonyms, symbols, values and metaphors from these works is very common.


title: Paradise City (film)

text: Paradise City is a 2022 American action film directed by Chuck Russell and written by Russell, Corey Large, and Edward John Drake. It stars John Travolta and Bruce Willis.


title: Paradise City (film)

text: When bounty hunter Ian Swan (Bruce Willis) is shot and presumed dead after disappearing in Maui waters, Swan's son, Ryan (Blake Jenner), his ex-partner (Stephen Dorff), and a local detective (Praya Lundberg) set out to find his killers. After being threatened by a ruthless power broker (John Travolta), it appears Ryan and his team are out of options — until an excursion to the closely guarded island community of Paradise City unites them with an unforeseen ally.


title: Paradise City (film)

text: In 2006, co-writer and producer Corey Large came up with the idea to reunite actors Bruce Willis and John Travolta, who both starred in "Pulp Fiction" (1994). "Paradise City" was announced fifteen years later in May 2021. Filming began on May 17, 2021, in Maui, Hawaii, and wrapped after three weeks. Maui County Film Commissioner Tracy Bennett said, "Usually on a big action movie like ["Paradise City"], it takes about three months of prep — and they did it in two weeks. There were some restrictions on this one because of the short notice where they could not film exactly where they wanted to or what they wanted to so they were constantly re-writing the script." Stephen Dorff and Blake Jenner were announced to star in June. "Paradise City" is one of the last films to star Willis, who retired from acting because he was diagnosed with aphasia.


title: Paradise City (film)

text: On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Paradise City (film)

text: Glenn Kenny, of "The New York Times", gave a scathing review, saying it "sounds like one of those fake movies joked about on "Seinfeld" or "30 Rock". And yet "Paradise City" is a reality of sorts, albeit an uncomfortable reality." Noel Murray, of the "Los Angeles Times", gave the film a negative review, commenting on the film's "TV-cop-show-level stuff, shot in some of Hawaii's least scenic locations. The stars can't save it." Todd Jorgenson, of "Cinemalogue", also gave a negative review, highlighting that "despite its capable cast, the film never generates much suspense amid a parade of cliched genre twists." Robert Kojder, of "Flickering Myth", gave the film a 1.5/5 rating, writing "audiences will be begging, "oh, won't you please take me home."" Casey Chong, of "Casey's Movie Mania", gave a 1/5 rating, summarizing the film as "painful, tedious and worst of all, relies heavily on expository-heavy scenarios to drive the movie forward." Leo Brady, of "A Movie Guy", also gave a one star rating, explaining that the film "has a capable cast working with a script that was concocted overnight. At best it feels like a free paid trip to Hawaii for everyone involved." Brian Orndorf, of "Blu-ray.com", rated the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying "the stars are here to enjoy a Hawaiian vacation and trade a few lines of dialogue. Screen intensity is not encouraged." Jeffrey M. Anderson, of "Common Sense Media", also gave a 2 star rating, concluding that "beautiful Hawaiian locations, a veteran genre director, and nostalgic stunt casting can't overcome the general low energy level and lazy attitude that permeate this crime drama from start to finish." "Voices from the Balcony"'s Lukas Spathis called it "Far from what it could've been but just as distant from the flop many might've expected with latter-day Willis." and rated it 2.5 out 5 stars.


title: Paradise City (film)

text: In a rare positive review, Owen Gleiberman, of "Variety", said " I'm not sure if what Willis, Travolta, and Dorff do here rises to what you'd call integrity, but all three seem to be enjoying themselves. They slum with style." Brittany Witherspoon, of "Screen Rant", wrote in a mixed review, "the film contains entertaining components, but these elements quickly run their course thanks to a predictable script, wonky dialogue & pacing issues." Mark Hanson, of "Slant Magazine", praised John Travolta's performance, but otherwise criticized the film for not "living up to its title." Josh Bell, of "Crooked Marquee", gave the film a "C-", saying, "the occasional flashes of competence only make the rest of "Paradise City" more disheartening, though, and just because it's slightly less of a slog than Willis' other recent work doesn't mean it's worth watching."


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture. Roman architecture flourished in the Roman Republic and to even a greater extent under the Empire, when the great majority of surviving buildings were constructed. It used new materials, particularly Roman concrete, and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to make buildings that were typically strong and well-engineered. Large numbers remain in some form across the former empire, sometimes complete and still in use to this day.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman architecture covers the period from the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BC to about the 4th century AD, after which it becomes reclassified as Late Antique or Byzantine architecture. Few substantial examples survive from before about 100 BC, and most of the major survivals are from the later empire, after about 100 AD. Roman architectural style continued to influence building in the former empire for many centuries, and the style used in Western Europe beginning about 1000 is called Romanesque architecture to reflect this dependence on basic Roman forms.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans only began to achieve significant originality in architecture around the beginning of the Imperial period, after they had combined aspects of their originally Etruscan architecture with others taken from Greece, including most elements of the style we now call classical architecture. They moved from trabeated construction mostly based on columns and lintels to one based on massive walls, punctuated by arches, and later domes, both of which greatly developed under the Romans. The classical orders now became largely decorative rather than structural, except in colonnades. Stylistic developments included the Tuscan and Composite orders; the first being a shortened, simplified variant on the Doric order and the Composite being a tall order with the floral decoration of the Corinthian and the scrolls of the Ionic. The period from roughly 40 BC to about 230 AD saw most of the greatest achievements, before the Crisis of the Third Century and later troubles reduced the wealth and organizing power of the central governments.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans produced massive public buildings and works of civil engineering, and were responsible for significant developments in housing and public hygiene, for example their public and private baths and latrines, under-floor heating in the form of the hypocaust, mica glazing (examples in Ostia Antica), and piped hot and cold water (examples in Pompeii and Ostia).


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Despite the technical developments of the Romans, which took their buildings far away from the basic Greek conception where columns were needed to support heavy beams and roofs, they were very reluctant to abandon the classical orders in formal public buildings, even though these had become essentially decorative. However, they did not feel entirely restricted by Greek aesthetic concerns and treated the orders with considerable freedom.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Innovation started in the 3rd or 2nd century BC with the development of Roman concrete as a readily available adjunct to, or substitute for, stone and brick. More daring buildings soon followed, with great pillars supporting broad arches and domes. The freedom of concrete also inspired the colonnade screen, a row of purely decorative columns in front of a load-bearing wall. In smaller-scale architecture, concrete's strength freed the floor plan from rectangular cells to a more free-flowing environment.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Factors such as wealth and high population densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to discover new architectural solutions of their own. The use of vaults and arches, together with a sound knowledge of building materials, enabled them to achieve unprecedented successes in the construction of imposing infrastructure for public use. Examples include the aqueducts of Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, the basilicas and Colosseum. These were reproduced at a smaller scale in most important towns and cities in the Empire. Some surviving structures are almost complete, such as the town walls of Lugo in Hispania Tarraconensis, now northern Spain. The administrative structure and wealth of the Empire made possible very large projects even in locations remote from the main centers, as did the use of slave labor, both skilled and unskilled.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Especially under the empire, architecture often served a political function, demonstrating the power of the Roman state in general, and of specific individuals responsible for building. Roman architecture perhaps reached its peak in the reign of Hadrian, whose many achievements include rebuilding the Pantheon in its current form and leaving his mark on the landscape of northern Britain with Hadrian's Wall.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: While borrowing much from the preceding Etruscan architecture, such as the use of hydraulics and the construction of arches, Roman prestige architecture remained firmly under the spell of Ancient Greek architecture and the classical orders.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: This came initially from Magna Graecia, the Greek colonies in southern Italy, and indirectly from Greek influence on the Etruscans, but after the Roman conquest of Greece directly from the best classical and Hellenistic examples in the Greek world.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The influence is evident in many ways; for example, in the introduction and use of the triclinium in Roman villas as a place and manner of dining. Roman builders employed Greeks in many capacities, especially in the great boom in construction in the early Empire.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Roman architectural revolution, also known as the "concrete revolution", was the widespread use in Roman architecture of the previously little-used architectural forms of the arch, vault, and dome. For the first time in history, their potential was fully exploited in the construction of a wide range of civil engineering structures, public buildings, and military facilities. These included amphitheatres, aqueducts, baths, bridges, circuses, dams, domes, harbours, temples, and theatres.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: A crucial factor in this development, which saw a trend toward monumental architecture, was the invention of Roman concrete ("opus caementicium"), which led to the liberation of shapes from the dictates of the traditional materials of stone and brick.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: These enabled the building of the many aqueducts throughout the Roman Empire, such as the Aqueduct of Segovia, the Pont du Gard, and the eleven aqueducts of Rome. The same concepts produced numerous bridges, some of which are still in daily use, for example the Puente Romano at Mérida in Spain, and the Pont Julien and the bridge at Vaison-la-Romaine, both in Provence, France.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The dome permitted construction of vaulted ceilings without crossbeams and made possible large covered public space such as public baths and basilicas, such as Hadrian's Pantheon, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, all in Rome.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans first adopted the arch from the Etruscans and implemented it in their own building. The use of arches that spring directly from the tops of columns was a Roman development, seen from the 1st century AD, that was very widely adopted in medieval Western, Byzantine and Islamic architecture.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans were the first builders in the history of architecture to realize the potential of domes for the creation of large and well-defined interior spaces. Domes were introduced in a number of Roman building types such as temples, thermae, palaces, mausolea and later also churches. Half-domes also became a favoured architectural element and were adopted as apses in Christian sacred architecture.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Monumental domes began to appear in the 1st century BC in Rome and the provinces around the Mediterranean Sea. Along with vaults, they gradually replaced the traditional post and lintel construction which makes use of the column and architrave. The construction of domes was greatly facilitated by the invention of concrete, a process which has been termed the Roman architectural revolution. Their enormous dimensions remained unsurpassed until the introduction of structural steel frames in the late 19th century (see List of the world's largest domes).


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman architecture supplied the basic vocabulary of Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque architecture, and spread across Christian Europe well beyond the old frontiers of the empire, to Ireland and Scandinavia for example. In the East, Byzantine architecture developed new styles of churches, but most other buildings remained very close to Late Roman forms. The same can be said in turn of Islamic architecture, where Roman forms long continued, especially in private buildings such as houses and the Turkish bath, and civil engineering such as fortifications and bridges.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: In Europe the Italian Renaissance saw a conscious revival of correct classical styles, initially purely based on Roman examples. Vitruvius was respectfully reinterpreted by a series of architectural writers, and the Tuscan and Composite orders formalized for the first time, to give five rather than three orders. After the flamboyance of Baroque architecture, the Neoclassical architecture of the 18th century revived purer versions of classical style, and for the first time added direct influence from the Greek world.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Numerous local classical styles developed, such as Palladian architecture, Georgian architecture and Regency architecture in the English-speaking world, Federal architecture in the United States, and later Stripped Classicism and PWA Moderne.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman influences may be found around us today, in banks, government buildings, great houses, and even small houses, perhaps in the form of a porch with Doric columns and a pediment or in a fireplace or a mosaic shower floor derived from a Roman original, often from Pompeii or Herculaneum. The mighty pillars, domes and arches of Rome echo in the New World too, where in Washington, D.C. stand the Capitol building, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and other government buildings. All across the US the seats of regional government were normally built in the grand traditions of Rome, with vast flights of stone steps sweeping up to towering pillared porticoes, with huge domes gilded or decorated inside with the same or similar themes that were popular in Rome.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: In Britain, a similar enthusiasm has seen the construction of thousands of neoclassical buildings over the last five centuries, both civic and domestic, and many of the grandest country houses and mansions are purely Classical in style, an obvious example being Buckingham Palace.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Marble is not found especially close to Rome, and was only rarely used there before Augustus, who famously boasted that he had found Rome made of brick and left it made of marble, though this was mainly as a facing for brick or concrete. The Temple of Hercules Victor of the late 2nd century BC is the earliest surviving exception in Rome. From Augustus' reign the quarries at Carrara were extensively developed for the capital, and other sources around the empire exploited, especially the prestigious Greek marbles like Parian. Travertine limestone was found much closer, around Tivoli, and was used from the end of the Republic; the Colosseum is mainly built of this stone, which has good load-bearing capacity, with a brick core. Other more or less local stones were used around the Empire.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans were extremely fond of luxury imported coloured marbles with fancy veining, and the interiors of the most important buildings were very often faced with slabs of these, which have usually now been removed even where the building survives. Imports from Greece for this purpose began in the 2nd century BC.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans made fired clay bricks from about the beginning of the Empire, replacing earlier sun-dried mudbrick. Roman brick was almost invariably of a lesser height than modern brick, but was made in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Shapes included square, rectangular, triangular and round, and the largest bricks found have measured over three feet in length. Ancient Roman bricks had a general size of 1½ Roman feet by 1 Roman foot, but common variations up to 15 inches existed. Other brick sizes in ancient Rome included 24" x 12" x 4", and 15" x 8" x 10". Ancient Roman bricks found in France measured 8" x 8" x 3". The Constantine Basilica in Trier is constructed from Roman bricks 15" square by 1½" thick. There is often little obvious difference (particularly when only fragments survive) between Roman bricks used for walls on the one hand, and tiles used for roofing or flooring on the other, so archaeologists sometimes prefer to employ the generic term ceramic building material (or CBM).


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans perfected brick-making during the first century of their empire and used it ubiquitously, in public and private construction alike. They took their brickmaking skills everywhere they went, introducing the craft to the local populations. The Roman legions, which operated their own kilns, introduced bricks to many parts of the Empire; bricks are often stamped with the mark of the legion that supervised their production. The use of bricks in southern and western Germany, for example, can be traced back to traditions already described by the Roman architect Vitruvius. In the British Isles, the introduction of Roman brick by the ancient Romans was followed by a 600–700 year gap in major brick production.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Concrete quickly supplanted brick as the primary building material, and more daring buildings soon followed, with great pillars supporting broad arches and domes rather than dense lines of columns suspending flat architraves. The freedom of concrete also inspired the colonnade screen, a row of purely decorative columns in front of a load-bearing wall. In smaller-scale architecture, concrete's strength freed the floor plan from rectangular cells to a more free-flowing environment. Most of these developments are described by Vitruvius, writing in the first century BC in his work "De architectura".


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Although concrete had been used on a minor scale in Mesopotamia, Roman architects perfected Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand on its own and support a great deal of weight. The first use of concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa sometime after 273 BC. Ancient Roman concrete was a mixture of lime mortar, aggregate, pozzolana, water, and stones, and was stronger than previously-used concretes. The ancient builders placed these ingredients in wooden frames where they hardened and bonded to a facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks. The aggregates used were often much larger than in modern concrete, amounting to rubble.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: When the framework was removed, the new wall was very strong, with a rough surface of bricks or stones. This surface could be smoothed and faced with an attractive stucco or thin panels of marble or other coloured stones called a "revetment". Concrete construction proved to be more flexible and less costly than building solid stone buildings. The materials were readily available and not difficult to transport. The wooden frames could be used more than once, allowing builders to work quickly and efficiently. Concrete is arguably the Roman contribution most relevant to modern architecture.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The ancient Romans employed regular orthogonal structures on which they molded their colonies. They probably were inspired by Greek and Hellenic examples, as well as by regularly planned cities that were built by the Etruscans in Italy. (see Marzabotto)


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans used a consolidated scheme for city planning, developed for military defense and civil convenience. The basic plan consisted of a central forum with city services, surrounded by a compact, rectilinear grid of streets, and wrapped in a wall for defense. To reduce travel times, two diagonal streets crossed the square grid, passing through the central square. A river usually flowed through the city, providing water, transport, and sewage disposal. Hundreds of towns and cities were built by the Romans throughout their Empire.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Many European towns, such as Turin, preserve the remains of these schemes, which show the very logical way the Romans designed their cities. They would lay out the streets at right angles, in the form of a square grid. All roads were equal in width and length, except for two, which were slightly wider than the others. One of these ran east–west, the other, north–south, and they intersected in the middle to form the center of the grid. All roads were made of carefully fitted flagstones and filled in with smaller, hard-packed rocks and pebbles. Bridges were constructed where needed. Each square marked off by four roads was called an "insula," the Roman equivalent of a modern city block.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Each "insula" was square, with the land within it divided. As the city developed, each "insula" would eventually be filled with buildings of various shapes and sizes and crisscrossed with back roads and alleys. Most "insulae" were given to the first settlers of a Roman city, but each person had to pay to construct his own house.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The city was surrounded by a wall to protect it from invaders and to mark the city limits. Areas outside city limits were left open as farmland. At the end of each main road was a large gateway with watchtowers. A portcullis covered the opening when the city was under siege, and additional watchtowers were constructed along the city walls. An aqueduct was built outside the city walls.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The development of Greek and Roman urbanization is well-known, as there are relatively many written sources, and there has been much attention to the subject, since the Romans and Greeks are generally regarded as the main ancestors of modern Western culture. It should not be forgotten, though, that the Etruscans had many considerable towns and there were also other cultures with more or less urban settlements in Europe, primarily of Celtic origin.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The amphitheatre was, with the triumphal arch and basilica, the only major new type of building developed by the Romans. Some of the most impressive secular buildings are the amphitheatres, over 200 being known and many of which are well preserved, such as that at Arles, as well as its progenitor, the Colosseum in Rome. They were used for gladiatorial contests, public displays, public meetings and bullfights, the tradition of which still survives in Spain and Portugal. Their typical shape, functions and name distinguish them from Roman theatres, which are more or less semicircular in shape; from the circuses (akin to hippodromes) whose much longer circuits were designed mainly for horse or chariot racing events; and from the smaller stadia, which were primarily designed for athletics and footraces.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The earliest Roman amphitheatres date from the middle of the first century BC, but most were built under Imperial rule, from the Augustan period (27 BC–14 AD) onwards. Imperial amphitheatres were built throughout the Roman Empire; the largest could accommodate 40,000–60,000 spectators, and the most elaborate featured multi-storeyed, arcaded façades and were elaborately decorated with marble, stucco and statuary. After the end of gladiatorial games in the 5th century and of animal killings in the 6th, most amphitheatres fell into disrepair, and their materials were mined or recycled. Some were razed, and others converted into fortifications. A few continued as convenient open meeting places; in some of these, churches were sited.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Architecturally, they are typically an example of the Roman use of the classical orders to decorate large concrete walls pierced at intervals, where the columns have nothing to support. Aesthetically, however, the formula is successful.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Roman basilica was a large public building where business or legal matters could be transacted. They were normally where the magistrates held court, and used for other official ceremonies, having many of the functions of the modern town hall. The first basilicas had no religious function at all. As early as the time of Augustus, a public basilica for transacting business had been part of any settlement that considered itself a city, used in the same way as the late medieval covered market houses of northern Europe, where the meeting room, for lack of urban space, was set above the arcades, however. Although their form was variable, basilicas often contained interior colonnades that divided the space, giving aisles or arcaded spaces on one or both sides, with an apse at one end (or less often at each end), where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, so that light could penetrate through the clerestory windows.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was censor. Other early examples include the basilica at Pompeii (late 2nd century BC). After Christianity became the official religion, the basilica shape was found appropriate for the first large public churches, with the attraction of avoiding reminiscences of the Greco-Roman temple form.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Roman circus was a large open-air venue used for public events in the ancient Roman Empire. The circuses were similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes, although circuses served varying purposes and differed in design and construction. Along with theatres and amphitheatres, circuses were one of the main entertainment sites of the time. Circuses were venues for chariot racing, horse races, and performances that commemorated important events of the Empire were performed there. For events that involved re-enactments of naval battles, the circus was flooded with water.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The performance space of the Roman circus was normally, despite its name, an oblong rectangle of two linear sections of race track, separated by a median strip running along the length of about two thirds the track, joined at one end with a semicircular section and at the other end with an undivided section of track closed (in most cases) by a distinctive starting gate known as the "carceres", thereby creating a circuit for the races.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: During the years of the Republic, Augustus claimed he "found the city in brick and left it in marble". While chances are high that this was an exaggeration, there is something to be said for the influx of marble use in Roman Forum from 63 BC onwards. During Augustus reign, the Forum was described to have been "a larger, freer space than was the Forum of Imperial times." The Forum began to take on even more changes upon the arrival of Julius Caesar, who drew out extensive plans for the market hub. While Caesar's death came prematurely, the ideas himself, as well as Augustus had in regards to the Forum proved to be the most influential for years to come. According to Walter Dennison's "The Roman Forum As Cicero Saw It", the author writes that "the diverting of public business to the larger and splendid Imperial fora erected in the vicinity resulted in leaving the general design of the Forum Romanum".


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Every city had at least one forum of varying size. In addition to its standard function as a marketplace, a forum was a gathering place of great social significance, and often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates, rendezvous, meetings, etc. Much the best known example is the Roman Forum, the earliest of several in Rome. In new Roman towns the forum was usually located at, or just off, the intersection of the main north–south and east–west streets (the cardo and decumanus). All forums would have a Temple of Jupiter at the north end, and would also contain other temples, as well as the basilica; a public weights and measures table, so customers at the market could ensure they were not being sold short measures; and would often have the baths nearby.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: A horreum was a type of public warehouse used during the ancient Roman period. Although the Latin term is often used to refer to granaries, Roman horrea were used to store many other types of consumables; the giant Horrea Galbae in Rome were used not only to store grain but also olive oil, wine, foodstuffs, clothing and even marble. By the end of the Imperial period, the city of Rome had nearly 300 horrea to supply its demands. The biggest were enormous, even by modern standards; the Horrea Galbae contained 140 rooms on the ground floor alone, covering an area of some 225,000 square feet (21,000 m).


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The first horrea were built in Rome towards the end of the 2nd century BC, with the first known public horreum being constructed by the ill-fated tribune Gaius Gracchus in 123 BC. The word came to be applied to any place designated for the preservation of goods; thus, it was often used refer to cellars ("horrea subterranea"), but it could also be applied to a place where artworks were stored, or even to a library. Some public horrea functioned somewhat like banks, where valuables could be stored, but the most important class of horrea were those where foodstuffs such as grain and olive oil were stored and distributed by the state.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The word itself is thought to have linguist roots tied to the word "hordeum", which in Latin means barley. In the Johns Hopkins University Press, The Classical Weekly states that "Pliny the Elder does indeed make a distinction between the two words. He describes the horreum as a structure made of brick, the walls of which were not less than three feet thick; it had no windows or openings for ventilation". Furthermore, the storehouses would also host oil and wine and also utilize large jars that could serve as cache's for large amounts of products. These storehouses were also used to house keep large sums of money and were used much like personal storage units today are. Romans were "These horrea were divided and subdivided, so that one could hire only so much space as one wanted, a whole room (cella), a closet (armarium), or only a chest or strong box (arca, arcula, locus, loculus)."


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Multi-story apartment blocks called "insulae" catered to a range of residential needs. The cheapest rooms were at the top owing to the inability to escape in the event of a fire and the lack of piped water. Windows were mostly small, facing the street, with iron security bars. "Insulae" were often dangerous, unhealthy, and prone to fires because of overcrowding and haphazard cooking arrangements. There are examples in the Roman port town of Ostia, that date back to the reign of Trajan, but they seem to have been found only in Rome and a few other places. Elsewhere writers report them as something remarkable, but Livy and Vitruvius refer to them in Rome. External walls were in "opus reticulatum" and interiors in "opus incertum", which would then be plastered and sometimes painted.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: To lighten up the small dark rooms, tenants able to afford a degree of painted colourful murals on the walls. Examples have been found of jungle scenes with wild animals and exotic plants. Imitation windows ("trompe-l'œil") were sometimes painted to make the rooms seem less confined.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Ancient Rome had elaborate and luxurious houses owned by the elite. The average house, or in cities apartment, of a commoner or plebeius did not contain many luxuries. The "domus", or single-family residence, was only for the well-off in Rome, with most having a layout of the closed unit, consisting of one or two rooms. Between 312 and 315 AD Rome had 1781 "domus" and 44,850 of "insulae".


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: "Insulae" have been the subject of great debate for historians of Roman culture, defining the various meanings of the word. "Insula" was a word used to describe apartment buildings, or the apartments themselves, meaning apartment, or inhabitable room, demonstrating just how small apartments for plebeians were. Urban divisions were originally street blocks, and later began to divide into smaller divisions, the word "insula" referring to both blocks and smaller divisions. The "insula" contained "cenacula", "tabernae", storage rooms under the stairs, and lower floor shops. Another type of housing unit for plebs was a "cenaculum", an apartment, divided into three individual rooms: "cubiculum", "exedra", and "medianum". Common Roman apartments were mainly masses of smaller and larger structures, many with narrow balconies that present mysteries as to their use, having no doors to access them, and they lacked the excessive decoration and display of wealth that aristocrats’ houses contained. Luxury in houses was not common, as the life of the average person did not consist of being in their houses, as they instead would go to public baths, and engage in other communal activities.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Many lighthouses were built around the Mediterranean and the coasts of the empire, including the Tower of Hercules at A Coruña in northern Spain, a structure which survives to this day. A smaller lighthouse at Dover, England also exists as a ruin about half the height of the original. The light would have been provided by a fire at the top of the structure.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: All Roman cities had at least one "thermae", a popular facility for public bathing, exercising and socializing. Exercise might include wrestling and weight-lifting, as well as swimming. Bathing was an important part of the Roman day, where some hours might be spent, at a very low cost subsidized by the government. Wealthier Romans were often accompanied by one or more slaves, who performed any required tasks such as fetching refreshment, guarding valuables, providing towels, and at the end of the session, applying olive oil to their masters' bodies, which was then scraped off with a strigil, a scraper made of wood or bone.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman bath-houses were also provided for private villas, town houses and forts. They were normally supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or by aqueduct. The design of "thermae" is discussed by Vitruvius in "De architectura".


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman temples were among the most important and richest buildings in Roman culture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one main temple, as well as smaller shrines. The main room "(cella)" housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often a small altar for incense or libations. Behind the "cella" was a room or rooms used by temple attendants for storage of equipment and offerings.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Some remains of many Roman temples survive, above all in Rome itself, but the relatively few near-complete examples were nearly all converted to Christian churches, usually a considerable time after the initial triumph of Christianity under Constantine. The decline of Roman religion was relatively slow, and the temples themselves were not appropriated by the government until a decree of the Emperor Honorius in 415. Some of the oldest surviving temples include the Temple of Hercules Victor (mid 2nd century BC) and Temple of Portunus (120–80 BC), both standing within the Forum Boarium. Original marble columns of the Temple of Janus in Rome's Forum Holitorium, dedicated by Gaius Duilius after his naval victory at the Battle of Mylae in 260 BC, still stand as a component of the exterior wall of the Renaissance era church of San Nicola in Carcere.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The form of the Roman temple was mainly derived from the Etruscan model, but using Greek styles . Roman temples emphasised the front of the building, which followed Greek temple models and typically consisted of wide steps leading to a portico with columns, a pronaos, and usually a triangular pediment above, which was filled with statuary in the most grand examples; this was as often in terracotta as stone, and no examples have survived except as fragments. However, unlike the Greek models, which generally gave equal treatment to all sides of the temple, which could be viewed and approached from all directions, the sides and rear of Roman temples might be largely undecorated (as in the Pantheon, Rome and Vic), inaccessible by steps (as in the Maison Carrée and Vic), and even back on to other buildings. As in the Maison Carrée, columns at the side might be engaged columns, emerging from ("engaged with" in architectural terminology) the wall. The platform on which the temple sat was typically raised higher in Roman examples than Greek, with up ten or twelve or more steps rather than the three typical in Greek temples; the Temple of Claudius was raised twenty steps. These steps were normally only at the front, and typically not the whole width of that.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Greek classical orders in all their details were closely followed in the façades of temples, as in other prestigious buildings. However, the idealized proportions between the different elements set out by the only significant Roman writer on architecture to survive, Vitruvius, and subsequent Italian Renaissance writers, do not reflect actual Roman practice, which could be very variable, though always aiming at balance and harmony. Following a Hellenistic trend, the Corinthian order and its variant the Composite order were most common in surviving Roman temples, but for small temples like that at Alcántara, a simple Tuscan order could be used.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: There was considerable local variation in style, as Roman architects often tried to incorporate elements the population expected in its sacred architecture. This was especially the case in Egypt and the Near East, where different traditions of large stone temples were already millennia old. The Romano-Celtic temple was a simple style for small temples found in the Western Empire, and by far the most common type in Roman Britain. It often lacked any of the distinctive classical features, and may have had considerable continuity with pre-Roman temples of the Celtic religion.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman theatres were built in all areas of the Empire, from Spain to the Middle East. Because of the Romans' ability to influence local architecture, we see numerous theatres around the world with uniquely Roman attributes.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: These buildings were semi-circular and possessed certain inherent architectural structures, with minor differences depending on the region in which they were constructed. The "scaenae frons" was a high back wall of the stage floor, supported by columns. The "proscaenium" was a wall that supported the front edge of the stage with ornately decorated niches off to the sides. The Hellenistic influence is seen through the use of the "proscaenium". The Roman theatre also had a "podium", which sometimes supported the columns of the "scaenae frons". The "scaenae" was originally not part of the building itself, constructed only to provide sufficient background for the actors. Eventually, it became a part of the edifice itself, made out of concrete. The theatre itself was divided into the stage (orchestra) and the seating section (auditorium). "Vomitoria" or entrances and exits were made available to the audience.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: A Roman villa was a country house built for the upper class, while a "domus" was a wealthy family's house in a town. The Empire contained many kinds of villas, not all of them lavishly appointed with mosaic floors and frescoes. In the provinces, any country house with some decorative features in the Roman style may be called a "villa" by modern scholars. Some, like Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, were pleasure palaces such as those that were situated in the cool hills within easy reach of Rome or, like the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, on picturesque sites overlooking the Bay of Naples. Some villas were more like the country houses of England, the visible seat of power of a local magnate, such as the famous palace rediscovered at Fishbourne in Sussex.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Suburban villas on the edge of cities were also known, such as the Middle and Late Republican villas that encroached on the Campus Martius, at that time on the edge of Rome, and which can be also seen outside the city walls of Pompeii, including the Villa of the Mysteries, famous for its frescos. These early suburban villas, such as the one at Rome's Auditorium site or at Grottarossa in Rome, demonstrate the antiquity and heritage of the "villa suburbana" in Central Italy. It is possible that these early, suburban villas were also in fact the seats of power (maybe even palaces) of regional strongmen or heads of important families ("gentes").


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large farming estates called "latifundia"; such villas might be lacking in luxuries. By the 4th century, "villa" could simply mean an agricultural estate or holding: Jerome translated the Gospel of Mark (xiv, 32) "chorion", describing the olive grove of Gethsemane, with "villa", without an inference that there were any dwellings there at all ("Catholic Encyclopedia" "Gethsemane").


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: With the colossal Diocletian's Palace, built in the countryside but later turned into a fortified city, a form of residential castle emerges, that anticipates the Middle Ages.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The initial invention of the watermill appears to have occurred in the Hellenized eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great and the rise of Hellenistic science and technology. In the subsequent Roman era, the use of water-power was diversified and different types of watermills were introduced. These include all three variants of the vertical water wheel as well as the horizontal water wheel. Apart from its main use in grinding flour, water-power was also applied to pounding grain, crushing ore, sawing stones and possibly fulling and bellows for iron furnaces.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: In architecture, a monolith is a structure which has been excavated as a unit from a surrounding matrix or outcropping of rock. Monoliths are found in all types of Roman buildings. They were either: quarried without being moved; or quarried and moved; or quarried, moved and lifted clear off the ground into their position (e.g., architraves); or quarried, moved and erected in an upright position (e.g., columns).


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Transporting was done by land or water (or a combination of both), in the later case often by special-built ships such as obelisk carriers. For lifting operations, ancient cranes were employed since c. 515 BC, such as in the construction of Trajan's Column.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top. These were originally called "tekhenu" by the builders, the ancient Egyptians. The Greeks who saw them used the Greek 'obeliskos' to describe them, and this word passed into Latin and then English. The Romans commissioned obelisks in an ancient Egyptian style. Examples include:


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman gardens were influenced by Egyptian, Persian, and Greek gardening techniques . In Ancient Latium, a garden was part of every farm. According to Cato the Elder, every garden should be close to the house and should have flower beds and ornamental trees. Horace wrote that during his time flower gardens became a national indulgence.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Gardens were not reserved for the extremely wealthy. Excavations in Pompeii show that gardens attaching to residences were scaled down to meet the space constraints of the home of the average Roman. Modified versions of Roman garden designs were adopted in Roman settlements in Africa, Gaul, and Britannia. As town houses were replaced by tall "insulae" (apartment buildings), these urban gardens were replaced by window boxes or roof gardens.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. The origins of the Roman triumphal arch are unclear. There were precursors to the triumphal arch within the Roman world; in Italy, the Etruscans used elaborately decorated single bay arches as gates or portals to their cities. Surviving examples of Etruscan arches can still be seen at Perugia and Volterra. The two key elements of the triumphal arch – a round-topped arch and a square entablature – had long been in use as separate architectural elements in ancient Greece.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The innovation of the Romans was to use these elements in a single free-standing structure. The columns became purely decorative elements on the outer face of arch, while the entablature, liberated from its role as a building support, became the frame for the civic and religious messages that the arch builders wished to convey. Little is known about how the Romans viewed triumphal arches. Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, was the only ancient author to discuss them. He wrote that they were intended to "elevate above the ordinary world" an image of an honoured person usually depicted in the form of a statue with a quadriga.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The first recorded Roman triumphal arches were set up in the time of the Roman Republic. Generals who were granted a triumph were termed "triumphators" and would erect "fornices" or honorific arches bearing statues to commemorate their victories.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman triumphal practices changed significantly at the start of the Imperial period, when the first Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that only emperors would be granted triumphs. The triumphal arch changed from being a personal monument to being an essentially propagandistic one, serving to announce and promote the presence of the ruler and the laws of the state. Arches were not necessarily built as entrances, but – unlike many modern triumphal arches – they were often erected across roads and were intended to be passed through, not round.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Most Roman triumphal arches were built during the Imperial period. By the fourth century AD there were 36 such arches in Rome, of which three have survived – the Arch of Titus (AD 81), the Arch of Septimius Severus (203–205) and the Arch of Constantine (312). Numerous arches were built elsewhere in the Roman Empire. The single arch was the most common, but many triple arches were also built, of which the Triumphal Arch of Orange (c. AD 21) is the earliest surviving example. From the 2nd century AD, many examples of the "arcus quadrifrons" – a square triumphal arch erected over a crossroads, with arched openings on all four sides – were built, especially in North Africa. Arch-building in Rome and Italy diminished after the time of Trajan (AD 98–117) but remained widespread in the provinces during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD; they were often erected to commemorate imperial visits.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The ornamentation of an arch was intended to serve as a constant visual reminder of the triumph and "triumphator". The façade was ornamented with marble columns, and the piers and attics with decorative cornices. Sculpted panels depicted victories and achievements, the deeds of the "triumphator", the captured weapons of the enemy or the triumphal procession itself. The spandrels usually depicted flying Victories, while the attic was often inscribed with a dedicatory inscription naming and praising the "triumphator". The piers and internal passageways were also decorated with reliefs and free-standing sculptures. The vault was ornamented with coffers. Some triumphal arches were surmounted by a statue or a "currus triumphalis", a group of statues depicting the emperor or general in a quadriga.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Inscriptions on Roman triumphal arches were works of art in themselves, with very finely cut, sometimes gilded letters. The form of each letter and the spacing between them was carefully designed for maximum clarity and simplicity, without any decorative flourishes, emphasizing the Roman taste for restraint and order. This conception of what later became the art of typography remains of fundamental importance down to the present day.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman roads were vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 500 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials and civilians, and the inland carriage of official communications and trade goods. At the peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the Late Empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great road links.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman road builders aimed at a regulation width (see Laws and standards above), but actual widths have been measured at between 3.6 ft (1.1 m) and more than . Today, the concrete has worn from the spaces around the stones, giving the impression of a very bumpy road, but the original practice was to produce a surface that was no doubt much closer to being flat.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts in order to bring water from distant sources into their cities and towns, supplying public baths, latrines, fountains and private households. Waste water was removed by complex sewage systems and released into nearby bodies of water, keeping the towns clean and free from effluent. Aqueducts also provided water for mining operations, milling, farms and gardens.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Aqueducts moved water through gravity alone, being constructed along a slight downward gradient within conduits of stone, brick or concrete. Most were buried beneath the ground, and followed its contours; obstructing peaks were circumvented or, less often, tunnelled through. Where valleys or lowlands intervened, the conduit was carried on bridgework, or its contents fed into high-pressure lead, ceramic or stone pipes and siphoned across. Most aqueduct systems included sedimentation tanks, sluices and distribution tanks to regulate the supply at need.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Ancient Rome's first aqueduct - the Aqua Appia - supplied a water-fountain sited at the city's cattle market in the fourth century BC. By the third century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and municipalities throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire."


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Most Roman aqueducts proved reliable, and durable; some were maintained into the early modern era, and a few are still partly in use. Methods of aqueduct surveying and construction are noted by Vitruvius in his work "De architectura" (1st century BC). The general Frontinus gives more detail in his official report on the problems, uses and abuses of Imperial Rome's public water supply. Notable examples of aqueduct architecture include the supporting piers of the Aqueduct of Segovia, and the aqueduct-fed cisterns of Constantinople.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as the basic structure. Most utilized concrete as well, which the Romans were the first to use for bridges.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a few were segmental (such as Alconétar Bridge). A segmental arch is an arch that is less than a semicircle. The advantages of the segmental arch bridge were that it allowed great amounts of flood water to pass under it, which would prevent the bridge from being swept away during floods and the bridge itself could be more lightweight. Generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones (voussoirs) of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e.g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome (62 BC), one of the world's oldest major bridges still standing. Roman engineers were the first and until the Industrial Revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called "opus caementicium". The outside was usually covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction. The 330 m long Limyra Bridge in southwestern Turkey features 26 segmental arches with an average span-to-rise ratio of 5.3:1, giving the bridge an unusually flat profile unsurpassed for more than a millennium. Trajan's bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood (standing on 40 m high concrete piers). This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the 790 m long Puente Romano at Mérida.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman canals were typically multi-purpose structures, intended for irrigation, drainage, land reclamation, flood control and navigation where feasible. Some navigational canals were recorded by ancient geographers and are still traceable by modern archaeology. Channels which served the needs of urban water supply are covered at the List of aqueducts in the Roman Empire.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Freshwater reservoirs were commonly set up at the termini of aqueducts and their branch lines, supplying urban households, agricultural estates, imperial palaces, "thermae" or naval bases of the Roman navy.


title: Ancient Roman architecture

text: Roman dam construction began in earnest in the early imperial period. For the most part, it concentrated on the semi-arid fringe of the empire, namely the provinces of North Africa, the Near East, and Hispania. The relative abundance of Spanish dams below is due partly to more intensive field work there; for Italy only the Subiaco Dams, created by emperor Nero (54–68 AD) for recreational purposes, are attested. These dams are noteworthy, though, for their extraordinary height, which remained unsurpassed anywhere in the world until the Late Middle Ages.