page_title: Legacy of the Roman Empire
section_title: Science and philosophy
hierarchical_section_title: Legacy of the Roman Empire / Science and philosophy
caption_attribution_description: A bible from 1859.
context_page_description: The legacy of the Roman Empire has been varied and significant, comparable to that of other hegemonic polities of world history.
  The Roman Empire itself, built upon the legacy of other cultures such as Ancient Greece, has had long-lasting influence with broad geographical reach on a great range of cultural aspects, including state institutions, law, cultural values, religious beliefs, technological advances, engineering and language.
  This legacy survived the demise of the empire itself and went on to shape other civilisations, a process which continues to this day. The city of Rome was the civitas and connected with the actual western civilisation on which subsequent cultures built.
  One main legacy is the Latin language of ancient Rome, epitomized by the Classical Latin used in Latin literature, evolved during the Middle Ages and remains in use in the Roman Catholic Church as Ecclesiastical Latin. Vulgar Latin, the common tongue used for regular social interactions, evolved simultaneously into the various Romance languages that exist today.
context_section_description: While much of the most influential Greek science and philosophy was developed before the rise of the Empire, major innovations occurred under Roman rule that have had a lasting impact on the intellectual world.  The traditions of Greek, Egyptian and Babylonian scholarship continued to flourish at great centers of learning such as Athens, Alexandria, and Pergamon.
  Epicurean philosophy reached a literary apex in the long poem by Lucretius, who advocated an atomic theory of matter and revered the older teachings of the Greek Democritus.  The works of the philosophers Seneca the Younger, Epictetus and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius were widely read during the revival of Stoic thought in the Renaissance, which synthesized Stoicism and Christianity.  Fighter pilot James Stockdale famously credited the philosophy of Epictetus as being a major source of strength when he was shot down and held as prisoner during the Vietnam War.  Plato's philosophy continued to be widely studied under the Empire, growing into the sophisticated neoplatonic system through the influence of Plotinus.  Platonic philosophy was largely reconciled with Christianity by the Roman theologian Augustine of Hippo, who, while a staunch opponent of Roman paganism, viewed the Platonists as having more in common with Christians than the other pagan schools.  To this day, Plato's Republic is considered the foundational work of Western philosophy, and is read by students around the globe.
  The widespread Lorem ipsum text, which is widely used as a meaningless placeholder in modern typography and graphic design, is derived from the Latin text of Cicero's philosophical treatise De finibus.
  Pagan philosophy was gradually supplanted by Christianity in the later years of the Empire, culminating in the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I.  Many Greek-speaking philosophers moved to the east, outside the borders of the Empire.  Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism gained a stronghold in Persia, where they were a heavy influence on early Islamic philosophy.  Thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroës) engaged deeply with Greek philosophy, and played a major role in saving works of Aristotle that had been lost to the Latin West.  The influence of Greek philosophy on Islam was dramatically reduced In the 11th century when the views of Avicenna and Avveroes were strongly criticized by Al-Ghazali.  His Incoherence of the Philosophers is among the most influential books in Islamic history.  In Western Europe, meanwhile, the recovery of Greek texts during the Scholastic period had a profound influence on Latin science and theology from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance.
  In science, the theories of the Greco-Roman physician Galen dominated Western medical thought and practice for more than 1,300 years.  Ptolemy produced the most thorough and sophisticated astronomical theory of antiquity, documented in the Almagest.  The Ptolemaic model of the solar system would remain the dominant approach to astronomy across Europe and the Middle East for more than a thousand years. Forty eight of the 88 constellations the IAU recognizes today were recorded in the seventh and eighth books of Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest.
  At Alexandria, the engineer and experimentalist Hero of Alexandria founded the study of mechanics and pneumatics. In modern geometry, Heron's formula bears his name.  Roman Alexandria also saw the seeds of modern algebra arise in the works of Diophantus.  Greek algebra continued to be studied in the east well after the fall of the Western Empire, where it matured into modern algebra in the hands of al-Khwārizmī (see the history of algebra).  The study of Diophantine Equations and Diophantine Approximations are still important areas of mathematical research today.
  All of the planets in the Solar System, excluding Earth and Uranus, are named after Roman deities.
caption: The Bible as codex. The codex, the book format today in universal use, was invented by the Romans and spread by Roman Christians.[17]
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2136", "Image ImageLength": "3205", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "JPEG", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "6", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 30D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:18 03:40:11", "Image Artist": "unknown", "Image YCbCrSubSampling": "[1, 1]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "340", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "842", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6913", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:12:07 14:22:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:12:07 14:22:21", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2100", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}