--- title: Rome: the empire, the legions and the roads — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Rome: the empire, the legions and the roads», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: At its biggest, about 1,900 years ago, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to Syria, all around th --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Rome: the empire, the legions and the… # Rome: the empire, the legions and the roads Lesson 14 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/0/) — At its biggest, about 1,900 years ago, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to Syria, all around the Mediterranean, with many peoples living under one law and one money. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/1/) — Under emperors, everything depended on one person: good ones like Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius ruled well, while cruel or foolish ones like Caligula and Nero did much harm. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/2/) — Rome held this empire together with a professional army, the legions, and with straight paved roads. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/3/) — It is like a giant train network: the faster soldiers and messages can travel, the easier a huge country is to run. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/4/) — Romans were great engineers, building aqueducts for water, arches, domes and concrete. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/5/) — But not everyone welcomed them: Boudica in Britain led a great revolt, and Hadrian built a wall to mark where the empire ended. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/6/) — At its biggest, about 1,900 years ago, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to Syria, around the whole Mediterranean. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/7/) — Some emperors, like Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, ruled well; others, like Caligula and Nero, were cruel or foolish. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/8/) — The story that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned is a myth; the fiddle had not even been invented. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/9/) — The Roman army was made of legions of about 5,000 well-trained professional soldiers with armour, shields and short swords; they won more by discipline, training and teamwork than by having more men. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/10/) — Legionaries marched about 30 kilometres a day carrying their kit, built a fortified camp every night and served for 25 years; at the end they got land or money, and many settled in the provinces, the lands of the empire outside Italy. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/11/) — In the testudo, or tortoise formation, soldiers locked their shields above and around them to protect against arrows. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/12/) — The Romans built about 80,000 kilometres of straight, paved roads so armies and messengers could move fast, and many modern roads still follow Roman routes. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/13/) — Aqueducts carried fresh water from hills to cities, sometimes over high stone bridges, using a gentle downhill slope. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/14/) — The Romans used arches, domes and concrete, and the Pantheon in Rome, nearly 1,900 years old, still has the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/16/) — Boudica, queen of the Iceni in Britain, led a big revolt after the Romans treated her family and people badly; she burned Londinium but was finally defeated, and Britain remembers her as a symbol of courage against injustice. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/14-rome-the-empire-the-legions-and-the-roads/17/) — Roman soldiers and traders came from all over the empire, and some soldiers on Hadrian's Wall came from Iraq and North Africa. - ← previous: [Rome: from a town on seven hills to a republic](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/13-rome-from-seven-hills-to-a-republic/) - next →: [Rome: daily life, gladiators, Latin and Christianity](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/15-rome-daily-life-gladiators-latin-and-christianity/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)