The Roman World from the End of the Republic to the End of the Empire

Abstract

In dealing with our subject, as far as the Roman world is concerned, we are obliged to depart from the rigorous chronological order. Many times one has the impression that parallel worlds coexisted and did not communicate, at least from the viewpoint of the scientific information. This is certainly not due to the difficulties of communication: despite of the rudimentary technologies concerning communication media, in the third century BC Eratosthenes (in Alexandria) and Archimedes (in Syracuse) shared information on their progress in mathematical research. One can also think that the inner circle of learned persons in the Roman society was not equally inclined to accept the new theories and their relevant evidences. We have an example of this in the case of Lucretius.