Explanation: This is obviously an exaggeration, as Ancient Egypt undertook plenty of public works, and the Roman Empire built plenty of useless monuments - but we are who we pretend to be, as the saying goes, and the Romans took great pride in seeing themselves as a very practical people. Roads, public theatres and baths, aqueducts, canals, swamp drainage, these were things powerful Romans sponsored to have their name immortalized - or at least spoken well of for a few years!
The Roman writer Frontinus, when discussing the aqueducts of Rome, explicitly makes this comparison, saying that the great works of the Romans were practical architecture that brought a public good, unlike the ‘useless but impressive’ architectural works of the Greeks and Egyptians!
Explanation: This is obviously an exaggeration, as Ancient Egypt undertook plenty of public works, and the Roman Empire built plenty of useless monuments - but we are who we pretend to be, as the saying goes, and the Romans took great pride in seeing themselves as a very practical people. Roads, public theatres and baths, aqueducts, canals, swamp drainage, these were things powerful Romans sponsored to have their name immortalized - or at least spoken well of for a few years!
The Roman writer Frontinus, when discussing the aqueducts of Rome, explicitly makes this comparison, saying that the great works of the Romans were practical architecture that brought a public good, unlike the ‘useless but impressive’ architectural works of the Greeks and Egyptians!