who doesn ' t though ? <| sep |> This is getting outside my specialisation a bit , but in general the whole idea of technological advancement is anachronistic to the period . And indeed , most other premodern period The Romans had no such conception . Indeed , they generally considered their own time to be inferior to the glories of the past . Changes in equipment have more to do with the cultural and societal backdrop than with any question of technology . The legions changes , turn from a militiaforce where each man brings his own family weapons and armour , into a professional force where the general or the state provides much more standardised and less varied equipment . Old subdivisions disappear , and with them the specialised equipment such groups used . Even the siege weapons are not a technological advancement as such the Greeks had been using them for centuries by the time the Romans adopted them . It ' s more the Romans learning to use them after coming into contact with the Greek states and Hellenistic kingdoms and their militaries more extensively during the 2 nd and 1 st centuries B . C . That ' s not to say there were no changes or innovations , of course . The Romans prided themselves on adapting good ideas and techniques learned from other people . In republican times , they had adopted their formations from the Samnites , their swords from the Iberians , their armour from the Gauls , etc . In Imperial times , they adopt armoured cavalry , twohanded lances and horsearchers from their various eastern neighbours , and later their warcry from the Germans . They come up with their famous segmented armour all by themselves , which certainly qualifies as an innovation , though it ' s hard to classify it as an advancement . It is later abandoned again in favour of oldfashioned chainmail , for reasons which are still debated . It ' s just that the Romans wouldn ' t see such thing as part of some kind of linear technological progression . It ' s illustrative to read how the Romans themselves described such things Father Liber was the first to establish the practice of buying and selling he also invented the diadem , the emblem of royalty , and the triumphal procession . Ceres introduced corn , the acorn having been previously used by man for food it was she , also , who introduced into Attica the art of grinding corn and of making bread , and other similar arts into Sicily and it was from these circumstances that she came to be regarded as a divinity . She was the first also to establish laws though , according to some , it was Rhadamanthus . The brothers Euryalus and Hyperbius , were the first who constructed brickkilns and houses at Athens before which , caves in the ground served for houses . Cinyra , the son of Agriopas , invented tiles and discovered coppermines , both of them in the island of Cyprus he also invented the tongs , the hammer , the lever , and the anvil . Wells were invented by Danaus , who came from Egypt into that part of Greece which had been previously known as Argos Dipsion . Pliny the Elder , Natural History VII . 57 THE INVENTORS OF VARIOUS THINGSPerseus % 3 Atext % 3 A 1999 . 02 . 0137 % 3 Abook % 3 D 7 % 3 Achapter % 3 D 57 Note how a how he lists the inventions of objects and techniques bricks , tools and cultural practices triumphal processions , laws as if they were exactly the same kind of thing , b how mythical figures like Ceres and Mercurius are listed alongside humans , c how he has no problem attributing things that must have existed since time immemorial andor invented multiple times in different places buying and selling , wells to specific persons or deities . In other words , the concept of an RD department would have been completely alien to Romans . Inventions were possible , but they were the result of some inspired individual ' s work , and although they added to the trove of human knowledge , they were not part of some inevitable or natural progress to a better future .