A few years back, I wrote an article for a history newsletter – “What did the Romans ever do for Management?”  Here is my thesis from that article:

The Romans were adapters of other people’s ideas rather than innovators.  They borrowed ideas and leveraged those ideas with formidable organizational skills, rather as Japanese manufacturers reverse engineered European and American products and then applied their own managerial excellence to out-compete the rest of the world in the 1970s and 1980s.  Despite being the pre-eminent European power for 600 years, the Romans didn’t invent much.  Their architecture, ship designs, ideas of political organization and even religions were largely borrowed from their neighbors and predecessors – often while Rome was conquering or eradicating them. 

 So Where Did They Get Their Ideas?

The Romans lived in a world of ideas – legal, philosophical and spiritual – largely borrowed from the Greeks.  As late as 400 A.D., the Romans were still writing laws in the Greek language.  Medicine, education and science were expressed largely in Greek, and were often taught or practiced by Greek professionals.  Similarly, Roman seafaring (never their strongest suit) made big strides forward during their lengthy struggles in 264-201 B.C. with the Carthaginians, previously the foremost naval power in the Mediterranean.  By capturing Carthaginian ships and copying them, Rome narrowly avoided being checkmated by their African rivals during the First Punic War.  The Romans adapted the Carthaginian designs to allow them to exploit the military skill that gave them the competitive advantage on land – close quarters fighting – to offset the Carthaginians’ skill as sailors.  They simply rigged the bows of each ship with a kind of drawbridge, a gangway that could be dropped onto an opposing vessel, whereupon a large spike protruding from its bottom fixed itself to the upper works of the enemy ship, permitting Roman infantry fighting as marines to storm aboard the enemy.

Thus the Romans were most successful when adopting and improving on someone else’s technology or ideas.  They then applied the skill they had really developed expertise in – management – to produce above average results.