If you had a choice to live in an ancient empire with two choices of either Roman or

[ScienceRocks]

If you had a choice to live in an ancient empire with two choices of either Roman or Mayan empire. What one would you choose?

Roman

The Roman Empire (Latin: Imperium Romanum) was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean in Europe, Africa, and Asia.[6] The 500-year-old Roman Republic, which preceded it, had been destabilized through a series of civil wars. Several events marked the transition from Republic to Empire, including Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator (44 BC); the Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BC); and the granting of the honorific Augustus to Octavian by the Roman Senate (16 January 27 BC).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_empire

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Pont_du_Gard_Oct_2007.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Bath_in_Bath_(UK).jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colosseum_in_Rome,_Italy_-_April_2007.jpg

Estimates of the average literacy rate in the Empire range from 5 to 30 percent or higher, depending in part on the definition of "literacy".[453] The Roman obsession with documents and public inscriptions indicates the high value placed on the written word.[454] The Imperial bureaucracy was so dependent on writing that the Babylonian Talmud declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns."[455] Laws and edicts were posted in writing as well as read out. Illiterate Roman subjects would have someone such as a government scribe (scriba) read or write their official documents for them.[456] Public art and religious ceremonies were ways to communicate imperial ideology regardless of ability to read.[457] Although the Romans were not a "People of the Book", they had an extensive priestly archive, and inscriptions appear throughout the Empire in connection with statues and small votives dedicated by ordinary people to divinities, as well as on binding tablets and other "magic spells", with hundreds of examples collected in the Greek Magical Papyri.[458] The military produced a vast amount of written reports and service records,[459] and literacy in the army was "strikingly high".[460] Urban graffiti, which include literary quotations, and low-quality inscriptions with misspellings and solecisms indicate casual literacy among non-elites.[461] In addition, numeracy was necessary for any form of commerce.[462] Slaves were numerate and literate in significant numbers, and some were highly educated.[463]

Mayan

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to AD 250), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state of development during the Classic period (c. AD 250 to 900), and continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maya-Maske.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uxmal,_Nunnery_Quadrangle.jpg

Art[edit source]

Main article: Maya art

Maya art of the Classic era (c. 250 to 900 CE) is of a high level of aesthetic and artisanal sophistication, from the lay-out and architecture of court towns down to the decorative arts. The stucco and stone reliefs of Palenque and the statuary of Copán, particularly its impressive stelas, show a grace and accurate observation of the human form that reminded early archaeologists of Classical civilizations of the Old World[citation needed], hence the name bestowed on this era. We have a considerable number of examples of the advanced mural painting of the Classic Maya, most completely preserved in a building at Bonampak; Late Preclassic murals of great artistic and iconographic perfection have been recently discovered at San Bartolo. A rich blue color ('Maya Blue') survived through the centuries due to its unique chemical characteristics. Painted, carved, and molded Maya ceramics were ubiquitous; often found in graves, and showing a vast array of subjects, they constitute an important source of information. Of the many folding-books, only three survive, all from the Post-Classic period, of which the Dresden Codex is artistically superior. With the progressive decipherment of the Maya script, it was also discovered that the Maya were one of the few civilizations where artists attached their name to their work.

In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) and base 5 numbering system (see Maya numerals). Also, the preclassic Maya and their neighbors had independently developed the concept of zero by 36 BC. Inscriptions show them on occasion working with sums up to the hundreds of millions and dates so large it would take several lines just to represent it.

They produced extremely accurate astronomical observations; their charts of the movements of the moon and planets were used to predict eclipses and other celestial events such the time between conjunctions of Venus.[31] The accuracy of their astronomy and the "theoretical" calendar derived from it was superior to any other known from seventeen hundred years ago.[32][33]

 

[Luddly Neddite]

If I were of wealth and position, preferably the ruling class - there are lots of times and places I would like to visit.

If I were poor however, no thanks.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I lived in both

 

[Politico]

NEither. I would go Egyptian. They had the cool spaceship landing pads.