Ancient Roman architecture
Although concrete had been used on a minor scale in Mesopotamia, Roman architects perfected Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand on its own and support a great deal of weight. The first use of concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa sometime after 273 BC. Ancient Roman concrete was a mixture of lime mortar, aggregate, pozzolana, water, and stones, and was stronger than previously-used concretes. The ancient builders placed these ingredients in wooden frames where they hardened and bonded to a facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks. The aggregates used were often much larger than in modern concrete, amounting to rubble.
History of construction
An example of a temple made of Roman concrete in the 1st century BC is the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy. The concrete was made of nothing more than rubble and mortar. It was cheap and very easy to produce and required relatively unskilled labour to use, enabling the Romans to build on an unprecedented scale. They not only used it for walls but also to form arches, barrel vaults and domes, which they built over huge spans. The Romans developed systems of hollow pots for making their domes and sophisticated heating and ventilation systems for their thermal baths. .