>The Romans sacked Greece and killed Archimedes. All you have to do is look at the rate of mathematical and technological progress before and after Rome to see that Rome was a dark age.
So you really ought to take look at technological progress in Rome since you've got it absolutely backwards. The Romans were less inclined to sophisticated abstract thought than the Greeks, the sophisticated discourses on political theory especially were dead, and they weren't sophisticated mathematicians, but the Romans were certainly more sophisticated technologically than the Greeks.
Also the Greeks didn't just disappear once the Romans conquered their territory. The great Greek cities like Syracuse, Alexandria, Antioch, et al. carried on under the Romans while the Romans took great pains to preserve and promote Greek learning, while Roman engineering picked up every trick from every culture they encountered. You're surely familiar with the Antikthera mechanism, that was an orrery, a sophisticated Greek astronomical calculating device which the Romans continued to build for centuries.
The Romans had remarkably sophisticated technology which certainly eclipsed the Greeks on many fronts in architecture, aqueducts, et al. The development of concrete was a Roman invention that opened tremendous inventiveness.
So you really ought to take look at technological progress in Rome since you've got it absolutely backwards. The Romans were less inclined to sophisticated abstract thought than the Greeks, the sophisticated discourses on political theory especially were dead, and they weren't sophisticated mathematicians, but the Romans were certainly more sophisticated technologically than the Greeks.
Also the Greeks didn't just disappear once the Romans conquered their territory. The great Greek cities like Syracuse, Alexandria, Antioch, et al. carried on under the Romans while the Romans took great pains to preserve and promote Greek learning, while Roman engineering picked up every trick from every culture they encountered. You're surely familiar with the Antikthera mechanism, that was an orrery, a sophisticated Greek astronomical calculating device which the Romans continued to build for centuries.
The Romans had remarkably sophisticated technology which certainly eclipsed the Greeks on many fronts in architecture, aqueducts, et al. The development of concrete was a Roman invention that opened tremendous inventiveness.