Rome had a profound impact on shaping western civilization and one of the biggest things it contributed was Roman law. Laws such as a trial with a jury and that the emperor was subject to the law as well may seem modern to us but compared to some of the barbarian groups surrounding was a drastic improvement. Another thing Rome continued to the world was its roads and the swiftness with which news could be spread. Christianity could not have spread so rapidly if it wasn’t for the Roman roads and travel systems. Many Roman works of literature are still commonly read today such as Virgil’s Aeneid and Livy’s writings on Roman history. Roman architecture can still be seen on buildings today. But probably most important of all was Roman law and ideas, some of which still persist today. Western Civilization most likely would not look the same without the Roman empire.
St. Augustine was one of the most influential people in the early church. He was born in 354 in the city of Hippo by the time he was a teenager he had become a Manichean against the wishes of his Christian mother. Mechanism originated in Persia where it was a common religion consisting of two gods, who embodied good and evil. He was a Manichean until he traveled to Carthage where he met a Manichean bishop who could not answer the questions he had about Mechanism. After this he became a skeptic for a brief time which is a school of philosophy in which you believe that nothing is true. After this he traveled to Milan to become a professor of rhetoric. In Milan he became friends with bishop Ambrose who was also a great speaker. One day when Augustine was visiting Ambrose he said he heard a child say, “Take up and read.” He picked up a bible and read at random part of one of Pauls letters Romans 13: 13 – 14, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” This convinced him to convert to Christianity, and was baptized by saint Ambrose in 387. Augustine wrote many books and was an important theologian in the early church. He worked on writings that proved the invalidity of some of the things that even he had previously believed.