Aside from that, however, such an arrangement of two stones is not an arch at all, either true or false. The arrangement is simply a combination of two beams. A condition of stress characteristic of that in the true arch is lacking. The ancient character of the engineering works whose ruins are found in Chaldea and Assyria is shown by the simple facts that Babylon was destroyed about the year 690 B.C. and Nineveh about the year 606 B.C. CHAPTER II. =12. The Beginnings of Engineering Works of Record.=—In a later period of the world’s history we reach a stage in the development of engineering works of which we have both records and remains in such well-defined shape that the characteristics of the profession may be realized in a definite manner. This is particularly true of the civil-engineering works of the Romans. In their sturdy and unyielding character, with their limitless energy and resolution, the conditions requisite for the execution of engineering works of great magnitude are found. An effeminate or generally æsthetic nation like the Greeks would furnish but indifferent opportunity for the inception and development of great engineering works, but the resolute and vigorous Roman nation offered precisely the conditions needed. They appreciated among other things the absolute necessity of the freest possible communication with the countries which they conquered and made part of their own empire. They recognized water transportation as the most economical and effective, and used it wherever possible. They also realized the advantages of roads of the highest degree of solidity and excellence. No other roads have ever been constructed so direct, so solid, and so admirably adapted to their purposes as those built by the Romans. They virtually ignored all obstacles and built their highways in the most direct line practicable, making deep cuts and fills with apparently little regard for those features which we consider obstacles of sufficient magnitude to be avoided. They regarded this system of land communication so highly that they made it radiate from the Golden Mile-stone in the Roman Forum. The point from which radiated these roads was therefore in the very centre of Roman life and authority, and it fitly indicated the importance which the Roman government gave to the system of communication that bound together with the strongest bonds all parts of the republic and of the empire.