Lessons From the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 7)

 

In order to be brief, and not to lose our focus on project management, we will explore this history from a bird's-eye view. However, so as not to disrupt the flow of the Roman history, we will save the project management lessons for part 9, when we take a break to summarize our lessons from Rome's rise. However, some of these lessons will be apparent, and readers will no doubt extract their own lessons as well from Rome's fascinating history.

We will first look at the rise of the Roman Empire, followed by a summary of the lessons that can be applied to modern project management. Later, we will explore the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and see what lessons we can derive from that.

The Rise of the Roman Empire
The "executive summary" version is that Rome started out as a monarchy, then became a republic and eventually became the greatest empire the world had ever known. Now that we know that, let's explore this rise in more detail.

The Early Monarchy Period
Although mired in myth, the agreed-upon date of the foundation of Rome is 21 April 753 BC, when Romulus became its first king. Around this time, the Etruscans became the dominant tribe in Italy. They were based in an area of Italy called Etruria, and are believed to have come from Asia Minor (now Turkey).

The entire plain upon which Rome was settled--Latinium--was made up of various Latin tribes, but the …

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