> inciting even bolder ideas Even if it would have lasted, which I doubt, I also doubt it would have successfully inspired much, and certainly not any time bef

> inciting even bolder ideas Even if it would have lasted, which I doubt, I also doubt it would have successfully inspired much, and certainly not any time before real engineering came about as a consequence of understanding physics and thus having a theory guiding and supporting work, rather than a cookbook of rules. (Like, the surviving ancient marvels notwithstanding, you can really only go so far in structures without an understanding of beam theory, stresses, even the square-cube law which wasn't articulated until Galileo.) When the architects and builders of the past (I think it's a stretch to call them engineers) veered too far from established practice, things tended to frequently collapse. A Roman example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)