  Two books, the "De Architectura" by Vitruvius and the "Naturalis Historia" by
Pliny the Elder, give us a portrait of the Materials Science, that is, the
knowledge of materials, in Rome at the beginning of the Empire. Here, I am
reporting some very attractive contents that we can find in these books. The
reader will see the discussion proposed in fours case studies: concretes,
coatings, amorphous materials and colloidal crystals, to describe them in
modern words.
