Painting
The greatest innovation of Roman painters was the development of landscape painting, a genre in which the Greeks showed little interest. Also noteworthy was their development of a very crude form of linear perspective. In their effort to satisfy the huge demand for paintings throughout the empire, from officials, senior army officers, householders and the general public, Roman artists produced panel paintings (in encaustic and tempera), large and small-scale murals , and mastered all the painting genres, including their own brand of "triumphal" history painting. Most surviving Roman paintings are from Pompeii and Herculanum, as the erruption of Vesuvius in 79 helped to preserve them. Most of them are decorative murals, featuring seascapes and landscapes, and were painted by skilled 'interior decorators' rather than virtuoso artists - a clue to the function of art in Roman society.
Architecture
Rome's greatest contribution to the history of art is undoubtedly to be found in the field of architectural design. Roman architecture during the age of the Republic discovered the round temple and the curved arch but, after the turn of the Millennium, Roman architects and engineers developed techniques for urban building on a massive scale. The erection of monumental structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum, would have been impossible without Rome's development of the arch and the dome, as well as its mastery of strong and low-cost materials like concrete and bricks.