Romans aren't the outlier here. Most ancient civilizations had a similar level of accomplishment; a one or two outstanding mathematicians every century, a few practical applications, some new rules of thumb. We did have a dark age, after the Romans after all, which likewise produced little (not none) new math.
The question should rather be, what made the Greeks (and, later, others who adopted their deductive, axiomatic method) so exceptionally productive at mathematics?
Or to paraphrase Wigner, why is Hellenistic mathematics so unreasonably effective?
The question should rather be, what made the Greeks (and, later, others who adopted their deductive, axiomatic method) so exceptionally productive at mathematics?
Or to paraphrase Wigner, why is Hellenistic mathematics so unreasonably effective?