This seems like a very, very sketchy definition of "progress." The later 1/3rd of Rome was not exactly full of memorable technological and intellectual progress, especially compared to its neighbors.

Roman's are sorta famous in history for their lack of interest in anything but making war. There's a reason we don't refer to many roman math treaties; they were often very dogmatic texts referring to greek works and heavily influenced by the lens of military problems; and often fantastically wrong.