Four characteristics of rome and its people

Assuming you're referring to ancient Rome, some characteristics would include pride, wealth, territorial expansion, and more importantly the military, which was at the center of society. 

1. The Romans were the most powerful people in the ancient world from around the third century B.C. all the way until almost the sixteenth century A.D. That's about 1,700 of dominance. This fact is the most striking and telling of the Romans. They were the top dogs, influencing and controlling the whole western world longer than any civilization that has ever existed. Today, dozens of nations are either seriously influenced by Roman culture, or were directly shaped by its historical weight.

2. The Romans were master "stealers". Their roads wee copied by their northern neighbors during the Roman Kingdom, their toilets and aqueduct technolgoy and all that might have been taken from North Africans, their relgion was stolen from the Greeks, Christianity from the Judeans, military dress from the Gauls, art and education from the Greeks too... you get the idea.

3. They were fighters. Thy conquered the world not because it was a dangerous and scary place where there had to be somebody on top. Few wanted to invade and take the spoils or become "masters of the world" The Romans went far and wide in search of new land to take. Their ability to steal and adapt didn't exclude their military. Theirs was the most technically and tactically advanced army the world would see for ages. They rarely had reason beyond their own ambitions to expand and subjugate unwilling, victimized peoples into slavery and military service and often early graves. One historian said, "Rome created a wasteland and called it peace".

4. The Romans were decadent with their riches. Well, at least their leaders were. Rome, the city, had loads of huge and beautiful monuments dedicated to some victory or god or leader. The Pantheon (an expensive, domed temple built to honor the gods; famous for its freestanding dome), Nero's Palace (a huge, expensive personal mansion he built on the ashes of a section of Rome he burned down secretly), the Colosseum (a super-famous arena where people would fight and be executed in sand for entertainment of the masses), and the Circus Maximus (the largest arena in the world at the time, housing hugely popular chariot races and huger crouds) are just a few examples.