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The ancient Romans were the first civilization to build large, permanent bridges. Early Roman bridges used techniques introduced by Etruscan immigrants, but the Romans improved those skills, developing and enhancing methods such as
arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...
es and
keystones A keystone (or capstone) is the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically round-shaped one at the apex of a vault. In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, all ...
. There were three major types of Roman bridge: wooden, pontoon, and stone. Early Roman bridges were wooden, but by the 2nd century stone was being used. Stone bridges used the arch as their basic structure, and most used
concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most ...
, the first use of this material in bridge-building.


History

Following the conquests of Tarquinius Priscus, Etruscan engineers migrated to Rome, bringing with them their knowledge of bridge-building techniques. The oldest bridge in
ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...
was the Pons Sublicius. It was built in the 6th century BCE by Ancus Marcius over the Tiber River. The Romans improved on Etruscan architectural techniques. They developed the
voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
, stronger
keystones A keystone (or capstone) is the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically round-shaped one at the apex of a vault. In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, all ...
, vaults, and superior arched bridges. Roman arched bridges were capable of withstanding more stress by dispersing forces across bridges. Many Roman bridges had semicircular arches, but a few were segmental, i.e. with an arc of less than 180 degrees. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans had further refined their bridge-building techniques, using stronger materials such as volcanic ash, lime and
gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and dr ...
. Also, they began to use iron clamps to hold together bridges, constructing midstream arches, and
pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek language, Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is ...
al stones to allow for wider vaults. According to Canadian classicist John Peter Oleson, no known stone bridges existed in Italy before the 2nd century BCE. This view is not supported unanimously: Spanish engineer Leonardo Fernández Troyano suggests that stone bridges have existed since Pre-Roman Italy. Between 150 and 50 BCE, many stone Roman bridges were built, the Pons Aemilius being the first. Engineers began to use stone instead of wood to exemplify the '' Pax Romana'' and to construct longer-lasting bridges. These were the first large-scale bridges ever constructed. Bridges were constructed by the Roman government to serve the needs of the
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...
and the empire's administration. Sometimes roads and bridges were used for commercial purposes, but this was rare as boats better served the needs of the
Roman economy The study of the Roman economy, which is, the economies of the ancient city-state of Rome and its empire during the Republican and Imperial periods remains highly speculative. There are no surviving records of business and government accounts, suc ...
. By the 2nd century Roman techniques had declined, and they had been mostly lost by the 4th century. Some Roman bridges are still used today, such as the Pons Fabricius, and even after the
Fall of the Western Roman Empire The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vas ...
, engineers copied their bridges. Roman bridge-building techniques persisted until the 18th century: for example, the prevalence of arches in bridges can be attributed to the Romans.


Construction


Measurements

Roman bridges were much larger than the bridges of other civilizations. They could be anywhere from long. By the time of
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
around the turn of the 1st millennium the maximum span of Roman bridges increased from around in 142 BC to . The Ponte Sant'Angelo, built during the reign of
Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman '' municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispan ...
, has five arches each with a span of . A bridge in Alcántara has piers wide, high, and arches with a span of . Another bridge over the Bibey River in
Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...
has a pier wide, arches with a span, side arches, and an arch spanning . Wider spans increase the bridge's drainage, reduce water pressure on the
spandrels A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
, and reduced the bridge's weight. Trajan's Bridge over the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...
featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood (standing on high concrete piers). This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length. The longest extant Roman bridge is the
Puente Romano Puente, a word meaning ''bridge'' in Spanish language, may refer to: People * Puente (surname) Places *La Puente, California, USA *Puente Alto, city and commune of Chile *Puente de Ixtla, city in Mexico *Puente Genil, village in the Spanish provin ...
at Mérida.


Stone bridges

When building bridges across moving bodies of water, Roman engineers would begin by laying a foundation. At first, they used heavy timbers as
deep foundations A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural element ...
in the riverbed, but a later technique involved using watertight walls to redirect the water and then laying a stone foundation in the area. To aid in the construction of a foundation, work was exclusively done during the
dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The ...
. This ensured as many piers as possible were accessible. There is some evidence that in order to construct bridges rivers were diverted. Such a practice might have been performed by Trajan when constructing his Danube bridge. Roman engineers might have diverted rivers using rudimentary methods and tools. Sometimes dirt was added to the foundation. The foundation of a bridge could either be built above or below water level. Building the bridge above water level resulted in a need for a wider span. Bridge's tunnels and spandrels were designed to decrease the weight of the bridge and function as
flood arch A flood arch is a small supplemental arch bridge provided alongside a main bridge. It provides extra capacity for floodwater. The space beneath a flood arch is normally dry and often carries a towpath or similar. In some cases it borders on the ...
es. The Pons Aemilius probably had stone piers, with wooden roadbeds and arches. They were rebuilt in stone in 142 BC, and either extended from the abutments to the piers, or vice versa. Throughout Roman history, brick or stone arches were used to support bridges' weight. Roman engineers built bridges with one long arch instead of several smaller ones. This practice made construction easier, as they only needed to build one arch on land, instead of many in water. Roman arches were semi-circular and used
voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
s with equal dimensions and
conic section In mathematics, a conic section, quadratic curve or conic is a curve obtained as the intersection of the surface of a cone with a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a ...
s with equal circumference. Later in Roman history arches started to become semi-circular. Sometimes arches were segmented, or not semicircular. This technique was invented by the Romans. Segmented arches were allowed greater amounts of flood water to pass, preventing the bridge from being swept away and allowing it to be lighter. The Limyra Bridge in southwestern
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
has 26 segmental arches with an average span-to-rise ratio of 5.3:1, giving the bridge an unusually flat profile unsurpassed for more than a millennium. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in
Cappadocia Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Re ...
in eastern Turkey may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch, though it is now submerged by the Keban Dam. Roman arches were unable to properly fit into the arch springings, forcing the base of the arches upwards. In the 2nd century, arches become thinner, and spandrels became flat and pierced with holes. They were constructed using a wooden frame to hold wedge-shaped blocks in place. Afterwards the wooden frame was removed, but the weight of the keystone, the last block to be put in place, held it together. Bridges had abutments at each end and piers in the middle, these two design features carrying most of the bridge's weight. Abutments could be constructed in the many
arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...
es of a bridge, allowing each to be built separately. Piers were usually twenty-six feet thick and framed with starlings. The late antique Karamagara Bridge represents an early example of the use of pointed arches. Roman piers were thick enough to support the pressure of an arch. Stone arches allowed bridges to have much longer spans. Usually, iron clamps covered in
lead Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...
were used to build piers. Because of poor performance underwater, Roman piers were often destroyed over time. Bridges that survived to the modern day were often furnished with cut waters on the upstream side and a flat downstream face, though some bridges, such as a bridge in Chester, are exceptions. Two niches carrying
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
s were inserted between
pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
s. They were then put above the framed starlings. Roman bridges had spandrels, between which images of
dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...
s were often inserted. They rarely had wide spans and thick piers with bow-shaped piers that used small openings to allow for the flow of water. During construction, cranes were used to move materials and lift heavy objects. Some bridges had aprons. They were used to surround piers. Usually, the aprons covered the area of the stream bed near the bridge.
Agrippa Agrippa may refer to: People Antiquity * Agrippa (mythology), semi-mythological king of Alba Longa * Agrippa (astronomer), Greek astronomer from the late 1st century * Agrippa the Skeptic, Skeptic philosopher at the end of the 1st century * Agr ...
used ashlar and bricks to cover the outside of bridges and concrete for footings and water channels. Ashlar was used because large amounts of wood was needed to cast the concrete. Travertine limestone and
tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock ...
were used to build Roman bridges, or they could be made of dry rubble or concrete. Often the building materials varied in smoothness, or rustication. Other bridges were made of bossed limestone combined with cornices, voussoirs and slabs. Sometimes
bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of be ...
,
buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...
es, and vaults were used to construct bridges. Bridges built in Iberia tended to have cylindrical vault geometry. In the first half of the 2nd century BCE, blocks of stone held together with iron clamps were used to aid in the construction of bridges.


Brick bridges

Although Roman bricks were used to build many bridges, they were far more commonly used to build aqueducts. Bridges built from bricks were rare as bricks often failed to survive
erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is di ...
. The brick bridges that were built were generally used by the
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...
, and they used construction techniques called '' opus vittatum'' and '' opus mixtum'', the latter alternating rows of bricks in '' opus reticulatum''. Examples are bridges in
Carmona Carmona may refer to: Places Angola * the former name of the town of Uíge Costa Rica * Carmona District, Nandayure, a district in Guanacaste Province India * Carmona, Goa, a village located in the Salcette district of South Goa, India ...
, Palomas,
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, and the Ponte della Chianche in Italy. One brick bridge in
Ticino Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...
, Switzerland, has stone arches and brick spandrels. Bricks were sometimes used to create parts of bridges, such as vaults, piers with welding joints, and brick and mortar rubble.


Wooden bridges

Early Roman bridges were wooden, including one constructed by Apollodorus and the Pons Sublicius, the oldest bridge in ancient Rome, and they were probably common across northern Europe and the Tyrrhenian coast; however, because of their lack of durability few have survived to the modern day. These bridges were supported by wooden trestles spanned by horizontal timbers and reinforced with struts, and they were possibly
cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...
ed. In order to simplify the process of cutting trees, multiple shorter timbers were used. Wooden poles were driven into the ground, and flat pieces of timber laid across them to create a flat surface. Other early techniques used to build wooden bridges involved
barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...
s, sometimes they were moored side by side. Workmen would raise weights, sometimes by rope, then it would fall down onto the piles. This method of construction, called pile driving, was necessary for wooden bridges to properly function. Because this technique created cofferdams, which are enclosures build to pump water out of an area. The base for the foundation of the bridge would be put in this area. Cofferdams were constructed of many piles held together. It is possible the piles were interconnected, likely to improve positioning, waterproofness, or both. Cofferdams would have been sealed with packed clay. The cofferdams also needed to be consistently dry. In order to achieve this, engineers would use tools such as buckets to drain the water. Wooden bridges could be burned to stop an attacker, or dismantled quickly. For example, according to
Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...
, during a battle against the
Sabines The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines di ...
the Romans set one of their wooden bridges on fire, driving the enemy back. Other early wooden bridges used post and lintel construction.


Pontoon bridges

Pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow- draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. ...
s were built by laying boats from side to side across a river. During Julius Caesar's
campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed * Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * B ...
in
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
, he built bridges by driving wooden piles into the stream bed from floating platforms and fixing beams at right angles across them to create trestles.
Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presid ...
built another bridge supported by stone during the Dacian Wars. Roman engineers gradually developed new techniques to build bridges, such as oval-shaped bases and pierced bases to facilitate the movement of water. Many bridges would have
marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorpho ...
relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
s or carvings, but these bridges were likely used exclusively by government officials because of the difficulty and expense of carving marble artwork.


Typology

There were three major types of Roman bridges. These were wooden, pontoon, and stone bridges. A list of Roman bridges compiled by the engineer Colin O'Connor features 330
stone bridges In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's o ...
for traffic, 34 timber bridges and 54 aqueduct bridges, a substantial number still standing and even used to carry vehicles. A more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 different countries (including former
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
; see right table). A segmental arch is an arch that is less than a semicircle. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple-arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and
Segovia Aqueduct The Aqueduct of Segovia () is a Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain. It was built around the first century AD to channel water from springs in the mountains away to the city's fountains, public baths and private houses, and was in use until 1973. I ...
. Their bridges often had flood openings in the piers, e.g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome (62 BC), one of the world's oldest major bridges still standing. There were two main types of wooden bridge in Britain. Small timber bridges with girders, and large ones made of stone and wood. Throughout the rest of the Roman world, except for northern Europe, arched bridges made of stone were common. This was likely due to the climate and rivers of the regions. Rivers were much calmer and water levels were lower in the southern parts of the Empire. This ensured foundations were easy to construct. While the in the northern parts it was much harder to lay down foundations due to the high water level, muddy water, and substantial waterflow.


Location


''Opus pontis''

The costs of building and repairing bridges, known as ''opus pontis'' ("bridge work"), were the responsibility of multiple local municipalities. Their shared costs prove Roman bridges belonged to the region overall, and not to any one town (or two, if on a border). The Alcántara Bridge in Lusitania, for example, was built at the expense of 12 local municipalities, whose names were added on an inscription. Later, in the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...
, the local lords of the land had to pay tithes to the empire for ''opus pontis''. The
Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...
continued this practice with ''bricg-geworc'', a literal translation of ''opus pontis''.


Examples

Built in 142 BC, the Pons Aemilius, later named Ponte Rotto (broken bridge), is the oldest Roman stone bridge in
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
, with only one surviving arch and pier. However, evidence suggests only the abutment is original to the 2nd century BC while the arch and pier perhaps date to a reconstruction during the reign of
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
(27 BC – 14 AD). The Pons Fabricius, built in 62 BC during the late Republic, is the oldest Roman bridge that is still intact and in use. The largest Roman bridge was Trajan's Bridge over the lower
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...
, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, which remained for over a millennium the longest bridge to have been built both in terms of overall and span length.


Large river bridging

Roman engineers built stone arch or stone pillar bridges over all major rivers of their ''Imperium'', save two: the Euphrates, which lay at the frontier to the rival
Persian empires The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Step ...
, and the
Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...
, the longest river in the world, which was 'bridged' as late as 1902 by the British
Old Aswan Dam The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam is a gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. The dam was built at the former first cataract of the Nile, and is located about 1000 km up-river and 690 km (direct distance) south- ...
. The largest rivers to be spanned by solid bridges by the Romans were the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...
and the
Rhine The Rhine ; french: Rhin ; nl, Rijn ; wa, Rén ; li, Rien; rm, label=Sursilvan, Rein, rm, label=Sutsilvan and Surmiran, Ragn, rm, label=Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader and Puter, Rain; it, Reno ; gsw, Rhi(n), including in Alsatian dialect, Al ...
, the two largest European rivers west of the
Eurasian Steppe The Eurasian Steppe, also simply called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Tra ...
. The lower Danube was crossed by least two ( Trajan's Bridge, Constantine's Bridge) and the middle and lower Rhine by four different bridges (the Roman Bridge at Mainz, Caesar's Rhine bridges, the Roman Bridge at Koblenz, the Roman Bridge at Cologne). For rivers with strong currents and to allow swift army movements, pontoon bridges were also routinely employed. Judging by the distinct lack of records of pre-modern solid bridges spanning larger rivers, the Roman feat appears to be unsurpassed anywhere in the world until into the 19th century.


See also

* List of Roman bridges *
Bridges in Rome This is an incomplete list of bridges in the city of Rome, in Italy: * Pons Sublicius (around 642 BC) *Ponte di Castel Giubileo (built 1951) * Ponte di Tor di Quinto (1960) *Ponte Cestio (1st century BC), also called Ponte San Bartolomeo ...
* Record-holding bridges in antiquity *
Roman architecture Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered o ...
* Roman architectural revolution


Footnotes


References

*Fuentes, Manuel Durán: ''La construcción de puentes romanos en Hispania'', Xunta de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela 2004, * * * * *


External links


Traianus
- Technical investigation of Roman public works
The Waters of Rome: Tiber River Bridges and the Development of the Ancient City of Rome
– Roman bog bridges {{Authority control Ancient Roman architecture