PARTNERS
The Romans employed the arch in the construction of their bridges to span the Tiber River, approximately 100 m wide. The actual arches were composed of voussoir blocks typically faced in ashlar blocks (tuff, travertine) with a concrete rubble core.
The oldest bridge of Rome was the Pons Sublicius, constructed of wood (7C BC), downstream from the Tiber Island. The oldest extant bridge is the Pons Fabricius (62 BC), still in use, connecting the Tiber Island to the Campus Martius.
Other Roman bridges that still exist, although largely reconstructed through the ages, are the Pons Cestius, Pons Aelius (Ponte degli Angeli) and Pons Milvius.
The remains of some of the piers of the Pons Neronianus are visible in the water by the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele. The single arch of the Pons Aurelius (Ponte Rotto) is visible by the modern Ponte Palatino.
This content is brought to you by The American Institute for Roman Culture, a 501(C)3 US Non-Profit Organization.
Please support our mission to aid learning and understanding of ancient Rome through free-to-access content by donating today.
Cite This Page
Cite this page as: Darius Arya, The American Institute for Roman Culture, “Bridges (General)” Ancient Rome Live. Last modified 11/11/2019. https://ancientromelive.org/bridges-general/
License
Created by The American Institute of Roman Culture, published on 11/11/2019 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
