Halfway down the Danube

Tagus Aurifer

I recently read a novel in which some of the protagonists awake to a world 1000 years after an apocalypse. They find bits and pieces of architecture but most of human construction has long collapsed. If that novel had been set in Extremadura, I'm sure they would have found the bridge of Alcánatra neatly preserved -- after all, it stands there since 106 AD already.

Alcántara in the very west of the Extremadura is situated on the Tajo river. It's a small town with a monastery and a nice church and a dam nearby, but the biggest attraction is the bridge, no doubt about it.

The bridge is made wholly of granite without the use of mortar. Its length is 616 feet; its width 26 feet. The two middle piers are about 190 feet high, and the two middle arches have a span of 150 feet. The usual depth of the water is 37 feet, but in time of flood it sometimes rises in the narrow gorge to a height of 180 feet." (Note: These dimensions are about: 190 meters long, 60 meters high, and 8 meters wide.) At the south end of the bridge is a small temple to a Roman god.
www.napoleon-series.org

The Roman architect Gaius Julius Lacer designed the bridge which was built mainly by slaves from ca. 98 to 103 AD. In the middle of the bridge there is a little triumph arch to Emperor Trajan. He didn't finance the bridge, though -- that he left to the 11 cities of the province of Lusitania.

Tagus Aurifer, as the Romans called the bridge, outlasted several wars, Arabs and French, and the English attempt to blow it up in 1809 (what's this with the English trying to bomb old things?). They tried but didn't quite manage -- the targeted arch didn't collapse until the following year. It's not quite clear which arch was destroyed -- sources are contradictory and confusing. In 1860, Wellington ordered the bridge to be repaired and apparently they did such a great job that it still cannot be told which of the arches had been damaged in 1807.

The bridge is still in use today, btw. It has traffic across it, trucks and cars and many pedestrians, and the swallows have built their nests inside the arches. The view is amazing, even with the hydroelectric dam one kilometer up the river.

The little temple which is mentioned in the quote is also the funeral place of Gaius Julius Lacer. The inscription on his grave says: "I leave this bridge for all times to the generations of the world."

So far, he's been right about that.

Posted by claudia at April 12, 2004 11:51 AM