Top 10 Intriguing Facts about Roman Bridge

Roman Bridge – Cordoba.Picture By Elliott Brown. Wikimedia

Top 10 Intriguing Facts about Roman Bridge

The Roman Bridge also known as the Puente Mayor del Tormes is a Roman bridge that spans the Tormes River on the outskirts of Salamanca, Castile, and León, Spain.

The bridge’s significance as a symbol of the city can be seen in the first quartering of the city’s coat of arms. The bridge as it stands now is the result of several restorations.

On June 3, it was designated as an Artistic Historic Monument. It carried the main road into the city until the early twentieth century. It continued to carry heavy traffic until 1973.

Since the construction of a third bridge for road traffic, it has been restricted to pedestrians only. Intriguing facts about the Romans will be discussed in this article. Let us look at the top ten;

1. The bridge is actually a construction of two bridges separated by a central fortification

The old bridge, which runs alongside the city, is of Roman origin. Only the first fifteen of the twenty-six arches are Roman in origin.

While the stone used in the Roman bridge area is originally from the granite quarries of Los Santos, the stone used in the Hispana section and the more modern bridge comes from the area of Ledesma.

The bridge has been restored several times and has survived several attempts to demolish it. Many restorations have been poorly documented, leaving archaeologists to do much of the work of determining, dating, and explaining ancient construction techniques.

2. The bridge has always been subjected to the flooding of the  Tormes River

Tormes River. Picture By Luidger. Wikimedia

It’s possible that the bridge has always been prone to flooding from the Tormes River. This implies that the original Roman bridge could have been longer than the current structure, with the Hispanic section being a medieval reconstruction following a major flood.

During the Reconquista, the bridge was critical for communication with the Leonese kingdom. Nonetheless, it is not until the 12th century that documentary evidence of the bridge’s existence appears.

Control of people and goods was carried out on the near side of Salamanca, in addition to the collection of the portazgo tax. One of the first major floods, known as the Rada de Los Difuntos, occurred in 1256.

3. The bridge was used by the military during the Peninsular war

The Duke of Wellington. By Francisco de Goya. Wikimedia

The bridge’s second repair took place in 1767 in order to preserve the bridge’s eleven modern and fifteen Roman arches.

During the Peninsular War against the Napoleonic French, on 22 July 1812, the Battle of Salamanca, also known in Spanish as the Battle of the Arapiles, took place south of the city (in the hills of Arapil Chico and Arapil Grande) (la Batalla de Los Arapiles).

The bridge became a military target due to its strategic location. The day before the battle, the Duke of Wellington captured the bridge as well as the fords of Santa Marta and Aldea Luenga. Allowing him to direct the attack against the French troops from here.

4. The bridge is a historic monument

It was most likely traversed by the Via Augusta, which connected Rome to Cadiz. During the early Islamic dominance, the Muslim governor Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani ordered the construction of a bridge on the ruins of the old Roman structure.

The Calahorra Tower and the Puerta del Puente were built in the Middle Ages at the bridge’s southern and northern ends, respectively (the latter is now a 16th-century reconstruction).

The bridge was rebuilt and expanded to its current dimensions. The arches depict the city’s famous Moorish architecture, which dominates the landscape. Bernabé Gómez del Ro created a sculpture of St. Raphael in the middle of the bridge in the 17th century.

5. The bridge was built by an order of the Roman emperor Trajan

Seated figure of the Roman Emperor Trajan. By Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin Wikimedia

The Roman emperor Trajan ordered the construction of the stone arch bridge over the Tajo between 104 and 106 AD.

The bridge spans 194 meters and is made up of six arches of varying widths. Its 8-meter-wide roadway is about 50 meters above the Tajo’s normal water level.

The bridge was built without mortar in the opus quadratum (Roman square construction), with the stones connected in some places with metal brackets, particularly in the lower area of the pillars.

It is regarded as the most significant remaining Roman bridge.

6. Queen Isabel II used mortared masonry to fix the bridge

Queen Isabella II of Spain (Winterhalter). Picture By Franz Xaver. Wikimedia

It was rebuilt in 1543 with materials sourced from the quarries that provided the original material. The second arch on the right was destroyed twice by the Spanish.

The first time, in 1760, it was blown up to prevent a Portuguese invasion (after which Charles III, King of Spain, repaired it in 1972), and the second time, in 1809, during the Spanish-French War, it was blown up to cut off French troops.

It was repaired in 1819, but the repairs were only intended to be temporary.

In 1890, Queen Isabel II repaired the bridge with mortared masonry rather than temporary repairs. The bridge is still operational.

7. The Roman Bridge was featured in Season 5 of Game of Thrones

The wildly popular HBO television series is set in the fantastical land of the Seven Kingdoms. The ancient structure is enhanced by CGI to become the Long Bridge of Volantis.

In Episode 3, which debuted in April 2015, we see a stunning aerial shot of the bridge – Varys, the Court fixer, and Tyrion Lannister are on their way from Pentos to Meereen (another Andalucian location: Osuna).

Tyrion has been traveling inside a carriage for days in order to conceal his identity. (he’s a wanted man) and is desperate to get out. The two men walk across the bridge, which is densely packed with dilapidated structures, passing houses, shops, a preaching priestess, and a brothel.

The acting was all shot in the studio and the actors did not visit the bridge. A production team oversaw a drone that took a series of aerial sequences to be used as the base for the computer graphics seen in the final production.

8. Roman stone arch bridges were semicircular

Several were built in segmental form. This provided greater protection from flood waters and allowed builders to infuse less material into the bridge itself, making it lighter.

Limyra Bridge in southwestern Turkey, with 26 segmental arches and an average span-to-rise ratio of 5.3:1, is one of the best examples of segmented arch bridges, as is the Alcántara Bridge in span, which is today regarded as one of the most impressive and best-preserved masterpieces of ancient Roman architecture.   

9. The upper part of the bridge was renewed twice

The Roman Bridge’s stone pilings date from A.D. 144-152 and are deeply embedded in the bedrock beneath the river gravel.

They were constructed with massive stone blocks held together with iron clamps, similar to the Porta Nigra. Inside the pilings, the Roman clamps are not visible; the clamps that are now visible are from a later period. Because the stone is mostly whinstone from the Eifel National Park, the black coloring is natural.

After being destroyed in the war, the upper part was rebuilt twice, in the early 12th and early 18th centuries.

10. The bridge has the UNESCO World Heritage designation

The Roman bridge was the first building erected in the Roman city of Emerita Augusta to protect the colony strategically from possible attacks. It belongs to Mérida’s Roman archaeological site and has a UNESCO World Heritage designation.

 It is one of the longest Roman bridges in Spain – 792 meters. The water pillars are rounded and have overflow channels between the arches, which were built to stop the river from overflowing.