The Roman Bridges of the Via Traiana: An Innovative Building System

The extraordinary organization and technical competence of the ancient Romans in several building fields enabled them to design and build numberless monuments and facilities in order to satisfy any military, civil, religious and entertaining need. Among these structures, the monumental road network and the numerous bridges built along it had a primary role since it permitted to move all over the Empire. This study analizes the construction tecniques adopted at the beginning of the II century A.C. to build the Roman bridges along the Via Traiana, the materials and their architectural caracteristics.