Trajan's Bridge - a ruined monumental legacy of the ancient world (9 photos)

To the east of the Iron Gates of Rapida, near the modern towns of Drobeta-Turnu Severin in Romania and Kladovo in Serbia, there once stood an arched bridge. It was built by the Roman Emperor Trajan, who led one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history.





Under his rule, the Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, stretching from Mauritania in the west to Syria in the east, and from Britain in the north to Egypt in the south. Trajan ordered the bridge to be built so that his legions could cross the Danube and conquer Dacia.



Emperor Trajan

Consisting of wooden arches set on stone piers, the bridge was over 1,100 meters long and was the longest arch bridge in both total length and span at the time of its construction. The bridge stood for only 165 years until it was torn down by the Roman Emperor Aurelian as he was leaving Dacia. Today, only a few stone columns remain at the approaches to the bridge.





King Decebalus

The Kingdom of Dacia, north of the Danube, had been on the Roman agenda since the time of Julius Caesar. The Dacians and Romans often clashed with each other. During one such skirmish in 88 AD, Emperor Domitian was defeated and the Romans were forced to conclude a peace treaty that Trajan found humiliating. To restore Rome's glory and finances, Trajan decided to conquer Dacia, seize the famous treasure of King Decebalus, and establish control over the Dacian gold mines in Transylvania.



To more quickly transport his legions to Dacia, Trajan ordered the construction of a bridge across the Danube. The bridge was completed in just three years, from 103 to 105 AD. The structure was 1,135 meters long, 15 meters wide, and 19 meters high, measured from the surface of the river. At each end there was a Roman fort, each built around the entrance, so that the bridge could only be crossed by passing through the camps. The bridge consisted of wooden arches, each 38 meters long, installed on twenty stone pillars made of brick, mortar and pozzolanic cement.



A modern replica of Trajan's Bridge

To build the supports, the water was redirected from the construction site through a tributary. Rectangular wooden pillars were driven into the river bed, which served as the foundation for the supporting piers, coated with clay. The hollow supports were filled with stones, bonded with mortar, and the outside was lined with Roman brick. The bricks for the supports can still be found in the vicinity of the village of Kostol, they have retained the same physical properties as 2 thousand years ago. The wooden spans were assembled on the ground and then placed on the pillars.



Northern part of the bridge

Trajan's campaign against Dacia was successful. At first, the Dacians repelled the first attack, but the Romans destroyed the aqueducts leading to the Dacian capital. As a result, the city was burned to the ground, and Decebalus committed suicide, not wanting to be captured by the Romans. After the defeat of Dacia, Trajan found the treasure of Decebalus - a fortune estimated at 165,500 kg of gold and 331,000 kg of silver. The Romans celebrated their victory by holding games for 123 days, with 10,000 gladiators participating and 11,000 wild animals killed.



Remains of Trajan's Bridge on the southern bank of the Danube, Serbia

After the conquest of Dacia, the bridge became a weak and vulnerable point in Rome's defenses. To prevent barbarian invasion from the north, Trajan's successor, Hadrian, removed the wooden superstructure. The bridge was finally destroyed in 270 AD by Emperor Aurelian. The remaining supports were swallowed up by the waters of the Danube, and the bridge was forgotten.



The bridge in the 1930s

In 1858, the bridge reappeared when the water level in the Danube reached record lows due to a severe drought. Another hundred years passed before the bridge was excavated in connection with the Iron Gate Dam project. In 1932, 16 pillars remained underwater, but in 1982 archaeologists found only 12, the other four were probably washed away. Now, only the entrance columns are visible on both banks of the Danube: one in Romania, the other in Serbia.