Remains of the Sublician Bridge

"...The earliest of Roman bridges, built by Ancus Martins across the Tiber, one hundred and fourteen years after the foundation of the city, was called Sublician, because it was entirely constructed of wood. Among the details of its construction which have been transmitted to us, one is very characteristic : no iron had been used in building the bridge; and, on the strength of religious tradition, no iron was ever used in its subsequent restorations, even in the Christian era, down to the fall of the Empire...Pliny, ignorant as he was of prehistoric antiquities, gives a wrong explanation of the fact: he says the Romans have always excluded iron from the Sublician bridge because, at the time of its gallant defence by Horatius Codes, they had such a hard time cutting it down to prevent the enemy from crossing it. The explanation is absurd : iron was proscribed from the structure because iron was not known when the bridge was first thrown across the river, 114 A. u. c. ... "

Ancient Rome
in the light of recent excavations

Author: Rodolfo Lanciani
Editor:Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York
Published: 1890


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