Bridge Across The Danube, shown in a detail of the reliefs from Trajan's column (A.D. 113). Constructed by the greatest engineer and architect of the day.
Apollodorus of Damascus, the bridge consisted of a timber superstructure earned on stone piers; the roadway is shown in bird's eye view at the top between a pair
of railings. In the foreground the emperor conducts a sacrifice.
The maintenance of the roads, once built, fell as a corvee on the local communities through whose territories they passed, and these communities naturally