Before Roman Bridges – History of Inventions – Lesson 26

Going across terrain is hard, but it is even harder for the Romans because they would build straight roads across the landscape. They would run into a lot of streams, rivers, canyons, etc. and therefore needed to build bridges. With bridges, it is a lot easier to cross over obstacles. Bridges would mean that Rome wouldn’t have to build a longer road to the side until they found an easier way to go across a river, for example.

But the problem of building a bridge is that it would have to be able to support the weight of a full squad of armed Romans and support the weight of chests and wagons. It would also have to be able to withstand earthquakes and thunderstorms. In the beginning, Rome built wooden bridges, but it wouldn’t be able to withstand significant weather conditions. Then they started building bridges made out of stone, there was better, but the arches couldn’t withstand the weight of Roman traffic over time the arch could collapse. So Rome kept working on the engineering problem of the arches until the bridges were able to withstand the weight and traffic of Rome.