Pons Aemilius

The first stone bridge of Republican Rome which connected the busy *Forum Bovarium area with the *Trans Tiberim (AD PONTEM AEMILIVM: Fast. Allif. and Amit., in Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 181, 191), it was substantially restored under Augustus (Coarelli, LTUR). The identification of a single standing arch of a bridge immediately downstream from the Tiber island, the Ponte Rotto, with the Augustan rebuilding of the Pons Aemilius is undisputed (Richardson). An inscription from a bridgehead arch (CIL VI 878) records the Augustan restoration after 12 B.C. The bridge was first built by P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and L. Mummius in 142 B.C. (Livy 40.51.4) on foundations laid out by M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior in 179 B.C. This earlier construction is archaeologically associated with the remains of an abutment just N of the Ponte Rotto, on a slightly different axis than the Augustan rebuilding (Blake; Coarelli 1988, 139 f.). At the time of Augustus, and especially after its restoration, the Pons Aemilius must have carried the heaviest traffic between the two banks on its six-pier structure (Coarelli 1988, 104, fig. 20). The importance of the bridge for the shaping of the early Transtiberine urban topography and street pattern is evident in the fact that the two major arteries, the *Via Aurelia and the *Via Campana, forked at the W foot of the bridge. Taylor (80) argued that the bridge carried the *Aqua Appia across the Tiber, especially after Augustus restored and supplemented this aqueduct with an additional line. Addendum A restoration of the Pons Aemilius by, or under, Augustus based on the inscription of the *“Fornix Augusti” (CIL VI 878) remains uncertain and is not maintained any more by D. Palombi, in LTUR II, 262-63 and F. Coarelli, in LTUR IV, 106-7; cf. Urbem 207 n.266.