Pons Agrippae

Northernmost bridge across the *Tiber in Augustan Rome, which connected the *Campus Martius to the N *Trans Tiberim plain and its suburban villas. All but unknown from ancient texts, the pons may have carried Agrippa’s *Aqua Virgo across the Tiber to supply water to Trans Tiberim, and perhaps especially to the vast Augustan villa known as the *“Villa Farnesina” (Taylor 80-85; Evans 107; Nash). Following the discovery of a Claudian cippus that marked the limits of public property from the Trigarium to Pons Agrippae about 160 m upstream (i.e., N) of the Ponte Sisto (CIL VI 31545=ILS 5926: AD PONTEM AGRIPPA[E]), four concrete foundation piers for a bridge across the Tiber were found near the same location and were subsequently identified as the Pons Agrippae (Borsari). The selce concrete used in these foundations has parallels in the foundations of the *Thermae of Agrippa and in an Augustan vault of the *Cloaca Maxima (Blake). Further, an Augustan tomb (*Sepulcrum: C. Sulpicius Platorinus) at the Transtiberine bridgehead was apparently erected “as an immediate consequence” of the construction of the bridge (Lloyd 202). Tracing the possible route of the Aqua Virgo’s extension, Lloyd follows this identification (193-94, fig. 1). An inscription from Ostia records the restoration of a bridge in A.D. 147 by Antoninus Pius (Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13.1, 207, 673). Based on the hypothesis that the Ostian inscription referred to the pons Aurelius, which was also known as pons Antonini in antiquity, and that this evidence provided a link between the Agrippan and Aurelian bridges, a competing argument was set forth, identifying the pons Aurelius (modern Ponte Sisto) as the rebuilding of the Pons Agrippae (Le Gall). Coarelli (1977, 824-26, map; id., LTUR) suggested a street scheme for the E *Campus Martius that supported this argument. However, Taylor (id., fig. 3) convincingly refuted the hypothesis with the help of additional evidence from the Aqua Virgo. The excavator’s suggestion that the pons Aurelius was actually built with spolia from the Pons Agrippae is tempting, since the 3rd-c. A.D. bridge functionally replaced the earlier Augustan one (Borsari 96; Lloyd 201). Given the current state of evidence, it seems possible that the bridge was dismantled from its original location, between Via della Catena on the left bank and the “Villa Farnesina” on the Transtiberine side, some time before the construction of the Aurelian Walls and rebuilt as the pons Aurelius (Taylor 87-88) in order to make space for the fortifications, protect the bridge, and also transform the river crossing into a more urban and public, rather than a private, route. Our map follows the widely-accepted, traditional identification of the Pons Agrippae with the four N concrete piers, but with some reservations.