Pont des Arcs Aqueduct, Saintes
About
Saintes drew its water from springs up to 15 kilometers away, and its most dramatic surviving link is the Pont des Arcs, a 160-meter masonry bridge whose 27 arches once carried the channel 16 meters above a valley floor. The system delivered as much as 120,000 cubic meters of water a day to the fountains and baths of Mediolanum Santonum, and had already been running for the better part of a century when Trajan died in 117 CE. Coordinates mark the surviving arcaded piers near Fontcouverte; farmland has swallowed most of the rest of the line.
What happened here
Water arrives day and night and never stops. The channel runs mostly underground, following a shallow gradient measured out with a levelling instrument over tens of miles, and it goes up on arches only where the ground drops away. Inspection shafts sit at intervals; gangs work the line constantly, cutting out the lime crust that thickens on the walls and narrows the flow. At the town end the water is divided in a distribution tank — public fountains first by law, then baths, then private houses whose owners have paid for a pipe of a fixed and stamped size. Illegal tappings are a permanent scandal. What arrives is not stored but runs continuously, and the overflow flushes the drains.
Sources
Nearby
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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →