Les Ferreres Aqueduct (Pont del Diable)
About
Two tiers of stacked arches carry this aqueduct 249 meters across a valley four kilometers north of the city, rising 27 meters at its tallest point, with twenty-five smaller arches sitting atop eleven larger ones. It channeled water from the Francolí river fifteen kilometers away straight into Tarraco's fountains and baths. Locals later nicknamed it the Devil's Bridge, certain no human hands could have built something so precise. Already a century old by 117 CE, it had long outlasted the emperor who built it.
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 →