The Pont Serme or Pons Selinus, later called the Pons Septimus, was a Roman bridge

Roman bridge

Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as its basic structure....

 of the Via Domitia

Via Domitia

The Via Domitia was the first Roman road built in Gaul, to link Italy and Hispania through Gallia Narbonensis, across what is now southern France. The route that the Romans regularised and paved was ancient when they set out to survey it, so old that it traces the mythic route travelled by Heracles...

 in Hérault

Hérault

Hérault is a department in the south of France named after the Hérault river.-History:Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

, southern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. The approximately 1500 m long viaduct

Viaduct

A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...

 crossed the wide marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

es of the Orb River

Orb River

The Orb is a 145 km long river in the Herault département of Southern France that flows into the Mediterranean Sea, in Valras-Plage. The river flows through the towns Bédarieux and Béziers, where it is crossed by the canal du Midi on the Orb Aqueduct. In ancient times, the Orb was crossed at...

 and the Etang de Capestang

Capestang

Capestang is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.-History:In antiquity, the nearby marshes were crossed by the 1500 metre long Roman Pont Serme...

 west of Béziers

Béziers

Béziers is a town in Languedoc in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event...

, surpassing in terms of length even the Trajan's Bridge

Trajan's bridge

Trajan's Bridge or Bridge of Apollodorus over the Danube was a Roman segmental arch bridge, the first to be built over the lower Danube. For more than a thousand years, it was the longest arch bridge in the world, in terms of both total and span length...

 over the Danube

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

. Today, very little traces are left at the site, save the name proper which passed over to a village nearby.

External links

• Pictures of the Marches of Capestang once crossed by the Pont Serme
• Traianus – Technical investigation of Roman public works