The attention of the tourist who visits Narni is principally directed to the remains of an ancient Roman bridge, which crosses the river Nar on the approach to the town from the side of Terni. This bridge was one of the four which Augustus ordered to be built on the Flaminian road. The first was Pons Milvia, over the Tibur, about a mile and a half from Rome; the second, over the same river near Otriculum; the third, of which we now speak, at Narni; and the fourth was erected over the Marecchia, near Rimini, which joins the Flaminian and the Emilian roads. The bridge at Narni had four arches; and Procopius, in the first book of his history of the Gothic war, says they were the highest arches he had ever seen. One only now remains to attest its former magnificence; but, if we may judge of the largest from the distance of the piers, it must have been of considerable breadth. The stones of which it is built are of surprising thickness; they are joined together without cement or cramps, and from their extreme solidity might have defied the attacks of time, had not the foundation of one of the centre piles given way, which shattered the whole fabric. It is the Bridge of Augustus of which the poet Martial speaks in one of his epigrams, in which he thus addresses the city of Narni:

Sed jam parce mihi, nee abutere Narnia Quinto,
Perpetuo liceat sic tibi Ponte frui!