The Aqueduct of Aspendos

Abstract

Among the many fine antiquities of the Roman period that are preserved in Pamphylia, none is more immediately impressive than the aqueduct of Aspendos. The upper town of Aspendos occupies an oval, flat-topped hill, some 50 acres in extent and river about 60 m. above the meadows on the right bank of the Köyürirmaǧi, the ancient river Eurymedon. The rock of which the hill is composed is a coarse, pebbly conglomerate, and despite its modest height the hill-top is sharply defined, with steeply scarped slopes on all four sides. The eastern part of the Pamphylian plain, unlike the level, terraced limestones of the Antalya district, consists of gently rolling quaternary formations. The foothills of the Isaurian mountains are not far distant to the east, and there is higer ground only a short way to the north. But the site of Aspendos was cut off from the former by the Eurymedon itself, and from the latter by the wide, shelving valley of one of its western tributaries; and although the site is not one of outstanding natural strength, it was the obvious choice for a settlement in a district which, in antiquity as today, commanded the lowest practicable crossing for all land-traffic between eastern and western Pamphylia.